Music can change the way a room feels almost immediately. A familiar song can lift your mood, a quiet instrumental track can help you settle, and sometimes silence is exactly what you need.
There is also a growing body of research examining something deeper: how listening to music may influence pain perception, anxiety, attention and the way the nervous system responds to an experience.
That does not mean music is a cure for pain, nor does simply playing music constitute music therapy. It does suggest that what we hear can influence how we experience what is happening in our bodies.
At Frisco Massage Therapy Recovery & Mobility, that matters because recovery is not only about what is happening in the muscles. Comfort, attention, stress and the nervous system all influence how someone experiences pain, movement and hands on care.
Music Does More Than Create an Atmosphere
The brain does not process music in a single isolated location. Listening to music engages networks involved in emotion, memory, movement, attention and reward.
That helps explain why music can have such a noticeable effect on how we feel. A song can bring back a vivid memory, change our emotional state or make movement feel almost automatic. Music can also redirect attention, which becomes particularly interesting when researchers study pain.
Pain is not simply a signal traveling from an uncomfortable area of the body to the brain. It is an experience created by the nervous system using sensory information along with context, attention, emotion, previous experiences and perceived threat.
Music cannot eliminate all of those factors, but it may influence some of them.
What Does the Research Say About Music and Pain?
A 2025 systematic review and meta analysis published in BMC Psychology examined nine randomized controlled trials involving 787 people living with chronic pain.
Across the studies, music therapy interventions were associated with a significant reduction in chronic pain compared with control groups. Researchers also found an improvement in depression scores. However, the analysis did not find statistically significant overall improvements in anxiety or quality of life, an important distinction when interpreting the findings.
The research does not establish music as a replacement for medical treatment, massage therapy, rehabilitation or other appropriate care. Instead, it adds to evidence suggesting that music can influence the experience of pain and may be useful as part of a broader approach to managing it.
Researchers are also investigating ordinary music listening, not only formal music therapy.
A University of California, Irvine pilot randomized controlled trial studied people with chronic musculoskeletal pain and anxiety. Researchers found that participants who mindfully listened to jazz, improvisational music or music they preferred reported reductions in pain. The study also found improvements in anxiety and mindfulness among participants listening to jazz.
The study was small, so it should not be interpreted as proof that jazz is a treatment for chronic pain. What makes the research interesting is the larger question it raises about attention, unpredictability, personal preference and the way the brain interacts with sound.
Music May Change How We Experience an Uncomfortable Situation
Another 2025 randomized controlled trial looked at patients experiencing pain in the emergency department at Ramathibodi Hospital in Thailand.
Everyone in the study received standard pain medication. The group receiving the music intervention also participated in 30 to 40 minute music sessions. That group experienced a significantly greater reduction in pain than the control group, and researchers also reported improvements in anxiety.
That distinction matters. Music was used alongside standard care, not instead of it.
This is one of the more useful ways to think about music and recovery. It does not have to replace something else in order to contribute to the experience.
Is Listening to Music the Same as Music Therapy?
No.
The term music therapy describes a recognized professional discipline. The American Music Therapy Association defines it as the clinical and evidence based use of music interventions to accomplish individualized goals within a therapeutic relationship with a credentialed professional who has completed an approved music therapy program.
Listening to music during massage, exercise, meditation or a recovery session is not automatically music therapy.
That distinction is especially important when discussing research because some studies evaluate interventions delivered by music therapists, while others investigate music listening itself. They should not be treated as interchangeable.
You do not need to be receiving music therapy, however, for music to be meaningful.
Sometimes music simply helps create the conditions in which you feel more comfortable, less distracted or more able to settle into what you are doing.
Personal Preference Matters
There probably is not one perfect soundtrack for recovery.
For one person, instrumental music may make it easier to relax. Someone else may prefer piano, nature sounds or something with more energy. Another person may have spent the entire day surrounded by conversation, notifications and noise and would rather have complete quiet.
That preference matters because the goal is not to force relaxation.
The goal is to create an environment that allows the person receiving care to feel comfortable enough to focus on their body and their session.
This is also why personal preference is more useful than assuming that one genre is universally “relaxing.” The music someone enjoys may be very different from what another person finds calming.
Where Music Fits at Frisco Massage Therapy Recovery & Mobility
We have always paid attention to the environment surrounding the work we do because the client experience does not begin and end with massage technique.
Music can be one part of that environment.
During massage, some clients enjoy having music in the background while others prefer a quieter experience. As we continue expanding our Recovery & Mobility services, clients may also encounter different sound options designed around the kind of experience they want that day, whether that means rest, nature inspired sounds, something more energizing or simply quiet.
Music is not a treatment modality we are adding to the service menu, and we are not providing music therapy.
It is something simpler.
It is another way to give people some control over the environment in which they receive care.
And as research continues exploring the relationship between sound, attention, pain and the nervous system, we are learning that something as familiar as music may play a more interesting role in the recovery experience than simply filling the silence.
Reviewed by Aqua Webb, LMT, NMT
Founder, Frisco Massage Therapy Recovery & Mobility