新研究發現，聽喜愛的音樂能夠降低人們的疼痛感，尤其是那些苦澀又甜美的動人歌曲。

There is no doubt that music can soothe the soul for some, and it turns out that it could also be a temporary soother for physical pain.

毫無疑問，音樂可以安撫某些人的靈魂，但事實證明，音樂也可以暫時緩解身體的疼痛。

Listening to favorite songs could reduce people’s perception of pain, according to a new study published in the journal Frontiers in Pain Research. And the most effective pain relievers were found to be sad songs detailing bittersweet and emotional experiences.

發表在《疼痛研究前沿》期刊上的一項新研究稱，聽喜愛的音樂能夠降低人們的疼痛感。研究發現，緩解疼痛最有效的是講述苦樂參半的感性經歷的悲傷歌曲。

The small study invited 63 young adults to bring two of their favorite songs, and the only requirement was that they needed to be at least 3 minutes and 20 seconds long. One selection represented their favorite music of all time, and the other was the song they would bring with them on a desert island. The researchers also had the young adults pick one of seven songs that the team considered relaxing and were unfamiliar to the study participants.

這項小型研究邀請了63名年輕成人各選兩首自己最喜愛的歌曲，唯一的要求是歌曲必須至少長達3分鐘20秒。其中一首歌是他們一直以來最愛聽的歌曲，另一首歌是他們會帶到荒島上聽的歌曲。研究人員還讓這些年輕人從7首歌中挑出一首歌曲，這7首歌是研究團隊認為能讓人放松而且參與者不熟悉的歌曲。

Each person underwent 7-minute blocks where they were instructed to stare at a monitor screen while listening to their favorite music, one of the seven relaxing instrumental songs (each of which lasted for 6 minutes and 40 seconds), or a scrambled version of both songs and the relaxing song chosen. The scrambled music was a noisy jumble of all three songs, cut into fragments and randomly shuffled so that they lacked their original structure. One 7-minute block had people sitting in silence. All the while, the researchers stuck a hot object — similar to the pain of a boiling hot teacup on your skin — to the participants’ left inner forearms.

研究人員讓每個人在7分鐘時間內一邊盯著監控屏幕，一邊聽自己最喜愛的歌曲，或7首舒緩的器樂曲中的一首（每首曲子長6分鐘40秒），或他們喜愛的兩首歌曲和研究人員選的舒緩樂曲剪切成小段后打亂順序隨機混合成的版本。混合版本已經完全聽不出原歌的曲調。還有一個對照組是安靜地坐著度過7分鐘的。與此同時，研究人員將一個灼熱的物體放在參與者的左前臂內側，痛感相當于用一個滾燙的茶杯接觸皮膚。

When rating their experiences, people were more likely to report feeling less pain when listening to their favorite songs compared with hearing the unfamiliar relaxing song or silence. The scrambled songs did not reduce pain either, which the authors suggested was evidence of music being more than a distraction from an unpleasant experience.

在給自己的體驗評級時，相比那些聽自己不熟悉的舒緩歌曲或沒有聽歌的人，聽自己喜愛的歌曲的人報告的痛感更低。聽混合歌曲也不能降低痛感，研究作者指出，這一證據說明音樂起到的作用不僅僅是分散人們對不愉快體驗的注意力。

After interviewing the participants about the song they brought and their rating of pain, the researchers found people who listened to bittersweet and moving songs felt less pain than when they listened to songs with calming or cheerful themes.

研究人員通過訪談了解參與者帶來的歌曲以及他們的痛感評級后發現，聽苦樂參半、打動人心的歌曲的參與者比那些聽舒緩或歡快歌曲的人感受到的疼痛更少。

People who listened to bittersweet songs also reported more chills — the thrill and shivers you get on your skin from listening to pleasurable music. This sensation was associated with lower ratings of unpleasantness elicited by the burning pain they felt in the experiment.

聽苦樂參半歌曲的人也報告稱自己會有一種涼絲絲的顫栗感，那種聽到悅耳歌曲時皮膚上會起疙瘩的感覺。這種感受和他們在實驗中對灼痛感的評級更低有關。

"When people are listening to music they enjoy, by our measurements it can reduce the pain that we’re feeling by 10%,” said Patrick Stroman, a professor of biomedical and molecular sciences at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario.

加拿大安大略省金斯頓市皇后大學生物醫學和分子科學系教授帕特里克·斯特羅曼指出：“根據我們的測量，人們聽喜歡的音樂可以將痛感降低10%。”

英文來源：美國有線電視新聞網

翻譯&編輯：丹妮