The only time I’ve ever been placed under general anaesthetic, I narrowly avoided punching a nurse in the face. I was nine years old. I remember coming to in the middle of the operation and trying to get off the hospital bed while screaming hysterically for my father. My skinny arms, flailing through the air, certainly didn’t do much damage, and after what felt like a few frenzied seconds I was put back under. Dad was by my bedside when I woke up – though I don’t recall seeing that nurse again.
Looking back on that slightly painful, but mostly mortifying afternoon, I probably could have done with a soothing playlist. Researchers behind a report recently published by the Lancet have found that patients who listen to music before, during and after an operation can lower their levels of anxiety and decrease their need for post-op painkillers.
“Use of music to improve patients’ hospital experience has a long history in medical care, including by Florence Nightingale,” the study showed, referring to the celebrated English nurse, who championed of the properties of music. Nightingale wouldn’t have been able to pop a Stravinsky playlist on to a patient’s iPod, which is why patients today might do well to consider benefitting from their easier access to music’s calming potential.
The research team from Queen Mary University of London looked through 70 trials, involving around 7,000 patients, and found that listening to music “can affect perceived the intensity and unpleasantness of pain, enabling patients’ sensation of pain to be reduced”. In short, music can help pleasantly distract our minds. Which is handy when we face being sliced open and tinkered with by a team of surgeons.
But what would be the best music for a so-called surgery playlist? Would you choose the safe option, and listen to your favourite classical music overture? Or go heavy, and let Dragonforce or Death Grips pummel you into painless submission?
Personally, I think I’d opt for something ambient and electronic, so I could pretend that the surgeons were part of CSI’s forensics team. But over to you: if you were stuck in surgery, what would you want piped into your hospital pillow speakers or played softly on headphones? Comment away.
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