How Music Can Help Relieve Pain
As the 17th-century English playwright William Congreve said: "Music has charms to soothe a savage breast." It is known that listening to music can significantly enhance our health and general feelings of well-being.
正如17世紀英國劇作家威廉·康格里夫所言：“音樂有撫慰野蠻人心靈的魅力。”衆所周知，聽音樂可以顯著改善我們的健康，並提升我們的幸福感。
An important and growing area of research concerns how music helps to relieve pain and its negative effects.
一個很重要且不斷髮展的研究領域就是——音樂是如何幫助人們緩解疼痛及其負面影響的。
Music has been shown to reduce anxiety, fear and depression. It has been found to lower pain-intensity levels and reduce the requirements of patients with painkillers.
音樂已經被證明可以減少焦慮、恐懼和抑鬱。研究發現，它可以緩解疼痛程度，減少患者對止痛藥的需求。
So what makes music so effective at making us feel better?
那麼，爲什麼音樂能夠如此有效地讓我們感覺好一些呢？
Music attracts and holds our attention and is emotionally engaging, particularly if our relationship with the piece is strong.
音樂能夠吸引並保持我們的注意力，也會吸引我們的情感投入，特別是當我們與歌曲的聯繫非常緊密的時候。
Our favourite music is likely to have stronger positive effects than tracks we don't like or know. Researchers have demonstrated that the music we prefer has greater positive effects on pain tolerance and perception, reduces anxiety and increases feelings of control over pain.
我們最喜歡的音樂可能比我們不喜歡或沒聽過的音樂有着更加積極的影響。研究人員已經證明，聽喜歡的音樂在感知和忍耐疼痛上的作用更加積極，還可以能減少焦慮，增加對疼痛的控制。
Alongside the benefits of listening to what you prefer, the nature of the music has also been shown to be important in enhancing how emotionally engaging it is for patients.
聽你喜歡的音樂，除了這些好處以外，音樂的性質也被證明與加強患者的情感投入有關。
Music which is bright, with low intensity and slower tempo has been shown to have the most positive effect on the degree of pain that we experience, for example.
例如，明快、低強度、慢節奏的音樂已被證明對於緩解疼痛有着最積極的影響。
Music has been suggested as an attractive option for patients to manage their pain by themselves. Because it can be tailored around the everyday activities of the individual and has few of secondary effects like prescription drugs.
音樂可以幫助病人控制疼痛，而且被認爲是一個理想的選擇。因爲音樂可以根據個人的日常活動與喜好量身定做，而且不會像處方藥那樣有副作用。
There is also much to study, however. If being emotionally engaged with music is key to maximising our distraction in this regard, there are myriad factors affecting our emotional relationship with music that we still need to explore.
然而，關於音樂，我們還有很多東西需要研究。如果沉浸於音樂之中是最大限度地分散我們注意力的關鍵，那麼還有許多因素會影響我們與音樂的情感關係，我們仍需探索。