4 surprising scientific benefits of music

The oldest known musical instruments—flutes carved from bones—are over 40,000 years old. And humans were likely making music before that, based on fossils showing our ancestors had the ability to sing over 530,000 years ago. That means we’ve had music much longer than we’ve had widespread agriculture, which cropped up around 12,000 years ago.

Music is part of what it means to be human, and seemingly always has been. Even so, we’re discovering new things about the power of music all the time. Here are a few recent scientific findings.

Music can speed recovery after surgery

A 2024 review and meta-analysis by researchers from California Northstate University College of Medicine found that listening to music after surgery can significantly reduce patients’ perceived pain and reduce their heart rate. It even reduced the need for opioids after surgery, with patients who listened to music using “an average of 0.758 mg compared to 1.654 mg for those who did not listen to music.”

The paper, which examined 35 prior studies, shows that music may help ease the stressful transition from anesthesia to recovery by lowering anxiety and cortisol levels. Dr. Eldo Frezza, senior author of the study and a professor of surgery, said, “Music can help ease the transition from the waking up stage to a return to normalcy and may help reduce stress around that transition.”

What kind of music works best, though? Whatever you personally like best. “We’re not trying to say that one type of music is better than another,” said Dr. Frezza. “We think music can help people in different ways after surgery because music can be comforting and make you feel like you’re in a familiar place.”

Listening to music constantly can help stave off dementia

Anyone who listens to music regularly knows that it engages the brain, even when it’s just on in the background. It turns out that engagement could be helpful in old age. A 2025 study by researchers at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, found that leaving music on—even in the background—can reduce the risk of dementia.

The study, which included “10,893 community-dwelling Australian adults who were 70 years and older,” found that always listening to music, compared with never, rarely, or sometimes listening, was associated with a 39 percent decreased risk of dementia. Playing an instrument was also helpful, with a 35 percent decreased risk of dementia. While this study doesn’t establish causation between playing or listening to music and cognitive health, the numbers are pretty persuasive in and of themselves.

Your brain’s ability to rewire itself—called brain plasticity—is what allows you to learn new skills. And learning to make music can help.

A 2010 study in Neuroscientist by researchers from Harvard Medical School explores how learning and playing musical instruments strengthens brain plasticity, especially early in life. “Music training in children, when commenced at a young age, results in improved cognitive performance,” the study, which is a review of previous research, reports, adding that the benefits are evident at all life stages.

For example: multiple studies suggest that children who practice instruments develop a larger anterior corpus callosum. That part of the brain “plays an important role in interhemispheric communication,” according to the paper. The paper also suggests learning an instrument as an adult can change the brain in potentially beneficials ways, while also pointing out the potential for slowing cognitive decline in the elderly.

Why is this? Because performing music requires a bunch of different skills, which take place in different regions of the brain. “Music making places unique demands on the nervous system and leads to a strong coupling of perception and action mediated by sensory, motor, and multimodal integrative regions distributed throughout the brain,” according to the study.

Live music stimulates the brain more than recordings

You might think a Spotify subscription is enough to get all these benefits and more, and it’s true that recorded music is great. But live music—performed by actual humans—is possibly even better for your brain.

A 2024 study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by researchers from the University of Zurich shows that live concerts elicits stronger and more consistent neurological reactions than recorded music, owing at least in part to the interplay between the audience and performer.

The study monitored the amygdala of subjects listening to both recorded piano music and a performance by a live pianist. The live music “elicited significantly higher and more consistent amygdala activity,” according to the study, and there were more effects. “Higher activity was also found in a broader neural network for emotion processing during live compared to recorded music.”

It’s something most music fans could have told you—live music just hits different. It’s nice to have data, though.