For better care, ask your doctor to enjoy some tunes

The right kind of music can soothe and ease anxiety as well as help with other mental and physical difficulties. And a study at The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston shows that the correct type of music played at the appropriate time could help you heal faster from surgery.

However, the study shows that the music isn’t for your ears only. Instead, they found that if your surgeon listens to music he likes — in the operating room — he performs his surgical duties better. Consequently, your incisions are more precise and, as he finishes the surgery, his efficiency at stitching you up improves.

In the study, operations in general were finished 7 percent faster when doctors were listening to their preferred tunes. And the more experienced doctors showed bigger improvements than their younger colleagues. Playing their favorites resulted in10 percent less necessary time spent in the operating room.

“Our study confirmed that listening to the surgeon’s preferred music improves efficiency and quality of wound closure, which may translate to health care cost savings and better patient outcomes,” said says researcher Andrew Zhang.

Faster times, means less danger for you when you go under the knife: “Longer duration under general anesthesia is also linked with increased risk of adverse events for the patient,” notes researcher Shelby Lies.

While this research was performed using surgeons who specialized in plastic surgery, there’s no reason to think that any surgeon listening to the appropriate music will perform better.

So before you’re sedated at the hospital, make sure you tell your surgeon to pick out music for the operation that is high on his list of favorites. In the end, those choices will be good for you, the patient, because the healing power of music is endless.

Carl Lowe

By Carl Lowe

has written about health, fitness and nutrition for a wide range of publications including Prevention Magazine, Self Magazine and Time-Life Books. The author of more than a dozen books, he has been gluten-free since 2007.

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