Aug 17, 2015 01:41 PM EDT By Staff Reporter, UniversityHerald Reporter

New research suggests that listening to music before, during, or after a surgical procedure could aid recovery, The Sentinel Republic reported.

A team of UK researchers from Brunel University and Queen Mary University of London found that listening to music is beneficial to patients and can significantly reduce pain and anxiety, and decrease the need for pain medication.

"Currently music is not used routinely during surgery to help patients in their post-operative recovery," Catherine Meads, who co-led the analysis, told The Sentinel Republic. "Music can be used as an additional modality or adjunct to improve the patient journey, of course it is important to ensure the patient and theatre team would like music to be played."

For the study, researchers analyzed 72 trials involving nearly 7,000 patients found that "patients were significantly less anxious after surgery and reported significantly more satisfaction after listening to music," The Financial Express reported. They also required less pain medication and reported significantly less pain compared with subjects in the control group.

 Listening to music at any time seemed effective, although there was a trend for better outcomes if patients listened to music before surgery rather than during or after.

They found that listening to music while under general anesthetic reduced patients' levels of pain, although the effects were larger when patients were conscious. However, music did not reduce length of hospital stay.

"More than 51 million operations are performed every year in the USA and around 4.6 million in England. Music is a non-invasive, safe, cheap intervention that should be available to everyone undergoing surgery. Patients should be allowed to choose the type of music they would like to hear to maximize the benefit to their wellbeing. However, care needs to be taken that music does not interfere with the medical team's communication," Meads said in a statement.

The findings are detailed in The Lancet.

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