Research Prize for Music Medicine
Urs Markus Nater is awarded the Walter Enggist 2022 Thurgau Research Prize. He investigated the extent to which symptoms such as pain or exhaustion can be alleviated by listening to music.
The paper entitled "The effects of music listening on somatic symptoms and stress markers in the everyday life of women with somatic complaints and depression", which was awarded the Thurgau Research Prize, was published in the journal Scientific Reports in 2021. It examines the extent to which listening to music in everyday life can alleviate physical complaints in patients, most of whom have been suffering from physical symptoms such as pain, exhaustion or nausea for several years.
The results of the study show that listening to music has an indirect effect on the body: Listening to music in everyday life has a stress-reducing effect, and this stress reduction entails an improvement in physical symptoms. The study was thus able to identify an important mechanism for the effect of listening to music.
