Objectives: When physical exercise is systematically coupled to music production, exercisers experience improvements in mood, reductions in perceived effort, and enhanced muscular efficiency. The physiology underlying these positive effects remains unknown. Here we approached the investigation of how such musical agency may stimulate the release of endogenous opioids indirectly with a pain threshold paradigm.Design: In a cross-over design we tested the opioid-hypothesis with an indirect measure, comparing the pain tolerance of 22 participants following exercise with or without musical agency.Method: Physical exercise was coupled to music by integrating weight-training machines with sensors that control music-synthesis in real time. Pain tolerance was measured as withdrawal time in a cold pressor test.Results: On average, participants tolerated cold pain for ~5 s longer following exercise sessions with musical agency. Musical agency explained 25% of the variance in cold pressor test withdrawal times after factoring out individual differences in general pain sensitivity.Conclusions: This result demonstrates a substantial pain reducing effect of musical agency in combination with physical exercise, probably due to stimulation of endogenous opioid mechanisms. This has implications for exercise endurance, both in sports and a multitude of rehabilitative therapies in which physical exercise is effective but painful.

Divergent thinking is an essential aspect of creativity and has been shown to be affected both by music and physical exercise. While it has been shown that making music and physical exercise can be beneficial for Divergent Thinking in isolation, it is unclear whether the effects can be combined. The present experiment investigated the relation of physical exertion and being in control of music on Divergent Thinking and the possibility of an interaction effect. Seventy-seven predominantly young, German participants were tested with measurements of Divergent Thinking collected after either (1) physical exercise with music listening, (2) making music with a knob setup without physical effort (music control only), or (3) making physical exercise with musical feedback (Jymmin TM). Results showed greater increases in Divergent Thinking scores following music-feedback exercise compared to conditions of physical exercise with music listening and music control only. The data thus demonstrate that making music part of a physical exercise routine more strongly leads to the benefit of increased creative capacities, which we argue will be beneficial for athletes to prepare for certain types of competition/performance and as part of regeneration training.