Looks like the savage beast isn’t the only thing music can soothe: A good tune can also help ease pain.

Of course, that’s not too much of a surprise since many people already use music to soothe both physical and mental pain — but the latest research shows how there’s one group of folks in particular who stand to benefit the most.

And if you’re the type that finds yourself getting anxious at the very thought of pain — the type who breaks out into a sweat even thinking about a routine dental cleaning, for example — then get the headphones out and fire up some tunes, because music might be better than a painkiller for you.

In the new study, researchers sent painful jolts of electricity through the fingertips of 143 volunteers and measured their levels of pain as they listened to music. The volunteers were also told to pay attention to the music by focusing on certain melodies and listening for specific tones.

And it worked: Pain levels went down as the musical concentration went up for at least some of the patients.

But it didn’t quite work for everyone. In fact, people who didn’t have much anxiety over pain didn’t get much of a benefit — and I’m guessing it’s because these folks probably don’t feel the same levels of pain either.

Pain, after all, is as much mental as it is physical — and that’s why people who get anxious over it stand to benefit the most.

And if that’s you, the researchers behind the new study say be sure to pick music that will hold your interest. Because, let’s face it, that’s rarely going to be the sleepy office Muzak and “light FM” droning in the background of most medical clinics.

So next time you have a medical or dental appointment, bring your own music player and a pair of headphones (as long as it’s allowed in the room, of course). Tune in to your tunes… and tune out the pain.

Everyone should make sure they get moving during the day — but no one needs to turn into a treadmill-racing workout fiend to get the benefits of exercise.

In fact, too much exercise can be as bad for you as too little — bad for you knees, bad for your heart and maybe even bad for your mood.

One new study finds that women who exercise moderately — in other words, get the steady regular movements they need without overdoing it — are actually much happier than women who exhaust themselves during intensive gym sessions.

Turkish researchers randomly assigned 255 women between the ages of 40 and 60 years old to one of two two-week workout regimens: Either 30 minutes a day on a treadmill at a moderate pace, or a run-till-you-drop session where they were told to go as fast as they could on that treadmill for as long as they could take it.

Sound like fun? Of course it doesn’t — and the results speak for themselves: The moderate exercisers had a better mood, lower levels of anxiety, higher levels of psychological wellbeing and more energy than those assigned to the torture-like workout sessions.

Women who got the intense workouts, on the other hand, were less likely to report the confidence to keep going with their exercise program. Overweight women in particular were stressed out by the more vigorous workouts and reported lower levels of calmness afterwards.

Who wouldn’t?

Whether you’re a man or a woman — and whether you’re badly overweight or slim and trim — you don’t have to drive yourself to the brink of physical exhaustion to get the benefits of a light workout.

Just pick something you like — and like the women in this study, you can enjoy some mood-boosting benefits along with your great fitness: At least one study has shown that a little sweat-inducing activity can be as powerful as antidepressant drugs… with none of the side effects.

Good examples of moderate workouts include traditional ones like tennis or a brisk walk/jog through the park, to a few things you might not think of as “exercise” — like gardening or even some home improvement projects.

In fact, keeping fit can actually be — dare I say it? — fun.

It’s easy to protect your children from what you can see — but it’s a much bigger challenge to keep them safe from what you can’t.

Your home is almost certainly filled with invisible threats to you and your family — and a new study shows how the chemicals in many common household objects can turn your child or grandchild into a physical and emotional wreck… before he even turns three!

The chemicals are called phthalates, and — like the BPA used in many food containers — they basically act as estrogen inside the human body, throwing the natural hormonal balance out of whack.

It’s bad enough for adults — but it can be positively disastrous for a child.

Researchers from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health measured phthalate levels in the urine of 319 pregnant women, then tracked their children from birth through their toddler years.

They found that the kids with the highest levels of prenatal exposure were battling serious mental issues by the age of 3, including anxiety, depression, withdrawal, and emotionally reactive behavior.

And it didn’t stop there.

These children were also more likely to suffer from delays in motor skill development — and the girls were even more likely to suffer delays in mental development.

This isn’t the first time these chemicals have been linked to bad news. Other studies have found they can lead to breast development in boys, lower sperm counts and testicular atrophy in men, and early puberty and other problems in girls.

Amazingly, despite these and other alarming links, there are no real federal regulations on these chemicals — so they’re in pretty much everything, up to and including your floor and walls.

They’re in raincoats… shower curtains… perfumes… shampoos… nail polish… detergents… and, until very recently, toys.

That makes phthalates nearly impossible to avoid, so this is a “do your best” situation. Do your best to keep these chemicals out of your home and away from your family — before these chemicals do their worst to you and your children.

Veterans who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder are routinely pumped full of antipsychotic drugs. And as most of them will tell you (in language I can’t use here), those drugs aren’t doing a darn thing for them.

And now there’s research to back them up — and it’s not all in their head.

Researchers randomly assigned 247 combat vets who were suffering from PTSD to either the antipsychotic medication Risperdal (aka risperidone), or a placebo, for six months.

In both groups, only 5 percent of veterans had a complete recovery. In both groups, between 10 percent and 20 percent showed some modest improvement. And in both groups, the vets reported similar scores for depression, anxiety, and quality of life.

In other words, the study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that this “powerful” drug has all the power of a sugar pill.

But while the vets who took the drug didn’t get any relief, they did get a few other things: side effects such as weight gain and fatigue, including an extreme level of fatigue known as somnolence.

While the study only involved Risperdal, the researchers say they believe similar antipsychotic drugs — including Seroquel, Geodon, and Abilify — will prove to be every bit as useless.

Fortunately, our soldiers don’t have to wait for Big Pharma to answer the call when it comes to PTSD. The U.S. military itself has been quietly investigating some of the best alternative treatments, including hyperbaric oxygen therapy, fish oil, cognitive-behavioral therapy, and acupuncture.

And the early word from many veterans who’ve tried these treatments has been encouraging (and printable).

Some of the most promising research involves acupuncture, with medics in the field even using the needles to treat the traumatic brain injuries.

Back on the homefront, research on the technique for PTSD itself is under way right now.

In one small recent study, veterans suffering from PTSD who were given either acupuncture or group cognitive-behavioral therapy for 12 weeks had significant improvements when compared to a control group. The benefits lasted for full three months after treatment.

Obviously, we need more studies to ensure these treatments really do work — but since we now know for sure that drugs don’t, let’s stop wasting time and give veterans the real thanks they deserve.

Let’s get them healed.