ObjectiveTo systematically evaluate the efficacy of different non-pharmacological interventions in relieving acute pain after lung cancer surgery, and to provide high-level evidence-based basis for formulating precise analgesic nursing plans in clinical practice. MethodsSystematic searches were conducted in Chinese and English core databases including CNKI, Wanfang Data, VIP Database, CBM, PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, and Web of Science. Relevant randomized controlled trials (RCTs) published from the establishment of the databases to October 2025 were collected, with supplementary retrieval through reference tracing. Two researchers independently conducted literature screening and data extraction. The quality of the included literature was evaluated using the Cochrane risk of bias assessment tool, and a network meta-analysis was performed using Stata 18.0 software. ResultsA total of 34 RCTs involving 3019 postoperative lung cancer patients and 15 types of non-pharmacological interventions were included. Network meta-analysis showed that compared with conventional nursing, relaxation therapy [MD=?2.55, 95%CI (?3.66, ?1.44)], fire cupping combined with music therapy [MD=?2.32, 95%CI (?4.05, ?0.59)], psychological therapy [MD=?1.45, 95%CI (?2.05, ?0.85)], and transcutaneous electrical acupoint stimulation [MD=?1.38, 95%CI (?2.02, ?0.75)] had significant pain relief effects (all P<0.05). The surface under the cumulative ranking curve (SUCRA) analysis indicated that relaxation therapy was the optimal intervention (SUCRA=93.6%). ConclusionRelaxation therapy has the best effect in relieving acute pain after lung cancer surgery and can be used as the preferred option in clinical nursing. However, the conclusion still needs to be further verified by a large number of high-quality and large-sample RCTs.