Last Updated on 10/09/2024 by Arun jain
Q: I’ve had a Kacey Musgraves song stuck in my head for two weeks and it’s driving me crazy. Why is this happening?
First, some reassurance: you are not alone. Research suggests that catchy songs that get stuck in your head—colloquially known as earworms—are common and can happen to people. weekly Or Every day too.
“Some people are constantly wandering around with music in their head,” said Ira Hyman, a psychologist who studies the phenomenon at Western Washington University in Washington state.
Scientists don’t fully understand why earworms are so hard to shake. But some songs stand out more than others Set up shop in our heads. And the tendency to catch them depends on what you’ve heard recently and what you’ve been doing.
Here’s what we know.
What causes earworms?
It’s probably no surprise that the songs that insert themselves into our minds are usually the ones we’ve heard recently.
But it’s also possible to get earworms after hearing a word or sound — or even experiencing a situation. Reminds you of a certain songsaid Kelula Killingly, a postdoctoral research fellow studying earworms at the Queensland University of Technology in Australia.
Maybe someone mentions Madonna, and then you find yourself calling yourself a “material girl.” Or you taste just like the pasta you ate before a Taylor Swift concert and suddenly you’re singing “Shake It Off.” (While writing this piece, I couldn’t stop singing Kylie Minogue’s “Can’t Get You Out of My Head”.)
But don’t always expect to understand where earworms originated. Often, “it’s hard to know what started it,” Dr. Hyman said.
Are certain songs more likely to stick than others?
Research suggests that the songs K The tempo is fast – or more, more Continuous notesLike Whitney Houston’s “I’ll Always Love You” — is more likely to get stuck in our heads.
More often we hear the song, The More likely We have to start chanting it internally too. So that The ubiquitous Rick Astley memes What started in the late 2000s has caused millions of people to have “Never Gonna Give You Up” running on loop in their heads.
Although songs usually only cause earworms when you’re doing some type of activity, Dr. Hyman said. in A small study of 16 undergraduate studentsFor example, the researchers asked them to listen to a well-known song. The next day, the researchers asked them under what circumstances, if any, the song came back into their minds. Songs were elicited as earworms while participants were performing tasks that would normally cause the mind to wander.
Such activities can include walking, bathing or doing dishes, Dr. Hyman said. But more difficult tasks, like a tough puzzle or schoolwork, can also cause the mind to wander. The reason may be that our brains have more room to devote to earworms when we’re not fully focused on the task at hand—as any high school student who’s tried to do math homework can tell you.
Creating the right conditions for earworms is sometimes a little too easy. Dr. Hyman said. His colleagues approached him at the end of the day, right before his bike ride home, and sang “Who Let the Dogs Out” to get the song stuck in his head — and it worked.
“I’m like, ‘Stop it, I hate you’,” he said.
How do I get the song unstuck?
Sometimes, earworms are completely benign. But other times, they can be downright annoying (I’m looking at you, Rick Astley). Fortunately, research suggests some ways to rid yourself of it.
Chewing gum is a possible alternative. In A A study published in 2015Researchers had 18 undergraduates listen to a popular song and then asked them to try not to think about the song for three minutes. Half of the participants were given gum to “chew hard” over the course of three minutes, and half were not. Participants who chewed gum were less likely to report hearing a song in their head.
Of course, this is only a small study, so more research is needed to understand how chewing gum helps eliminate existing earworms, said Emery Schubert, a psychologist at the University of New South Wales in Australia. Still, there’s one explanation that makes sense: Chewing gum can co-opt the brain areas associated with singing with earworms in our heads, he explained.
Dr. Because earworms tend to proliferate when our minds are disorganized, it can also help to put yourself in a different state of mind — for example, by entering a mildly stressful social situation, Schubert said.
“Start talking to someone you don’t know well,” Dr. Schubert said. “If I had an earworm now and I talked to you, I’d probably lose it.”
And if you have an earworm that’s particularly annoying, you can always try replacing it with something more enjoyable, Dr. Hyman said.
“Put a different song on there,” he said. “Pick one you don’t mind.”
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