[trivium911]

What do you guys make of this?

https://www.psypost.org/2021/11/stu...sleep-by-inducing-long-lasting-earworms-62077

as someone that struggles with insomnia myself, I can relate to this. I stopped listening to music before bed, though I was mostly ambient sleep music anyways that I can take or leave at the end of the day. I do listen to a lot of music during the workday though.

They said that instrumental music is worse, though taking a catchy taylor swift song and removing the lyrics does not make it 'instrumental'. I would be curious to see a study done on Classical music for example, or jazz where there is no clear melody. I can't imagine either of these genres would cause an ear worm.

 

[MakeshiftApe]

Interesting. I mostly get earworms with lyrical music rather than instrumentals, and it tends to be a really specific kind of catchy repetitive song. I've never had an earworm interfere with sleep, but I have had them be present to an annoying degree before to where they annoy me throughout the whole day.

 

[trivium911]

Interesting. I mostly get earworms with lyrical music rather than instrumentals, and it tends to be a really specific kind of catchy repetitive song. I've never had an earworm interfere with sleep, but I have had them be present to an annoying degree before to where they annoy me throughout the whole day.

Well I listen to tons of music during the workday (sometimes all day) so im trying to cut back since it's just passive anyways. I have a theory that all that passive music listening is messing with my brain or interfering with REM sleep. For example, it's like my brain trying to fill in the blanks from a song at night because it wasn't fully paying attention. That said, I've had earworms from a few classical songs aswell that were playing through my head when I wakeup multiple times at night. Catchy music with lyrics as you said is worse though. I'll try to listen to more active music instead, im sure it would help with overall appreciation for music as a whole anyways.

 

[MakeshiftApe]

You know what, you might be onto something with passive listening. Most of the songs that become earworms for me are songs I hear playing on the radio, i.e. not songs I'm actively listening to, but that happen to be on in the background when I enter a room or something. It could make sense because I hear one way to remove an earworm is to listen to the song in full so your brain has the chance to fully complete the song. Maybe that's the issue with passive listening? You only really pay attention to part of the song and so your brain starts trying to finish it.

 

[trivium911]

You know what, you might be onto something with passive listening. Most of the songs that become earworms for me are songs I hear playing on the radio, i.e. not songs I'm actively listening to, but that happen to be on in the background when I enter a room or something. It could make sense because I hear one way to remove an earworm is to listen to the song in full so your brain has the chance to fully complete the song. Maybe that's the issue with passive listening? You only really pay attention to part of the song and so your brain starts trying to finish it.

that's my thoughts, so im trying to only listen to ambient music while working, though mostly I've been using the portal app which is sound effects and recordings of oceans, waterfalls ect. Unfortunately it means less music, but than I should have more incentive to do active listening when I have time