Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
Everyone has that one song they just can’t get out of their head. It’s the tune that they’ll always find playing at the grocery store, a local restaurant, or even their favorite FM radio. But then one day it just stops playing. The fad dies out, and everyone else forgets it. But you, the listener, don’t. No, for you, a small portion of the song remains. It’s that one part that’s always catchy but trails off because the rest of the beat isn’t as memorable. You can’t stop the beat because it keeps on jamming in the back of your mind. Picking away at you in your everyday routine. You want to forget about it, yet it still remains. The joy of listening to music is overturned because that one little limerick is just too strong.
If you, my friend, have been met with this unfortunate condition, then it pains me to inform you that you have been infected by an earworm. But do not lose hope. For we have the right cure to satiate your condition and hopefully help keep you resistant in the future. But before we get into that, let’s first take a dive into the phrase “earworm” and how one can diagnose it.
Table of contents
The Symptoms
When you hear the phrase earworm, you might think that it means an actual worm has ingrained itself in your ear. Fear not, though; that’s not the case. If it were, we’d advise you to go and see a real doctor. So what exactly are earworms then? According to neurologist and author Dr. Oliver Sacks, an earworm is essentially an auditory illusion/hallucination. It usually functions as “…three or four bars, which go round and round and round.”
Songwriters love making earworms. Of course, why wouldn’t they? A good songwriter wants their catchy tunes to get stuck in your head. But despite the author’s intent, most listeners find the earworm far more intrusive than anything. The reason for this, as Dr. Sacks highlights, is “This is a special form of involuntary musical imagery that is out of control and can become quite unpleasant and intrusive.”
People suffering from earworms tend to have multiple solutions to alleviate the problem. Usually, it amounts to listening to other songs, but we at Inside Tech World don’t want to give you any old off-the-shelf treatments. Here are our top tips to get rid of those pesky earworms.
Possible Cures
When it comes to earworms, there are a variety of solutions one can use to fix the issue. One of those is obviously to replace the first song with another song. That may sound like a convenient way of replacing the original theme, but a potential side effect of doing that is the potential birth of another earworm.
Chew Some Gum
Earworms, as a function of our brains, implant themselves within the auditory cortex (the part of the brain associated with hearing). The special thing about the auditory cortex is that it is closely related to our motor cortex (the part of our brains linked to voluntary movements). Hence why when you listen to music or hear things, you tend to audibly respond using muscles in your jaw or inaudibly through other parts of the body.
Chewing gum triggers your motor cortex and, in a way, distracts your auditory cortex. This is because the auditory cortex assumes subconsciously that you are singing. Not only is chewing gum a worthwhile distraction, but the gum might also act as a nice sweet treat. However, assuming you can’t eat gum due to difficulties in your jaw or your dentist said you shouldn’t, then there are still other options to distract your overencumbered brain.
Pick Apart Puzzle Pieces
If you want to get rid of an earworm and keep yourself busy, try engaging with a puzzle. When your short-term memory, aka the memory you’re working with, is constantly occupied with a separate problem to solve, it won’t spend its time thinking about the song in question. It’s recommended that you engage in verbal puzzles that require you to either think audibly or piece together phrases. Something like Scrabble or Bananagrams would be our recommendation.
The Great Earworm Eraser
If you’re struggling with earworms and are desperate to look for something audible to flush them out, try using The Earworm Eraser. The earworm eraser is a forty-two-second audio snippet. It’s a mixture of high and low tempos that cascade together in an uneven mashup. While normal earworms are meant to be melodic, the earworm eraser is their antithesis. It collides with the earworm and, in doing so, causes a type of collapse in the auditory hallucination. However, while the eraser works for most people, it’s not foolproof.
Listen to the Classics
Earworms these days come from a very easy-to-pinpoint source: pop music. Pop music at its core is made to do one thing, and it’s to make you dance. Pop singers want you to tap your feet to the beat and maybe even become a slave to it. When something is made to be inherently catchy, it will linger in the back of your brain. However, fascinatingly, classical music doesn’t have this quality to it. This could be due to classical music being an entire symphonic melody rather than a few melodic bars played on repeat to a certain lyric. Either way, if you want to replace the original song, try listening to a classical track.
Finish the Song
When you only know one part of the song, it can be infuriating. It keeps going on in a loop and never finishes in your brain. So why not take matters into your own hands and finish the song? In doing so, you can put together that last bar and end it once and for all. It’s also a great opportunity to use the moment and take the song and wring it out for everything it’s worth. Try to sing the song out loud in such a way that it completely loses all its worth to you. Or listen to the same song so many times over that you overexhaust yourself on listening to it, creating a pseudo mental block from you having to hear it ever again.
With that being said, we hope that in providing solutions, we could help cure any earworms you may have. If you know of anybody else suffering from a similar ailment, make sure to share this article with them; it might help. Visit Inside Tech World for more reviews, tips, and reader guides updated weekly.
FAQs
- Are some people more prone to earworms than others?
Yes, actually. Some people are more prone to earworms. The reasons behind them being more prone are unclear at the moment, but most would say it’s due to factors relating to how much someone is more musically inclined and other neurological factors.
- Do earworms last forever?
If this article is any proof, no. Earworms don’t last forever. However, the amount of time they spend in your brain varies from person to person.
- Do earworms have some form of trigger if they come from some specific form of music?
Yes. An obvious trigger is the origin of the earworm, or the specific snippet the song is from. It could even be a phrase associated with a lyric. However, sometimes the earworm can manifest for unknown reasons. It all depends on the person.
- Are earworms really that harmful, or can they have benefits?
Earworms aren’t inherently harmful. They’re more so a nuisance. Of course, for some, they might be beneficial. That’s because earworms can act as a way of tuning out the outside world while you do a repetitive action; they’re headphones without headphones, as I always say.
