Do you get incessant earworms? Ever wonder why we get them?
I’m getting worried about my brain. I’ve been plagued with the worst most persistent earworms for several weeks now. My Fair Lady (“Thanks a lot, King! says I in a manner well bred...”) among others, including (gag) Sesame Street. Maybe this is why I love Audiobooks and meditation so much— they both engage or distract my mind away from the constant insipid inane soundtrack that plays 24/7. The songs are generally from childhood, including old musicals and bubblegum pop, which makes me think my brain is trying to distract me from thinking about whatever fuckery Dolt 45 is up to next.
Sometimes as the current snatch of song worms away I’ll realize I have a word wrong, and then I have to go look up the actual lyric. While I was sure that the only thing a gambler needs is a suitcase and a gun, that didn’t rhyme with “And the only time he's satisfied/Is when he's on a drunk”. But no matter how frequently I correct it the earworm doesn’t update its files, which makes it even worse because then an internal argument is added to each iteration (trunk, not gun. Try again!). Resistance is not only futile, it only reinforces the damn thing. Oh mothers, tell your children not to do what I have done by dredging up that oldie. It played all weekend while I was gardening, and I couldn’t drown it out by listening to an Audiobook because I was training Cayden to stay within visual range, which takes constant vigilance.
pNut has them, too. I can ask him at any random moment what song is playing in his head and without hesitation he tells me.
While some believe that earworms (aka involuntary musical imagery or ) are just a sign of OCD or a neurotic personality (moi?) one study found that
… the frequency of the condition depended upon the thickness of several brain regions. The first area was the Heschl's Gyrus (HG), a region that has been associated with auditory perception and musical memory. The second affected area was the right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), which has been linked to pitch memory.
which just sounds like a nice scientific way of calling me thick-headed.
The solution? Chew gum, according research published in The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology in April. Doing so appears to reduce the numbers of wanted and unwanted songs in your head and is consistent with other studies saying gum chewing disrupts voluntary memory recollection.
I actually hate chewing gum — it makes my head ache — but I’ll try it next time I’m out in the garden, since at this point I’d rather have a headache than this musical tinnitus.
Just think how many more things you could remember without those little devils cluttering up space in your head.
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