It appears some people always have a song "stuck" in their head. What causes this? Is it good or bad?
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M$7 Answers
Two causes that I have been able to dig up on the net are anxiety and boredom. Anxiety is the more serious one, it causes Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and one possible obsession is with a tune, or tunes. In serious, persistent cases the person should seek psychological treatment.
Boredom shows up in long distance runners, who then can't concentrate on running instead of the blasted tune. It probably therefor affects people who have to do similar, nearly mindless repetitive tasks for a long time. I'd call that a cousin to Repetitive Strain Injury, and the solution is just not to do it. Take breaks and think about real stuff.
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M$I read last year of a study that found that the best way to get the song "un-stuck" from your head was to listen to the whole song. I don't recall the source, but I'm looking. ;-)
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M$
Some friends of mine have an alternative method to removing a stuck song. We sing the lyrics to "Amazing Grace" to the tune of "Gilligan's Island."
The theory for this is that, because your mind is processing the melody of one song and the lyrics of another, it will "unstick" the song in your brain but it won't stick another song in its place.
This made sense to me because songs are rhythmic and timed based on math, and because there are other examples of the human mind replaying things it hasn't figured out as dreams.
I understand that this is not definitive, but as many other psychological theories we have only what makes the most sense as an answer, because there is no way to do the experiment...yet : )
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M$
Not those earworms... earworms are songs that get stuck in your head. They bore into your head. They won't let go. There's no known cure. Earworms can attack almost anyone at almost any time.
No, it's not an invasion of jungle insects. It's worse. Earworms are those songs, jingles, and tunes that get stuck inside your head. You're almost certain to know the feeling, according to marketing professor James J. Kellaris, PhD, of the University of Cincinnati.
Nearly 98% of people have had songs stuck in their head, Kellaris reported at the recent meeting of the Society for Consumer Psychology. The 559 students -- at an average age of 23 -- had lots of trouble with the Chili's "Baby Back Ribs" Jingle and with the Baha Men song "Who Let the Dogs Out." But Kellaris found that most often, each person tends to be haunted by their own demon tunes.
"Songs with lyrics are reported as most frequently stuck (74%), followed by commercial jingles (15%) and instrumental tunes without words (11%)," Kellaris writes in his study abstract. "On average, the episodes last over a few hours and occur 'frequently' or 'very frequently' among 61.5% of the sample."
Here's the students' top-10 earworm list:
1. Other. Everyone has his or her own worst earworm.
2. Chili's "Baby Back Ribs" jingle.
3. "Who Let the Dogs Out"
4. "We Will Rock You"
5. Kit-Kat candy-bar jingle ("Gimme a Break ...")
6. "Mission Impossible" theme
7. "YMCA"
8. "Whoomp, There It Is"
9. "The Lion Sleeps Tonight"
10. "It's a Small World After All"
Stuck song syndrome annoyed, frustrated, and irritated women significantly more than men. And earworm attacks were more frequent -- and lasted longer -- for musicians and music lovers. Slightly neurotic people also seemed to suffer more.
Kellaris hasn't yet found a cure. Women are more likely to try to get rid of the offending ditties. Men are just as likely to do nothing as to fight their earworms.
What helps? Kellaris doesn't know. But he found that when people battle their earworms, nearly two-thirds of the time they try to use another tune to dislodge the one that's stuck. About half the time people simply try to distract themselves from hearing the stuck song. More than a third of the time people with songs stuck in their heads try talking with someone about it. And 14% of the time, people try to complete the song in their heads in an effort to get it to end.
Other interesting tidbits:
1. In 1882, Mark Twain wrote in a short story of an annoying "jingling rhyme" that became indelibly lodged in the author's mind until he passed the curse along to another hapless victim.
2. In 2003, a community board in Brooklyn, N.Y., has called for a limit on the playing of the "Mr. Softee" jingle by ice-cream trucks -- a jingle that can be unbearably memorable for those subjected to it for extended periods.
3. Singer-songwriter Neil Diamond says those repetitive notes that won't go away have spawned some of the greatest hits of his career.
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M$
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
This explains why you could be humming a tune completely at random - then suddenly you hear it thumping from a passerby SUV!**
Believe it or not, Ripley! xx
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M$
I think this answer is implying that people may unknowingly be picking up radio stations from their dentalwork. The same songs would be playing on nearby car radios. I rather doubt that this is either true or the same phenominom. In fact, I know it isn't in my case because the tunes that sometimes stick in my head a while are ones that I recently heard, and those are never ones played on radio stations.
I'm not sure what your answer has to do with the question or how a woman's dental work picking up radio waves could cause others to hum a tune...
