It is unlikely that there will be at least one lucky person who has never found himself replaying the same song in his mind over and over again and cannot get rid of it. Clinical psychologist David Jay Lay is definitely not one of them. But in a practical way, he found a way to shake off the obsession.
The most annoying thing about haunting melodies is most often songs that we can’t stand. The more painful is the importunate repetition.
In addition, this strange phenomenon shows how little power we have over the brain and what goes on in the head. After all, just think — the brain sings a stupid song, and we can’t do anything about it!
Scientists from Western Washington University conducted a study in 2012 to understand how the mechanism of this condition works and whether it is possible to intentionally create an annoying melody. It is terrible to think what the unfortunate participants in the experiment went through, who were forced to listen to a selection of songs and perform various mental tasks. After 24 hours, 299 people reported whether any of the songs had settled in their minds and which one.
This study disproved the notion that only tunes with annoying repetitive elements, such as pop songs or promotional jingles, get stuck. Even good music like Beatles songs can be intrusive.
A stuck tune is a kind of mental virus that infiltrates unused RAM
The same study partly proved that the reason is the Zeigarnik effect, the essence of which is that the human brain tends to get hung up on incomplete thought processes. For example, you heard a fragment of a song, the brain cannot finish it and put it off, so it scrolls over and over again.
However, in an experiment by American scientists, it was found that fully listened to songs can also get stuck in the mind, as well as unfinished fragments of melodies. And most often, musically gifted people suffer from this.
But here’s the good news. People who were busy with tasks that required more concentration when the music was playing were much less likely to have a problem.
A stuck melody is something like a mental virus that penetrates unused RAM and settles in its background processes. But if you use your consciousness to the fullest, the virus has nothing to catch on.
Using all this information, I decided to conduct my own experiment when I realized that I could not get rid of a boring song. At first, I confess, I thought about a lobotomy, but then I decided to just take a nap — it did not help.
Then I found a video of the song on YouTube and watched it without any distractions. Then I watched a few more clips with my favorite songs that I know and remember well. Then he plunged into cases that require serious mental involvement. And finally found that got rid of stuck melody.
So if you feel like you have «caught a virus» and an annoying melody is spinning in your mind, you can use my method.
1. Get to know the song.
2. Find its full version on the Internet.
3. Listen to it completely. For a couple of minutes, do nothing else, concentrate on the song. Otherwise, you risk dooming yourself to eternal torment and this melody will become your lifelong soundtrack.
Do not let your mind relax, remember that you need to concentrate as much as possible and let it sweat a little.
4. As soon as the song is over, find yourself some kind of mental activity that will fully involve you in the process. Researchers at Western Washington University used sudoku, but you can solve a crossword puzzle or choose any other word game. Do not let your mind relax, remember that you need to concentrate as much as possible and let your mind sweat a little.
If you are driving and the circumstances allow you to watch the clip — for example, you are standing in a traffic jam — think about what can occupy your brain along the way. You can, for example, count in your mind the kilometers traveled or how long it will take you to get to your destination at different speeds. This will help to fill in those mental reserves that, with nothing to do, could return to the song again.