Have you got
'Happy' in the head?
Hello
Everyone,
Did you
enjoy the Pharrell Williams' song 'Happy'?
Did you keep hearing it in your head?
Have you had songs that just won't leave your head? They are called ear worms. But the name is not nearly as important as
how you can get rid of them.
Researchers from Reading
University found that chewing gum can help the brain to think less about music
it has just heard. Chewing gum also reduced the amount they
‘heard' the song by one third.
Previous research has found that mouthing something
to yourself, or even just moving your jaw around, interferes both with
short-term memory and imagining sounds. This study, however, is the
first to examine what effect chewing gum has on earworms.
About 90 per
cent of people experience these ear worms and 15percent find them uncomfortably
intrusive and disturbing.
Most people
experience ear worms for just a short period but for others they can be really
frustrating and last days.
As well as helping those who suffer badly from
earworms, the results suggest gum-chewing might help reduce other unwanted or
intrusive thoughts - especially ones you ‘hear'.
To read more
of these ideas see Roz's latest books Future
Words and Love Well available on
Amazon.
Source: 'How
to get a song out of your head'
The Sydney Morning Herald 30/4/2015
