Got an earworm that won’t go away? This might be the cure.
An earworm–that annoying loop of a song caught in your brain–can be tough to eradicate. The more you try to get rid of it, the harder it seems to play in your head. I’ve heard of half a dozen ways to defeat one, ranging from singing out loud to expel it to chewing gum. Now there’s a new solution.
Maybe the best way to get rid of an earworm is to fight fire with fire. Replace it with something else–but that replacement sound/song can’t be too catchy otherwise it becomes a new earworm.
Kelly Jakubowski, an associate professor of music psychology at Durham University in the UK, has come up with an “earworm eraser.” If you want to learn how it works, go here. But if you just want to skip to the cure, listen to the following.
