Ongoing History Daily: Men, women, stress, and earworms

Everyone occasionally gets a song stuck in their head, but the frequency you suffer from them appears to depend on whether you’re male or female. Stuck Song Syndrome (also known as Involuntary Music Imagery) shows up in men and women in equal amounts, except that women tend to last longer in women and are irritated more by earworms than men.

So far, research has been unable to figure out why. Another trigger for earworms may be stress. Cortisol—the body’s stress hormone—may temporarily try to reorder the chaos in your head by summoning a song that’s both melodic and repetitive. Yes, the earworm is annoying, but it does divert your attention to whatever may be causing you to be anxious. So an earworm is a self-defense mechanism. Maybe.

Scientists say that the most earworm-y song is Queen’s “We Will Rock You.” Try calling that up in your head the next time you’re having a stressful day. It may help.