How To Get That Annoying Tune Out Of Your Head

We all have that one annoying song that’d we’d literally kill to get out of our heads. We don’t mean songs-you-love-to-hate. Those are fun songs. We mean the ?other? kind.

Well, you’re in luck because Science has come up with a unique suggestion to remedy the situation – just chewing a piece of gum! Yep, that’s right. Chewing gum is the answer, apparently.

Research published in the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology suggests that chewing gum may essentially block you from thinking about what scientists call an earworm? or a piece of music stuck in your head. Naturally, they put this to the test using three separate experiments.

First they got ?Play Hard? by David Guetta stuck in the heads of 10 willing undergraduate students (God only knows how), and had half of them chew gum for a few minutes, while the other did nothing (except listen to David Guetta).? The first half of gum chewers thought less about the song then the non-chewers.

For the next experiment, they reined in another group and asked those chewing gum to let them know anytime they ?just heard? the song in their heads. Again, the gum chewers thought of the dance track less than those without gum.

They did the same thing with the third group of those chewing away, only asked them to ?tap? when they thought of the tune. The last group was about even, so it didn’t matter who was chewing gum. But, two out of three isn’t bad, so chances are it works a little.

We think it’s gas. And whether it works or not, it won’t cost a penny. Happy days! We haven’t tried it yet, but it sounds like a handy trick that may well come in use. Will you give it a go?

The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

LOVE this? Why not have IMAGE delivered directly to your door each month? Check out this month’s offer here.