Your Sunday LOLcats (dial-up warning) Love Hertz Edition

[NJCher]

13. earworm cartoon

Here's how to get rid of them, from David Ley, Ph.D.:

So if you find yourself battling a pesky earworm, here is an “evidence-informed” experimental treatment technique to help:

Identify the song playing in your head.

Search the Internet and find a complete version of the song.

Play it and listen to it. Spend that three minutes focused on it. Don’t do something else while it plays and limit yourself to half your attention; you might doom yourself to making it your permanent lifetime mental soundtrack.

After the song is finished, immediately engage in a cognitively-engrossing activity. The researchers used Sudoko on their participants, but you could also try crossword puzzles, word games, or some other activity that absorbs your attention and forces your brain to sweat a little bit. Avoid doing something that lets your mind wander!
(If you are driving, assuming you stopped the car to search the Internet and self-administer the whole song, find something to do mentally while you drive. Doing mileage calculations in your head is useful—figure out how long it will take you to reach your destination, going at different speeds. This will fill up some of that cognitive capacity that could otherwise wander back to the song.)


Finally, try my strategy of then replacing that earworm with other, favorite, well-known songs (although this might be an individualistic strategy).

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/women-who-stray/201505/5-steps-finally-get-song-out-your-head


Cher