Stuck song syndrome/earworm

J

Jbrew

New Member
Wondering if anyone has experience stuck song syndrome as a TMS symptom?

A few years ago I recovered from RSI through TMS healing. After a recent traumatic event I seem to have parts of songs constantly stuck in my head which makes it really tricky to relax.

Wondering if anyone has experienced this as TMS and if so how you have gone about dealing with it?
 
All the time. It never occurred to me to worry about it, but I totally see how it's a TMS brain distraction. If it becomes too annoying (which happens if I'm binge-watching a show with a memorable theme) I'll make a point of listening to something else before going to sleep, since that's the only time I might feel the need to "turn it off".

As always, writing about it can sometimes bring other unconscious thoughts to the surface that need to be acknowledged.

I highly recommend the book Chatter, by neuroscientist Ethan Kross. His website has a list of articles and interviews where he talks about the book (I've already forgotten the publication date but it's quite recent) and the site also offers a free PDF of his toolkit which offers a variety of methods to help us tame our distracting inner voices.
 
Researchers in the UK and Germany did a survey about this involving 3,000 people. Turns out that singing or listening to another song does the trick to shut up the earworm for a lot of people, with the awful dirge that is our national anthem, i.e. 'God Save The King' (I'm a Brit) being the most effective https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/earworm-catchy-tune-song-nursery-rhymes-god-save-the-queen-a7395911.html (Scientists have worked out how to get that annoying earworm tune out of your head) As you will see in the article they identified the characteristics of songs that are most likely to get stuck in our heads and those songs have a structure similar to nursery rhymes, which are designed to have a simple melody that's easy for children to learn. Had to laugh that Kylie Minogue's appropriately named song 'I Can't Get You Out of My Head' is one of those songs! dancea

Another suggestion is to try listening to the song that's sticking in your head all the way through to see if that will shift it out. (Doing that has definitely worked for me in the past, when I had part of a song from The Greatest Showman going around and around in my head.)
 
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I'm the queen of earworms. I love music. If it's a song I hate, I just laugh at it, never have worried about it. Songs I love, I will put in instant replay, dance to it, repeat it over and over.
This happens with phrases too.
A few weeks ago we went to a concert and one of the "acts" who's music I did not like, was also kind of a comedian and kept saying "don't panic, it's organic (with a giant spliff in his hand)" that plays in my head over and over and over again. It comes up at the funniest of times, and is hilarious. If I have to be distracted, this is the way to go!
 
Thank you all for your kind responses. Unfortunately the songs do just keep coming back even if I listen to a different song.

I have found that I am currently anxious about them being there which is a vicious cycle. Would love to understand how you get to a place of not worrying about them.
 
You said you recovered previously with "TMS healing". For us to respond appropriately, please describe what sort of emotional work you did then and why you think it isn't effective this time.

Spoiler: ultimately we're going to recommend doing the work again, or deeper, or with more vulnerability and/or commitment. The details will depend on your previous experience.
 
Thanks Jan for helping me here :)

With RSI not fearing the pain once I knew there wasn't anything structural healed approximately 80% of my pain. The last 20% was healed through journaling and somatic tracking.

I have very much got back into the journal work but the earworms are making every day life currently very difficult for me given I find it so annoying and fear it. I find it's making my anxiety worse and vice versa.

I know I should be accepting them there but my brain is currently not allowing that. Any advice on how I might be able to break that fear cycle is much appreciated.

Also I wonder if anyone has had experience somatic tracking for this sort of thing when it's at the level or thought instead of pain?
 
Very helpful!

First of all, do you follow the recommendations of journaling which are designed to elicit a fully-honest and hopefully emotional result?
1. Don't let your TMS brain dictate what you do or don't write down
2. Absolutely do not edit what you're writing as it comes off the end of your pen or out of your keyboard. If you stop to edit, correct, make it legible, or phrase something differently so that it doesn't sound as bad or it's not as embarrassing or whatever, you've lost the essential honesty.
3. Throw out what you write as soon as you finish writing it.

Nicole Sachs says that it takes more than ten minutes of what I call "writing shit down" before the unconscious stuff starts showing itself. Read her web advice by doing a search for "Nicole Sachs JournalSpeak" and you'll find it.

Try starting a writing session by asking yourself a question in the third person (a technique recommended by Ethan Kross by the way). Such as "okay, JB, what is it about this earworm that bothers you so much? Is it the tune itself and what it says about me that it's this particular tune? What other thoughts is this connected with?" and just let the free thoughts flow, whatever stream of consciousness comes out, even if it's just conversational back and forth. The idea is to keep the words coming out without thinking about them, and of course absolutely not editing them.

Good luck.
 
PS - you might not discover anything particularly earth-shattering or even revelatory, but I guarantee that you will come across some thoughts about your current life experiences that you weren't even aware that you were repressing, or that were bothering you.

Excluding individuals who are suffering from early trauma, most of us are dealing with a pretty typical TMS brain mechanism which simply doesn't recognize the difference between the vast number of emotional stresses of the modern world, vs the very few but physically very dangerous stresses of the primitive world. So if an interaction at work or in a relationship activates your stress response, your brain could lock down your emotional response and repress it. Then it has to provide some kind of distraction in order to keep you alert and vigilant for danger.
 
Super helpful, thank you!

I haven't gotten into making the list and going through each one. My strategy to date has been more selection based on what I feel like writing so that is a good tip!

I think I am managing with the not editing and throwing away part.
 
You'll probably not think it very helpful to you as I do appreciate that your earworm is bothering you a great deal, but there is also the aspect of 'what you resist, persists'... Often when I've had earworm I've not fought it and just said to myself that it's better that I'm hearing Kylie (or whoever) looping around in my head than my experiencing the horrible cruddy thoughts that can pop up and loop around while I'm trying to concentrate on doing something that I've got to do... And then (kind of unfortunately in some respects) I've found that the earworm disappears, but then that does leave me free to get on with 'the work' and journal about any cruddy thoughts that might take the place of the earworm. Something else that has worked for me is dancing to the song that's earworming... not that I was actually trying to stop it earworming (I was just going with the flow and I like dancing) but when I look back I now realise that when I've done that the song has subsequently fairly quickly disappeared from my mind. @JanAtheCPA's journaling tips are great. I wish you peace.
 
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