Source | Baylor University
Compile the | Gongzi Xin
Many people have the habit of listening to music,
I especially like to relax by listening to music before going to bed.
But does this really help with sleep?
When Dr. Michael Scullin, an associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at Baylor University and a sleep researcher, realized he woke up in the middle of the night with a song in his head, he saw an opportunity to research how music, especially those entrenched songs, affect sleep patterns.
Scullin, who recently investigated the relationship between listening to music and sleep, focused on a mechanism that is rarely explored: When a song or tune is replayed over and over again in a person's mind, involuntary musical imagery, or "ear bugs," usually occurs when awake, Scullin found that it can also occur while asleep.
An earworm is a situation in which a fragment of a song or other musical work involuntarily appears in someone's mind, and is generally expressed in colloquial language as "music sticking to the head."
"Even when the music isn't playing, our brains continue to process the melody of the music, apparently when we're asleep." Scullin said, "Everyone knows it feels good to listen to music, and a lot of people usually like to listen to music before bedtime. But sometimes good things are too bad, and the more you listen to music, the more likely you are to catch ear worms that linger before going to bed. When this happens, sleep is likely to be affected. ”
People who regularly hear earworms at night (at least a few times a week) are 6 times more likely to have poor sleep quality than people who rarely hear earworms. Surprisingly, studies have found that instrumental music is more likely than lyrical music to cause earworms and disrupt sleep quality.
The study included a survey and a laboratory experiment. The survey involved 209 participants who completed a series of surveys on sleep quality, music listening habits and frequency of hearing earworms, including how often they were heard when trying to fall asleep, waking up in the middle of the night and just waking up in the morning.
In the experimental study, 50 participants were taken to the Scullin Sleep Neuroscience and Cognition Laboratory, where the research team tried to induce earworms to determine how it affects sleep quality. Polysomnography (a comprehensive test and the gold standard for measuring sleep) was used to record participants' brain waves, heart rate, breathing, and more as they slept.
Before going to bed, the researchers played three popular songs — Taylor Swift's "Shake It Off," Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" and Journey's "Don't Stop Believe," and randomly arranged participants to listen to the original or instrumental versions of the lyrics, with participants responding to whether and when they heard the earworms. The researchers then analyzed whether this affected their nighttime sleep physiology. People infected with earworms had more difficulty falling asleep, waking up more often at night and spending more time during the mild sleep phase.
In addition, the researchers quantified EEG readings (recordings of electrical activity in the brain) in experimental studies to examine physiological markers of sleep-dependent memory consolidation. Memory consolidation is the process by which temporary memories spontaneously react during sleep and transform into longer-term forms.
Pictured: Participants in the experiment were monitored while sleeping to determine whether earworms had an effect on nighttime sleep physiology. (Image credit: Robert Rogers, Baylor University)
Scullin notes, "We thought we would hear earworms when we fell asleep, but we didn't know that people would report earworms when they often woke up from sleep." But we've seen this in both surveys and experimental studies. ”
Participants with sleep earworms showed slower oscillations during sleep, a sign of memory reactivation. The increase in slow oscillation is mainly an area corresponding to the primary auditory cortex, which is associated with earworm treatment when people are awake.
Scullin emphasizes: "Almost everyone thinks that music improves sleep, but we found that people who listen to music more sleep worse. What's really surprising is that instrumental music leads to poorer sleep quality — instrumental music causes twice as many earworms as other music.
Studies have found that people who have a habit of listening to music experience persistent earworms and a decline in sleep quality. These results are contrary to the idea that music is a hypnotic agent that aids sleep. Healthy organizations often recommend listening to quiet music before bedtime — and much of this advice comes from self-reported studies. Instead, Scullin objectively measured that even after the music stopped, the sleeping brain continued to process the music for hours.
How to get rid of "earworms"?
Scullin knows that earworms have a negative impact on sleep, and he suggests:
1, first try to listen to music moderately, if disturbed by ear worms, you can occasionally take a break;
2, the timing of listening to music is also very important - try to avoid listening to music before going to bed. If you listen to music in bed often, then this association can occur, and even if you don't listen to music, such as when you want to sleep, you may trigger ear worms.
3. Engage in cognitive activity – Fully focusing on a task, problem, or activity helps distract the brain from earworms.
How to promote sleep? Scullin advises not to engage in demanding activities or do things that interfere with sleep before going to bed, such as watching TV or playing video games, but to spend 5 to 10 minutes writing down a to-do list and writing down your thoughts on a piece of paper. A previous study by Scullin found that spending 5 minutes before bedtime writing down upcoming tasks helps "unload" worries about the future and thus sleep faster.
Reference source: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0956797621989724