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If you listen to music before bedtime, your brain continues processing the melody while you sleep, according to research published in the journal Psychological Science. A sleep lab study found that around one quarter of participants who listened to familiar songs before bedtime awoke during the night with the melody “stuck” in their heads. This spontaneous replaying of music in the mind — a phenomenon called an earworm — was associated with lower sleep quality.
The authors of the study note that someone is more likely to experience an earworm, a form of involuntary musical imagery, after listening to music with a fast tempo and specific melodic contours. Young people are listening to music more than ever, and the music industry is dominated by these types of upbeat songs that are made to be catchy. Given that many people listen to music to fall asleep, the researchers wanted to investigate whether listening to music around bedtime might trigger earworms and whether these earworms might affect quality of sleep.
“I never thought about earworms until I taught a Cognition course and learned that there’s a subfield dedicated to understanding why we experience songs stuck in our minds,” said study author Michael K. Scullin, an associate professor at Baylor University and principal investigator at the Sleep Neuroscience and Cognition Lab.
“As a sleep scientist, I was curious whether having an earworm at bedtime would affect sleep. Some of us thought it would harm sleep because earworms can sometimes be irritating. Others in the lab thought it would help sleep, because maybe the earworm would distract you from ruminative thoughts. It was a fun series of studies to test these competing viewpoints.”
The authors of the study note that someone is more likely to experience an earworm, a form of involuntary musical imagery, after listening to music with a fast tempo and specific melodic contours. Young people are listening to music more than ever, and the music industry is dominated by these types of upbeat songs that are made to be catchy. Given that many people listen to music to fall asleep, the researchers wanted to investigate whether listening to music around bedtime might trigger earworms and whether these earworms might affect quality of sleep.
“I never thought about earworms until I taught a Cognition course and learned that there’s a subfield dedicated to understanding why we experience songs stuck in our minds,” said study author Michael K. Scullin, an associate professor at Baylor University and principal investigator at the Sleep Neuroscience and Cognition Lab.
“As a sleep scientist, I was curious whether having an earworm at bedtime would affect sleep. Some of us thought it would harm sleep because earworms can sometimes be irritating. Others in the lab thought it would help sleep, because maybe the earworm would distract you from ruminative thoughts. It was a fun series of studies to test these competing viewpoints.”
Study finds listening to music before bed can worsen your sleep by inducing long-lasting earworms
"Our findings kept pointing to the same conclusion: the more you listen to music, the more likely you are to catch an earworm at night, which then leads to a greater likelihood of sleep problems."
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