Is earworm a mental illness? (2023)

Does depression cause earworms?

The intrusions may come in the form of one meaningful song that repeats for days, reigniting past hurts. For many, this music-imagery loop can be a sign of depression. “The presence of the earworm tells you that you are becoming more depressed and stressed,” says clinical psychologist Joseph M. Carver, PhD.

An earworm is not a disease—it can happen to anyone, sometimes frequently, and generally disappears on its own within a short time. Chewing gum is one easy method known to help get rid of earworms. This is tied to the theory that jaw movement affects, or reduces, musical cognition.

“Ear worms” are common symptoms of anxiety and symptoms of chronic stress. Reducing anxious behavior and stress can cause the cessation of “ear worms.” However, some researchers suggest chewing gun.

Persistent earworms (lasting more than 24 hours) may be caused by many different illnesses, such as stroke or cancer metastasizing to the brain. A physician can help you determine if your earworm is serious or not.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder

Earworms are considered intrusions: unwelcome involuntary thoughts, they are a subtype of obsessions. People experiencing earworms as terribly annoying and stressful are more likely to express typical OCD symptoms (such as mysophobia — a fear of germs, dirt, and contamination).

Certain people are more prone to earworms. Those with obsessive-compulsive disorder or who have obsessive thinking styles experience this phenomenon more often. Musicians also frequently get earworms. Men and women have earworms equally, although women tend to stay with the song longer and find it more irritating.

When the patient's symptoms escalate to become severe about 7 years after onset, she is treated with fluvoxamine, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) medication.

These persistent melodies, commonly called earworms, can be amusing distractions or intrusive annoyances. New research published in the journal Psychological Science, however, reveals that earworms can sometimes interject themselves into our dreams, where they can negatively impact our quality of sleep.

Distract yourself with something else.

Strategies involving words, rather than music, can help nudge your brain away from the earworms and towards something else. Some effective remedies include talking with other people, meditation, prayer, watching TV, and reading.

Is Rumination a mental illness?

Rumination is sometimes referred to as a "silent" mental health problem because its impact is often underestimated. But it plays a big part in anything from obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) to eating disorders. And the impact of mental health problems is huge.

The auditory cortex is where earworms do most of their karaoke routine. This is a part of the brain that does a lot of the processing of sounds, including music. It is also where musical memories are stored.

MES occurs when you hear music even though there isn't any playing. It's a creation of the brain, but it's not a psychological problem or symptom of dementia. It's usually due to some degree of hearing loss, but the cause can't always be determined. Treating hearing loss may resolve the problems MES is causing.

Musical tinnitus - usually called musical hallucination - is the experience of hearing music when none is being played. In most people with musical hallucination, there is no underlying cause. There is not thought to be a connection to mental health conditions such as schizophrenia.

Earworms, although they are harmless and classified as pseudohallucinations, overlap phenomenologically with musical hallucinations, which, like auditory hallucinations in general, can be symptoms of psychopathological conditions ^{3, 4, 5, 6}.

Our brain attaches memories to them making it difficult to forget them. Earworms may be part of the same “involuntary memory” that is responsible for us thinking about a friend we haven't seen in a long time randomly. Songs that are simple, repetitive, and contain some incongruity are most likely to become stuck.

Larvae feed within the ear for 10 to 14 days, and then will exit, drop to the ground, and burrow 2 to 5 inches into the soil to pupate. The corn earworm rests as a pupa for 10 to 25 days before emerging as an adult moth for a subsequent generation.

Stuck, intrusive, unwanted, and repetitive thoughts, mental images, concepts, songs, or melodies (earworms) are common symptoms of stress, including anxiety-caused stress.

Are earworms intrusive thoughts?

Earworms are a generally benign form of rumination, the repetitive, intrusive thoughts associated with anxiety and depression.

Depression in bipolar disorder has long been thought to be a state characterized by mental inactivity. However, recent research demonstrates that patients with bipolar disorder engage in rumination, a form of self-focused repetitive cognitive activity, in depressed as well as in manic states.

Rumination is one of the co-occurring symptoms found both in anxiety disorders and depression. It is often a primary symptom in Obsessive-compulsive Disorder (OCD) and Generalized Anxiety Disorder. When people are depressed, the themes of rumination are typically about being inadequate or worthless.

The condition has long been known to occur in infants and people with developmental disabilities. It's now clear that the condition isn't related to age, as it can occur in children, teens and adults. Rumination syndrome is more likely to occur in people with anxiety, depression or other psychiatric disorders.

Defined by researchers as a looped segment of music usually about 20 seconds long that suddenly plays in our heads without any conscious effort, an earworm can last for hours, days, or even, in extreme cases, months.

As musical ear syndrome is correlated with sound deprivation, one of the main treatment strategies is amplifying the sound that the patient is exposed to. For instance, assistive hearing devices such as hearing aids have been effective at reducing musical hallucinations in MES patients experiencing hearing loss.

Is Musical Ear Syndrome Common? The few studies published in journals suggest only about 20% of those with tinnitus experience musical ear syndrome — that means about 3% of the general population.

Musical hallucinations (MH) are complex phenomena that are associated with hearing loss, brain disease (glioma, epilepsy, cere-brovascular disease, encephalitis), and psychiatric disorders such as major depressive disorder, bipolar disease, and schizophrenia.

Although MES is not a “scary” disease, persistant hallucinations may disturb patients and affect their quality of life. Patients should be educated about the syndrome and firmly assured that they are not mentally ill.

Can anxiety make you hear music in your head?

Stress can cause hallucination symptoms. Since the stress caused by anxiety can affect all our senses, including hearing, yes, anxiety can cause auditory hallucinations, including hearing things that aren't real. This is especially true with intense anxiety.

According to research, there is a strong relationship between depression and hearing loss among U.S. adults of all ages (18 and older).

Some people who have severe clinical depression will also experience hallucinations and delusional thinking, the symptoms of psychosis. Depression with psychosis is known as psychotic depression.

Severe depression is sometimes accompanied by auditory hallucinations, which are usually transient and limited to single words or short phrases and, generally, saying things consistent with the patient's depressed mood. Auditory hallucinations may also occur in mania.

Background: Tinnitus, a ringing in the ear perceived only by the person concerned, occurs not only in the general population but also among patients suffering from schizophrenia. They may be afflicted by tinnitus and acoustic hallucinations at the same time.

Anxiety affects people in various ways, from causing feelings of unease to making it difficult to sleep. In some individuals, it can cause ringing in the ears, also known as tinnitus. People with tinnitus may hear ringing, buzzing, hissing, or other sounds not associated with an outside source.

Tinnitus has been reported to occur as a symptom of psychotic depression⁶ and may be regarded as somewhere intermediate between a hallucination and a delusion. Electroconvulsive therapy has been reported to alleviate tinnitus.

Auditory verbal hallucinations most commonly affect people with schizophrenia and/or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but they can happen to people who don't have any health conditions.

Hearing voices may be a symptom of a mental illness. A doctor may diagnose you 'psychosis' or 'bipolar disorder'. But you can hear voices without having a mental health diagnosis. Research shows that many people hear voices or experience other types of hallucinations.

Are auditory hallucinations part of ADHD?

The main findings were that higher levels of ADHD symptoms in adults were associated with psychosis, paranoid ideation and auditory hallucinations.

Auditory hallucinations are the sensory perceptions of hearing noises without an external stimulus. This symptom is particularly associated with schizophrenia and related psychotic disorders but is not specific to it.

In fact, an estimated 70% to 80% of people with schizophrenia hear voices. 1 These voices can call your name, argue with you, threaten you, come from inside your head or from outside sources, and can begin suddenly as well as grow stronger over time.

Defined by researchers as a looped segment of music usually about 20 seconds long that suddenly plays in our heads without any conscious effort, an earworm can last for hours, days, or even, in extreme cases, months.

Listen to the entire song.

Earworms tend to be small fragments of music that repeat over and over (often a song's refrain or chorus). A 2014 study evaluated existing surveys of people's methods for coping with earworms and found that one of the most effective behaviors is just listening to the whole tune.