You’re reading a report and trying to concentrate. The room is silent. But despite your best efforts to focus, a little snatch of melody – an “earworm” – keeps circling inside your head.

Research suggests most people get earworms regularly – and they’re more common among people who listen to a lot of music. One Finnish study found more than 90% of people report experiencing earworms at least weekly. About 60% of people experienced them daily.

Why does your brain insist on inflicting snippets of tunes like Jingle Bells, Bohemian Rhapsody or Golden when you try to clear your mind or at random times during the day?

And how are people with conditions such as obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) affected?

What turns a song into an earworm?

A song is more likely to become an earworm when you’ve heard it often or recently.

In a 2015 study, we played an unfamiliar song to participants either two or six times, and then contacted them at random times during the three days afterwards to ask if the songs were stuck in their heads.

About one-third of participants reported experiencing an earworm at the time of contact. We also found that earworms of the songs in the experiment were more common if participants heard the song six times, and were most common in the day afterwards.

What’s going on in our brain?

Research shows brain function is broadly similar when people listen to music and when they experience musical imagery like earworms. The word imagery here refers to the imagined nature of the earworm – it’s not a sound that we are hearing out loud, it is instead within our minds.

But part of the brain called the auditory association cortex (which does more complex brain tasks related to music listening) seems to be playing a bigger role with musical imagery than the primary auditory cortex (which does more of the basic tasks).

Another interesting finding concerns people with congenital amusia, a condition which means they don’t hear music as effectively as everyone else. This might mean they’re not good at telling if something is out of tune, and struggle to remember melodies they just heard.

Researchers found that while their brains might not be as good at analysing music, they still experienced earworms, though less frequently.

What have earworms got to do with memory?

What earworms seem to be doing when we experience them is getting into a part of our cognitive architecture called working memory. We use working memory when we have to remember something someone just told us, or when we do maths in our head.

Australian researchers have found that people doing tasks that test their working memory aren’t as accurate at remembering things if they have a song stuck in their head. The earworm is crowding out other information in working memory.

In another study, the same Australian researchers found that the more familiar people were with the songs, the more likely it was that the song stuck in their head was interfering with their working memory.

So what are earworms for?

While the earworms we don’t like can be really annoying and stand out, research suggests most earworms are a relatively pleasant experience.

German researchers have argued earworms are essentially a sort of withdrawal response to not hearing music. Sometimes we want to listen to music but can’t, which might mean that your withdrawal symptom is an earworm.

British researchers also found the earworms people experience reflect the reasons why those people listen to music. So if people often listen to music to rev themselves up, their earworms will often also be songs that would rev them up.

What’s the experience of people with OCD?

Earworms can sometimes be troubling for people with conditions such as obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), who have unwanted thoughts come into their head. Earworms can be just another unwanted thought.

However, research is mixed on whether people with OCD experience more earworms than other people as a result of their condition. Some research suggests that, while people with OCD are more troubled by earworms, they don’t usually experience them more often than anyone else.

Other research does find they experience earworms more often. But it’s possible that people with OCD are just much more aware of their earworms, and such results can reflect that awareness.

Researchers have suggested the best therapeutic approach for people with OCD troubled by earworms is in context of broader treatments such as exposure and response prevention. This aims to reduce the negative response patterns that occur in response to intrusive thoughts.

How do I remove an unwanted earworm?

Some some British researchers have found that chewing gum might be the answer to getting rid of unwanted earworms, as odd as that sounds.

If earworms are going around our working memory, this actually makes sense – our memory is partly held in our “inner voice”, which involves using the throat to “subvocalise”.

So if you engage your throat muscles by chewing on some gum, this may disrupt the looping earworms just enough for them to end. If your earworm is bothering you, it’s worth a try.

Or try listening to something else, as people tend not to experience earworms when listening to other music. That can work for getting the song out of your head right now – but then you might get earworms of all the other songs.

But there’s little evidence that listening to the whole song will get rid of an earworm. Research suggests that listening to the song increases the likelihood the song will then get stuck in your head.

Timothy Byron, Lecturer in Psychology, University of Wollongong

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Viswashkumar Ramesh, a British citizen returning from a trip to India, has been confirmed as the only survivor of Thursday’s deadly Air India crash.

“I don’t know how I am alive,” Ramesh told family, according to his brother Nayan, in a video call moments after emerging from the wreckage. Another brother Ajay, seated elswhere on the plane, was killed.

The Boeing 787-7 Dreamliner crashed into a medical college less than a minute after taking off in the city of Ahmedabad, killing the other 229 passengers and 12 crew. At least five people were killed on the ground.

Surviving a mass disaster of this kind may be hailed as a kind of “miracle”. But what is it like to survive – especially as the only one?

Surviving a disaster

Past research has shown disaster survivors may experience an intense range of emotions, from grief and anxiety to feelings of loss and uncertainty.

These are common reactions to an extraordinary situation.

Some people may develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and have difficulty adjusting to a new reality after bearing witness to immense loss. They may also be dealing with physical recovery from injuries sustained in the disaster.

Most people recover after disasters by drawing on their own strengths and the support of others. Recovery rates are high: generally less than one in ten of those affected by disasters develop chronic, long-term problems.

However, being a sole survivor of a mass casualty may have its own complex psychological challenges.

Survivor’s guilt

Survivors can experience guilt they lived when others died.

My friend, Gill Hicks, spoke to me for this article about the ongoing guilt she still feels, years after surviving the 2005 bombings of the London underground.

Lying trapped in a smoke-filled train carriage, she was the last living person to be rescued after the attack. Gill lost both her legs.

Yet she still wonders, “Why me? Why did I get to go home, when so many others didn’t?”

In the case of a sole survivor, this guilt may be particularly acute. However, research addressing the impact of sole survivorship is limited. Most research that looks at the psychological impact of disaster focuses on the impact of disasters more broadly.

Those interviewed for a 2013 documentary about surviving large plane crashes, Sole Survivor, express complex feelings – wanting to share their stories, but fearing being judged by others.

Being the lone survivor can be a heavy burden.

“I didn’t think I was worthy of the gift of being alive,” George Lamson Jr. told the documentary, after surviving a 1985 plane crash in Nevada that killed all others on board.

Looking for meaning

People who survive a disaster may also be under pressure to explain what happened and relive the trauma for the benefit of others.

Vishwashkumar Ramesh was filmed and interviewed by media in the minutes and hours following the Air India crash. But as he told his brother: “I have no idea how I exited the plane”.

It can be common for survivors themselves to be plagued by unanswerable questions. Did they live for a reason? Why did they live, when so many others died?

These kinds of unaswerable questions reflect our natural inclination to look for meaning in experiences, and to have our life stories make sense.

For some people, sharing a traumatic experience with others who’ve been through it or something similar can be a beneficial part of the recovery process, helping to process emotions and regain some agency and control.

However, this may not always be possible for sole survivors, potentially compounding feelings of guilt and isolation.

Coping with survivor guilt

Survivor guilt can be an expression of grief and loss.

Studies indicate guilt is notably widespread among individuals who have experienced traumatic events, and it is associated with heightened psychopathological symptoms (such as severe anxiety, insomnia or flashbacks) and thoughts of suicide.

Taking time to process the traumatic event can help survivors cope, and seeking support from friends, family and community or faith leaders can help an individual work through difficult feelings.

My friend Gill says the anxiety rises as the anniversary of the disaster approaches each year. Trauma reminders such as anniversaries are different to unexpected trauma triggers, but can still cause distress.

Media attention around collectively experienced dates can also amplify trauma-related distress, contributing to a cycle of media consumption and increased worry about future events.

On the 7th of July each year, Gill holds a private remembrance ritual. This allows her to express her grief and sense of loss, and to honour those who did not survive. These types of rituals can be a valuable tool in processing feelings of grief and guilt, offering a sense of control and meaning and facilitating the expression and acceptance of loss.

But lingering guilt and anxiety – especially when it interferes with day-to-day life – should not be ignored. Ongoing survivor guilt is associated with significantly higher levels of post-traumatic symptoms.

Survivors may need support from psychologists or mental health professionals in the short and long term.

Erin Smith, Associate Professor and Discipline Lead (Paramedicine), La Trobe University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.