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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Gum chewing can banish earworm, study finds

Deborah Netburn Los Angeles Times

A new study suggests that if you want to get an annoying song out of your head, chewing a piece of gum might help.

It turns out that just the mechanical act of moving one’s jaw up and down can reduce the number of times people think about a catchy song, as well as how often they “hear” that song playing in their minds.

To be clear, this method is not a silver bullet. In a series of three experiments, the researchers found that volunteers who were given chewing gum and instructions to “chew vigorously” after hearing particularly “sticky” music, such as the chorus of David Guetta’s “Play Hard” or “Payphone” by Maroon 5, experienced fewer phantom memories of the songs, but not zero.

Still, the researchers say chewing gum is a tactic worth trying if you can’t stop singing a song.

“If you are trying to rid yourself of an unwanted tune, it is less likely to pop up involuntarily when chewing,” said Philip Beaman, associate professor of cognitive science at the University of Reading in England, and the lead author of the report.

Tunes that get stuck in your head are known as earworms.

These musical memories have received a bit of scientific study in the recent past. For instance, research has shown that people with greater cognitive function experience earworms for a shorter duration than their less cognitively capable peers.

In addition, a 2012 study found that when volunteers focused their mental attention on another task after being played a particularly sticky tune, they were able to reduce the incidence of earworms – but only if the task was neither too challenging or too simple.