Most people listen to music throughout their day and often near bedtime to wind down. But can that actually cause your sleep to suffer? Sleep researchers at Baylor University studies how music - and particularly songs that get “stuck in your mind” - might affect sleep patterns.

The recent study published in the journal Psychological Science, investigated the relationship between music listening and sleep, focusing on a rarely explored mechanism: involuntary musical imagery, called “ear-worms,” when a song or tune replays over and over in a person’s mind. These commonly happen while awake, but the researchers found that they also can happen while trying to sleep.

Our brains continue to process music even when none is playing, including apparently while we are asleep. Everyone knows that music listening feels good. Adolescents and young adults routinely listen to music near bedtime. But sometimes you can have too much of a good thing. The more you listen to music, the more likely you are to catch an ear-worm that won’t go away at bedtime. When that happens, chances are your sleep is going to suffer.

People who experience these so-called “ear-worms” regularly at night - one or more times per week - are six times as likely to have poor sleep quality compared to people who rarely experience earworms. Surprisingly, the study found that some instrumental music is more likely to lead to earworms and disrupt sleep quality than lyrical music.

The study involved a survey and a laboratory experiment. The survey involved 209 participants who completed a series of surveys on sleep quality, music listening habits and ear-worm frequency, including how often they experienced an earworm while trying to fall asleep, waking up in the middle of the night and immediately upon waking in the morning.

In the experimental study, fifty participants were brought into the Sleep Neuroscience and Cognition Laboratory at Baylor, where the research team attempted to induce earworms to determine how it affected sleep quality. Polysomnography - a comprehensive test which is the gold standard measurement for sleep - was used to record the participants’ brain waves, heart rate, breathing and more while they slept.

Before bedtime, the researchers played three popular and catchy songs - Taylor Swift’s ‘Shake It Off,’ Carly Rae Jepsen’s ‘Call Me Maybe’ and Journey’s ‘Don’t Stop Believin’. Then, they randomly assigned participants to listen to the original versions of those songs or the de-lyricized instrumental versions of the songs. Participants responded whether and when they experienced an earworm.  Then the researchers analyzed whether that impacted their nighttime sleep physiology. People who caught an earworm had greater difficulty falling asleep, more nighttime awakenings, and spent more time in light stages of sleep.”

Additionally, electrical activity in the brain from the experimental study was quantitatively analyzed to examine physiological markers of sleep-dependent memory consolidation. Memory consolidation is the process by which temporary memories are spontaneously reactivated during sleep and trans- formed into a more long-term form.

The researchers thought that people would have earworms at bedtime when they were trying to fall asleep, but they certainly didn’t know that people would report regularly waking up from sleep with an earworm. But they saw that in both the survey and experimental study.

Participants who had a sleep earworm showed more slow oscillations during sleep, a marker of memory reactivation. The increase in slow oscillations was dominant over the region corresponding to the primary auditory cortex which is implicated in earworm processing when people are awake.

This was a real surprise? Almost everyone thinks music improves their sleep, but this research found those who listened to more music slept worse. What was really surprising was that instrumental music led to worse sleep quality - instrumental music leads to about twice as many earworms.

The study found that individuals with the most extreme music listening habits experienced persistent earworms and a decline in sleep quality. These results contradict the idea of music as a tool hypnotic that might help sleep. Today, health organizations commonly recommend listening to quiet music before bed- time; these recommendations largely arise from self-reported studies. The Baylor team has objectively established that the sleeping brain continues to process music for several hours, even after the music stops.

Knowing that earworms negatively affect sleep, the researchers recommend first trying to moderate music listening or taking occasional breaks if bothered by earworms. The timing of music is also important; so, try to avoid it before bed.

If you commonly listening to music while being in bed, then you’ll have an association where being in bed might trigger an earworm even when you’re not listening to music, such as when you’re trying to fall asleep.

Another way to get rid of an earworm is to engage in cognitive activity — fully focusing on a task, problem or activity helps to distract your brain from earworms. Near bedtime, rather than engaging in a demanding activity or something that would disrupt your sleep, like watching TV or playing video games, the researchers suggest spending five to 10 minutes writing out a to-do list and putting your thoughts to paper. 

This has multiple benefits. A previous study by these researchers found that participants who took five minutes to write down upcoming tasks before bed were able to “offload” those worrying thoughts about the future and that led to faster sleep.