Often Listen To Music Ahead Of Sleep, Experts Call It Instead Can Make Sleep Perturbed

JAKARTA - Listening to music ahead of your bedtime can actually interfere with your sleep, said a new study in the journal Psychological Science.

In the study, researcher and professor of psychology and neuroscience at Baylor University, Michael Scullin and his team investigated the relationship between listening to music and sleep.

"Our brains continue to process music even when nothing is played, including when we sleep. Everyone knows listening to music feels good. Teenagers and young adults regularly listen to music ahead of bedtime. The more you listen to music, the more likely you are to get 'earworm'," Scullin said as quoted by Science Daily, Monday.

"EARworms" is a condition when a song or tone is played repeatedly in someone's mind, which eventually makes his sleep disturbed. People who experience earworms regularly at night once or more times per week six times more likely to have a hunting sleep quality than people who rarely experience earworms.

One spotlight in the study is that some instrumental music just tends to cause earworms and interfere with sleep quality rather than music in general.

To get to that finding, the research team conducted surveys and laboratory experiments. The survey involved 209 participants completing a series of surveys on sleep quality, music listening habits, and earworm frequencies, including how often they experience earworms while trying to fall asleep, wake up in the middle of the night, and as soon as they wake up in the morning.

"Before going to bed, we played three popular and catchy songs like 'Shake It Off' Taylor Swift, 'Call Me Maybe' fromtan Rae Jepsen, and 'Don't Stop Believe' from Journey," said Scullin.

They then randomly assign study participants to listen to the original version of those songs or their instrumental version. As a result, those with "earworms" have greater difficulty falling asleep, waking up more at night, and spending more time in the mild sleep stage.

"Almost everyone thinks music improves their sleep quality, but we find those who listen to more sleep music worse," said Scullin.

"What's really surprising is that instrumental music causes worse sleep quality - instrumental music causes about twice as much 'earworms'," he continued.

According to Scullin, there is an event to get rid of 'earworms' by doing cognitive activities, such as doing tasks. Towards bedtime, instead of watching television or playing video games, Scullin advises you to spend 5-10 minutes writing down the list of tasks and putting your thoughts on paper.

A study by Scullin found, taking five minutes to write down tasks the day before bed helps someone throw away alarming thoughts about the future and sleep faster.