Listening to music around bedtime can disrupt sleep, suggests a study

New research has shown that listening to music around bedtime can disrupt sleep. Michael Scullin, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at Baylor University, researched how sleep patterns are affected by music and especially stuck songs. The results of the study were published in the ‘Psychological Science’ journal. The research was focused on investigating the link between sleep and listening to music, with emphasis on a rarely studied mechanism – known as involuntary musical imagery or “earworms”. “Earworms” is a condition when a tune or song replays again and again in the mind. Normally this happens when a person is awake, but Scullin discovered in his study that it can also happen while asleep. Scullin said, “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 earworm that won’t go away at bedtime. When that happens, chances are your sleep is going to suffer,” Scullin added.