Earworm Eraser Saves Your Sanity This Christmas Season
The holidays are here, and along with mistletoe and chestnuts comes another seasonal favorite: earworms. You know, those songs—like Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You”—that loop endlessly in your head until you’re questioning your sanity.
Don’t panic. There’s a solution.
Enter the Earworm Eraser, a 40-second audio track designed to kick those pesky tunes out of your brain. According to a 2011 study in Psychology of Music, 90% of us deal with earworms weekly. So, if your brain is a broken jukebox, you’re not alone.
Kelly Jakubowski, a music psychology expert at Durham University, told NPR the key to silencing earworms is simple: listen to something else. But here’s the catch—if that something else is catchy, you’ll just swap one earworm for another.
The Earworm Eraser avoids that trap by being deliberately un-catchy.
Jakubowski’s research shows songs with danceable beats and predictable melodies often stick. The Earworm Eraser avoids those. Instead, it’s a chaotic mix of tempos, time signatures, and musical genres. One moment it’s classical; the next, it’s electronica. It’s like your Spotify playlist is having an identity crisis.
Since its debut, the Earworm Eraser has racked up over 100,000 YouTube hits. Most users swear by it. Lauren Ettlinger, a tech worker from Philly, calls it a lifesaver. After a visit with her niece, who played “Baby Shark” on loop, Ettlinger turned to the Eraser in desperation.
“Taylor Swift couldn’t fix it,” she told NPR. “But the Earworm Eraser drowned out the ‘doo doo doo’ and left me sane again.”
As Ettinger gears up for another holiday with her niece, she’s keeping the Earworm Eraser ready—just in case.
So, if your brain is stuck on repeat, give the Earworm Eraser a try. It might be the quietest gift you get this year.
