As the dust set­tles from the re­cent Gen­er­al Elec­tion, emo­tions that once ran high are grad­u­al­ly eas­ing, and peo­ple are be­gin­ning to re­turn to their nor­mal rou­tines.

Some, es­pe­cial­ly from the Coali­tion of In­ter­ests, are com­ing down from the high of cel­e­bra­tion, while oth­ers re­main cau­tious­ly op­ti­mistic about how their par­ty will set­tle in­to gov­er­nance and per­form.

Those on the los­ing side may be feel­ing a mix of sad­ness, dis­ap­point­ment, and in some cas­es, bit­ter­ness. A few might even find them­selves glee­ful­ly watch­ing for any ear­ly blun­ders by the in­com­ing ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Every­one process­es po­lit­i­cal out­comes dif­fer­ent­ly—rang­ing from pride and hope to frus­tra­tion, dis­ap­point­ment, and even fear. But over time, most peo­ple ad­just.

Yes­ter­day, a 47-year-old gen­tle­man reached out for help with an un­usu­al prob­lem.

He gave me per­mis­sion to re­late his plight.

He shared that about two weeks be­fore the elec­tion, he be­gan hear­ing the cho­rus of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) cam­paign theme—“When UNC wins, every­body wins”—play­ing re­peat­ed­ly in his head. When he awoke one morn­ing, the cho­rus looped for about half an hour and then stopped. He was good dur­ing his work­day, but on his way home, De­von Thomas’ lyrics re­turned and last­ed for a full hour.

As a UNC sup­port­er, he ini­tial­ly brushed it off, jok­ing that it might be some sort of “in­tel­li­gent form of po­lit­i­cal brain­wash­ing.” But what be­gan as a pass­ing thought soon be­came a dai­ly in­tru­sion.

“It’s like a record play­er stuck in my brain,” he de­scribed, “over­whelm­ing my oth­er thoughts.”

He re­alised no one else seemed to be ex­pe­ri­enc­ing the same thing, so he aban­doned the the­o­ry of mass brain­wash­ing.

I ex­plained to him that what he was ex­pe­ri­enc­ing is known as Mu­si­cal Im­agery Rep­e­ti­tion, com­mon­ly re­ferred to as ear­worms or stuck song syn­drome.

This phe­nom­e­non oc­curs when a catchy tune loops re­peat­ed­ly in your mind with­out any in­ten­tion­al ef­fort. For most, it’s harm­less and tem­po­rary. But for about 30% of in­di­vid­u­als, ear­worms can in­ter­fere with con­cen­tra­tion and dai­ly func­tion­ing.

Ear­worms share sim­i­lar­i­ties with ob­ses­sions, which are in­tru­sive and un­want­ed thoughts that can be dis­tress­ing. In con­di­tions like Ob­ses­sive-Com­pul­sive Dis­or­der (OCD), such ob­ses­sions can com­pel in­di­vid­u­als to per­form cer­tain ac­tions (com­pul­sions) to re­lieve anx­i­ety—like re­peat­ed­ly check­ing if a door is locked or ex­ces­sive­ly wash­ing hands.

Though ear­worms are of­ten be­nign, they can some­times be linked to more se­ri­ous con­di­tions such as OCD, psy­chosis, mi­graines, rare forms of epilep­sy, or pali­na­cousis—a con­di­tion where one con­tin­ues to hear a sound long af­ter it stops.

Per­sis­tent ear­worms last­ing over 24 hours may even be as­so­ci­at­ed with neu­ro­log­i­cal is­sues like a stroke or brain tu­mour. In such cas­es, a physi­cian should be con­sult­ed to rule out se­ri­ous con­cerns.

Treat­ment op­tions

A study from West­ern Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­si­ty found that en­gag­ing the brain in mod­er­ate­ly chal­leng­ing tasks—like Su­doku, ana­grams, or read­ing a nov­el—can help re­duce ear­worm episodes by oc­cu­py­ing the brain’s work­ing mem­o­ry.

An­oth­er ef­fec­tive tech­nique is to men­tal­ly or phys­i­cal­ly play the song to com­ple­tion. Ac­cord­ing to the Zeigar­nik Ef­fect, dis­cov­ered in 1927 by psy­chol­o­gist Bluma Zeigar­nik, peo­ple tend to re­mem­ber un­fin­ished tasks bet­ter than com­plet­ed ones. So, when on­ly part of a song is stuck in your head, “clos­ing the loop” by fin­ish­ing it—ei­ther men­tal­ly or by lis­ten­ing to it in full—can help re­lease it.

Af­ter­ward, im­me­di­ate­ly shift your at­ten­tion to a men­tal­ly ab­sorb­ing task—like solv­ing puz­zles, do­ing math in your head or en­gag­ing in work that de­mands fo­cus. This pre­vents the brain from re­turn­ing to the repet­i­tive loop.

Oth­er help­ful tech­niques in­clude:

• ↓Cog­ni­tive Be­hav­ioral Ther­a­py (CBT): CBT teach­es in­di­vid­u­als to re­frame dis­tress­ing thoughts. For ex­am­ple, chang­ing “These ear­worms mean I’m go­ing mad” to “It’s nor­mal and harm­less to have ear­worms.”

• ↓Chew­ing gum: Some per­sons claim this has re­duced their au­di­to­ry im­agery.

• ↓Med­ica­tion: In more se­vere or per­sis­tent cas­es, physi­cians may pre­scribe an­ti­de­pres­sants—es­pe­cial­ly those that al­so treat OCD and anx­i­ety.

De­spite his dis­tress, the gen­tle­man made me smile and shake my head, when he joked, “Doc, imag­ine if this song got stuck in a die-hard PNM sup­port­er’s head.”