For some reason, I decided to take a two month break from music in the last months of 2023. Constant earworms were distracting me, making it hard to concentrate. As someone who is easily overwhelmed, I've found that reducing stimuli is almost always a good idea.
While many often consider the usual suspects of social media, but I've barely ever heard of someone cutting out music. It was a novel idea to me, and naturally I was curious how it would turn out. I tend to enjoy silence, so I thought, it's worth at least a try, for the sake of empirical evidence, I guess.
Interestingly, my mind felt clearer, but also not. I realised that completely eliminating music didn't provide substantial benefits; strategic use of silence did. (However, there's something to be said for the way my brain functions better on 200 decibels of progressive metal.) I also noticed that earworms often come from unintentional listening, it's almost always the annoying ad or the catchy, but not-my-taste music on the car radio. Perhaps without headphones, it's actually more challenging to block out these sources.