In Her Campus’s series The College Try, our writers test out viral wellness, dating, fashion, productivity, and pop culture trends firsthand. This time, Sophie Blake gives brain flossing the ol’ college try.
I sat down this morning, coffee in hand, ready to write, but my mind was completely blank. It’s not often that I hit a creative wall, but when I do, it’s bad. My mind was all over the place, and there really wasn’t anything I could do but just take a few minutes to scroll, clear my head, and reset. And then, it hit me: brain flossing. A wellness trend that’s been all over my FYP has, once again, come in handy. So, naturally, I decided to give it a try in hopes of curing my writer’s block.
Brain flossing is a wellness trend often experienced through “listening to music that alternates between the left and right ear or 8D audio, which creates the sensation of the sound moving around your head,” psychotherapist Ciara Bogdanovic says. Think of it as literally flossing your brain — but instead of cleaning the gunk from your teeth, the idea is to clear the mental clutter in your brain.
But it gets more interesting: “These processes mimic a therapy technique known as bilateral stimulation, which is a primary component of EMDR,” Bogdanovic says. “In EMDR, bilateral stimulation is used to help the brain process traumatic memories that have become stuck, allowing people to integrate these experiences and relate to them in a healthier way.”
While brain flossing and EMDR aren’t quite the same thing, the alternating sounds can help people feel less stuck in their thoughts and emotions, she says. “It can create a sense of mental movement or relief,” Bogdanovic adds.
So, when it comes to writer’s block, brain flossing can actually come in clutch. Because writer’s block happens when you’re stuck in the same thought patterns, brain flossing can “interrupt these patterns and create space for new perspectives,” Bogdanovic says.
But it can help in other ways, too: by taking a moment to relax and focus on the music, it can help reset the brain, reduce stress, and create a mental state that’s focused on creativity, according to Bogdanovic.
Obviously, my curiosity got the best of me. I mean, my writer’s block wasn’t going to fix itself.
So, I tried brain flossing.
I have to admit I’ve never been a white noise, brown noise, or any color noise type of girl. When I’m writing, I’m listening to The Weeknd, Lana Del Ray, or Taylor Swift — rarely anything in between. So I was a little skeptical to give this a try.
It didn’t take long before I realized you can listen to, really, anything you want. While you have your stereotypical brain flossing music that consists of sound waves, a lot of brain flossing is real music that’s just been engineered to shift back and forth between your ears. Sure, it might not sound exactly like your favorite song — but it sure is damn close.
So, obviously, I had to find a song by The Weeknd to listen to. First, I listened to a brain-flossing version of his “Blinding Lights”, and it was… interesting. It didn’t really feel like music was going from one ear to another; it felt more like a sweeping sensation across my whole head. It wasn’t uncomfortable, but certainly not the same as simply listening to the song itself.
I didn’t want to rely on one song. If I were going to cure my writer’s block, I wanted to listen to at least a few. Next, I listened to a brain-flossing version of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” (had to stay on Halloween theme). Much like “Blinding Lights”, it was something I felt through my whole head.
At this point, I didn’t feel any more creatively inspired than before. But I wasn’t going to give up. The last song I listened to was a brain-flossing version of Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game”, and it was a lot more upbeat than I expected. But honestly? Quite effective.
After stopping the music, I opened my laptop back up and tried writing again. It wasn’t an immediate feeling of newfound creativity — but I got there eventually. I found that my head was clearer, and ideas were flowing to me more naturally than before. Nothing was forced — and that’s, IMO, the best way to write.
Now, I can’t say for sure whether the brain flossing had anything to do with my writer’s block coming to an end, but I do think it played an important part. Whether it was the music itself or the few moments I took to give my brain a second to wake up, brain flossing seemed to have worked.
While this was only my first time trying brain flossing, it is certainly something I’d try again when I’m experiencing writer’s block — and even on a regular day. Sometimes you just need a second to slow down and reset, and brain flossing offers the perfect opportunity to do that.
