We’re all earphone-wearing zombies.
We wake up? We listen to music. Walking to class? We have our earphones in. Showering? Speaker on. Even when we are doing nothing, we are still doing something, scrolling and stimulating ourselves, searching for that dopamine.
Do you even remember what it feels like to be bored? To sit and listen to nothing?
This got me thinking, and I decided to go 30 days without listening to music. What I found out was surprising to say the least.
My experience
If you are someone who heavily relies on music to get you through the day, then that is a habit you must break immediately.
I used to be that person. There wasn’t a single part of my day when I didn’t have my headphones on, blasting music. Which is why this 30-day detox period was essential for me. Over this period, I learnt a lot about myself in general.
Firstly, I came to understand that we need to give our brains space to think. More often than not, when we’re listening to music, our inner dialogue gets silenced or covered up. You’re not letting a single thought form, and that clogs your brain more than you realize. When I finally stopped listening to music all day, I noticed that my thoughts became clearer. I started feeling more present and grounded.
You see, when you bombard your brain with constant stimulation, it stops functioning the way it’s meant to. It doesn’t get the chance to process memories, emotions, or ideas. That’s why sometimes, when you’re showering, you get “shower thoughts.” Those random reflections help your brain process things. But when you have music blasting in your ears 24/7, you’re not giving your mind that space or time to think.
To put it simply: good ideas come from thoughts. Thoughts can be suppressed by distractions. And music (when it’s constant) becomes a distraction.
Secondly, I realized that music exemplifies certain emotions. Listening to music isn’t inherently bad on its own, but the reason why you listen matters. When you’re sad or hurting and you listen to songs that match that mood, it doesn’t heal you; it amplifies it. It drags you deeper into that emotion and makes it harder to climb out.
Think about it… When you’re heartbroken, you listen to heartbreak songs; when you’re anxious, you find music to drown out your emotions. We use music to regulate our emotions, but more often than not, we use it to avoid emotion. Instead of sitting with what we feel, we outsource our emotions to a playlist.
What I realized during my detox was that silence forces you to actually feel things. It’s uncomfortable, yes, but it’s real. When you don’t use music as a buffer, you start understanding your emotions instead of escaping them. That’s when you begin to process and heal.
Lastly, I came across a quote that said: “Addiction is the gradual narrowing of things that bring you pleasure.” That hit hard because that’s what music used to do to me. I felt happy only when I was doing things while listening to music. But when I broke that reliance, my thoughts became clearer, and I was more present. Taking a walk without headphones (which would have felt unbearable before) became something genuinely enjoyable.
Overall, I saw that music (when listened to in excess) takes you away from the present. Try not to listen to music for an entire day. You’ll be surprised by how present and grounded you feel.
Our addiction to stimulation
Humans cannot multitask! So it is technically incorrect when you say you are multitasking. What we call multitasking is actually task-switching: our brain rapidly shifting attention from one thing to another. Every time we do that, our focus weakens, our thinking slows, and our ability to be present fades. Yet, despite that, we’ve built our entire lifestyle around overstimulation. Listening to music while studying, scrolling while eating, texting while walking. We constantly crave something to fill the silence because silence feels unnatural to us now. Our minds are so addicted to stimulation, to always doing, listening, consuming. What we fail to see is that the more we divide our attention, the less of it we actually have.
The science behind it
At its core, our obsession with constant music is tied to dopamine (the brain’s “feel-good” chemical). Every time you listen to a song you enjoy, your brain releases dopamine, rewarding you with a burst of pleasure. The problem begins when we start chasing that feeling constantly. This leads to what scientists call dopamine stacking. This is when you layer multiple sources of stimulation at once, like listening to music while scrolling through your phone or texting a friend. Over time, your brain becomes addicted to a constant high, making silence and stillness feel unbearable.
Not only that, but you also start to build a tolerance to music. This phenomenon is known as habituation. It is when constant exposure to a stimulus dulls your emotional response to it. The more you listen, the less your brain reacts. You stop appreciating the artistry of music, and music is just reduced to background noise instead of an experience.
Your Focus Creates Your Reality
What you feed your mind shapes the way you see the world. Every sound, word, or frequency you expose yourself to become a part of your internal programming. In that sense, music can be seen as a form of mental conditioning. The lyrics you repeat and the frequencies that surround you influence the state of your mind. That’s why certain types of music make you feel confident, while others pull you into sadness or nostalgia. Music has the power to manipulate emotion. It can elevate your mindset, inspire action, or trap you in an emotional loop depending on what you choose to listen to. Your focus creates your reality, and the music you feed your mind plays a powerful role in shaping that reality.
everything is good in moderation
I am not writing this article to tell you to stop listening to music altogether. Music is one element that adds color to our lives. What I am trying to convey is that music is a tool, and it is up to you to wield it wisely. Always remember, everything is good in moderation.
Don’t drown your brain in music so much that it doesn’t give you space to think or process your thoughts and emotions. Too much music throughout the day makes your mind consequently numb to the stimulation. However, if you limit your listening time, it adds more value to the time when you do listen to music. It certainly hits harder.
Now that I am more mindful of this, every time I listen to music, it’s an experience. Music was meant to be tasted and savored. Music is an emotion. Music is art. Music is something special to all of us. So don’t let something so beautiful and incredible be reduced to background noise in your life.
