Earworms in sleep, body sensations and image, Louis Wain exhibition
Claudia Hammond examines the effect of musical earworms on a good night's sleep, and how awareness of our internal bodily sensations influences feelings about body image.
Many people listen to music for hours every day, and often near bedtime in the hope of a good night鈥檚 sleep. But if you can鈥檛 get the tune out of your head could this be counter-productive? In new research, neuropsychologist Michael Scullin of Baylor University has looked at the rarely studied effect of these so called earworms, offering new insights into the way music is processed in our brain during sleep and effect music has on both sleep quality and quantity.
There鈥檚 growing evidence that signals sent from our internal organs to the brain play a major role in regulating emotions and fending off anxiety and depression. Claudia meets Dr Jane Aspell of Anglia Ruskin University who鈥檚 found that the strength of the connection between our brain and internal organs is linked to how we feel about our appearance 鈥� and could in future act as a biomarker to help identify, or even predict, negative body image and its related conditions.
And Claudia visits a new exhibition examining the work of the hugely popular Edwardian illustrator Louis Wain. His playful, sometimes even psychedelic pictures helped to transform the public's perception of cats As a patient at the Bethlem Psychiatric Hospital he continued to produce many drawings of gleeful and often outlandish creatures, and his body of work demonstrated the therapeutic and restorative effect that closeness with animals can have on a person鈥檚 mental health.
Claudia鈥檚 studio guest is Professor Catherine Loveday of the University of Westminster
Producer: Adrian Washbourne
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All in the Mind is produced in partnership with The Open University
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- Tue 7 Dec 2021 21:00麻豆社 Radio 4
- Wed 8 Dec 2021 15:30麻豆社 Radio 4
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All in the Mind
The show with the latest evidence on psychology, mental health and neuroscience.

