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Although it seems maddeningly impossible, new research suggests we really can get rid of that nagging tune that endlessly plays over and over again in our head.  

For those of you who had Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe” in your head for most of 2012, or haven’t been able to stop your brain from playing “Master of the House” since seeing “Les Miserables” over the holidays, you’ll want to take note.

The trick is this: We can banish earworms from our brains by engaging in an absorbing task – something that is not too easy, but not too difficult, either.

Known as earworms, those songs that just won’t go away are a common type of intrusive thought, according to Ira Hyman, professor of psychology at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Wash. Hyman and his research team conducted a series of experiments focused on learning more about why the earworm phenomenon and other intrusive thoughts are so persistent as well as what types of cognitive activities may help interrupt them.  Their research is published in the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology. 

“We first did a general survey and asked people about their most recent experience with an intrusive song and found that the vast majority actually liked the songs that were in their heads,” Hyman told NBCNews.com.  The most repetitive songs were those that were well liked or popular at the time of the survey. 

The initial survey included about 300 participants of various age groups.  The other four studies included several hundred undergraduate college students. 

Hyman isn’t sure yet exactly what cognitive mechanism causes certain songs to stick, but he also found that once an earworm finds a home in the brain, it just seems to stay there. 

“After a while, it feels like it’s gone from conscious awareness, but suddenly, it’s back in there again.  It’s almost waiting in the wings of consciousness for the stage in your mind to empty,” Hyman explained. 

Earworms are more likely to wriggle in when people are bored or engaged in activities that are either somewhat mindless or very complicated.

“If you’re doing something that’s really automatic, such as walking or riding a bike, and there’s a lot of room for a song to play in your head, it will probably come back,” he said.

At the other extreme, performing a complex task that may be too difficult to complete may also leave more room for the earworm to wiggle its way in.

Study subjects attempted puzzles of varying complexity, and those who worked on more difficult ones reported experiencing the earworm phenomenon more frequently. 

“You want to find the point at which you’re pretty engaged in a task so there’s not much room or consciousness for music to be playing in your head,” Hyman suggested.  

The earworm-busting activity would be different for different people, Hyman explains. "For some people, it may be to read a book, or play a video game, or getting engaged in sports," he says. "It has to be something that fully engages the consciousness for that person."

But here's the bad news: “There’s a good chance it will disappear, but it may come back later,” he says. And if it does, Hyman has another suggestion.

“Listen to something else,” he said.

Related:

• Why you can't get 'Call Me Maybe' out of your head
• 4 reasons a song gets stuck in your head

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After all the champagne, beer, spirits or (and?) wine on New Year’s Eve, some of us will wake up with a persistent pounding in our heads, mouths as dry as deserts and overwhelming nausea -- all the telltale signs of a hangover.

What can make this terrible feeling go away? “The only thing that actually helps is not drinking,” says Dr. Glen Aukerman, medical director of the Ohio State University Center for Integrated Medicine, using logic to wreck everyone’s festive mood. He notes that taking calcium, magnesium and a complete B supplement and drinking lots of water helps with hangover symptoms.

While the experts agree -- and, really, most of us know -- that abstaining from alcohol or drinking less is the only surefire way to prevent a hangover, if you must imbibe tonight, here are a few foods people often use to lessen the pains the day after drinking. 

Pass the asparagus: In 2009, researchers in South Korea published a paper saying that eating asparagus before drinking prevents those icky hangover feelings.

“There is a little tidbit of truth to it … not that I would discourage people from eating asparagus,” explains Leslie Bonci, director of sports nutrition at UPMC Center for Sports Medicine in Pittsburgh, adding that bingeing on asparagus the night before drinking will do nothing for a headache the next day.

But asparagus might protect the body from booze. The amino acids in asparagus improve how quickly human cells break down alcohol, preventing some long term damage from toxic byproducts of alcohol such as hydrogen peroxide.

“Whether other or not these effects will actually make a human feel any better remains to be seen,” writes Dr. Rachel Vreeman, co-author of “Don’t Swallow Your Gum! Myths, Half-Truths, and Outright Lies about Your Body and Health,” in an email. “It is not clear that these amino acids, or amino acids from other good sources like eggs, will actually help a person with a hangover feel any better.”  

Guzzling pickle juice: Russians and Eastern Europeans swear that a swig of pickle juice makes them feel better after a night of heavy drinking. 

If people can get the pickle juice down, says Bonci, it acts like a sports drink, restoring the electrolytes that the dehydrating alcohol has depleted. Much of the pain of a hangover occurs because the body’s dehydrated of water and nutrients.  

“Of course, if you actually manage to get it down, you might think of yourself as being ‘cured’ of your hangover,” jokes Vreeman, also an assistant professor of pediatrics at Indiana University School of Medicine.

Aside from its taste, pickle juice has another disadvantage.

“Pickle juice, that’s got a lot of salt in it; I’d probably stay away from that,” says Dr. Daniel Hall Flavin, MD, an addiction psychiatry consultant at the Mayo Clinic. “If there is any benefit [it] is replacing the electrolytes.” 

The experts say that a sports drink such as Gatorade is a better panacea to dehydration (and tastes better).

Reach for the prickly pear: Before some people begin drinking, they turn to a houseplant. Well, not exactly. Some believe that the cactus, the prickly pear, will cure what ails them.

Prickly pear is chockfull of potassium, explains Bonci, and an extra boost of that nutrient might make a hangover sufferer feel more human. Prickly pear extract can be added to drinks. People can also purchase prickly pear jellies and candies as well as the pulp (it is easier to find it in say the Southwest, but co-ops and speciality stores carry the extract.) Specifically, people should eat the species Opuntia ficus-indica, which is used most often for foods. (While it might seem obvious, we'd like to remind you to remove the spines before eating prickly pear.)

“[A] study found that the prickly pear improved some individual symptoms,” says Vreeman. Taken before drinking, prickly pear lessens dry mouth and nausea. But Vreeman adds that in the randomized, controlled test, the group that received the prickly pear and the placebo group both scored their hangovers the same—people still feel yucky.

Prickly pear works because it helps regulate inflammation. Alcohol changes the amount of inflammatory chemicals, prostaglandins and cytokines, in the body and this imbalance might cause hangovers. Prickly pear controls these fluctuations and the body experiences less turmoil.  

“Whether that improves how humans actually feel remains to be seen,” says Vreeman.

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Splash News

January Jones with her son, Xander. The 'Mad Men' actress swears by placenta pills for energy. Besides the 'eww' factor, there's no benefit, doctors say.

Pop guru Simon Cowell carries pocket-sized inhalable oxygen shots, America's "Mad Men" actress January Jones favors dried placenta pills, and British soap star Patsy Palmer rubs coffee granules into her skin.

Celebrities rarely shy away from public peddling of dubious ideas about health and science, and 2012 was no exception.

In its annual list of the year's worst abuses against science, the Sense About Science (SAS) campaign also named former U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney for spreading misinformation about windows on planes, and Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps for false justifications for peeing in the pool.

To help set the record straight, SAS, a charity dedicated to helping people make sense of science and evidence, invited qualified scientists to respond to some of the wilder pseudo-scientific claims put about by the rich and famous.

It suggested Romney, who wondered aloud in September why aircraft crews don't just open the windows when there's a fire on board, should listen to aeronautical engineer Jakob Whitfield:

"Unfortunately, Mitt, opening a window at height wouldn't do much good," the scientist said. "In fact, if you could open a window whilst in flight, the air would rush out...because air moves from the high pressure cabin to the lower pressure outside, probably causing further injury and damage."

January Jones's dried placenta pills, which the actress admitted in March she consumed after giving birth, win no favor with Catherine Collins, principal dietician at St George's Hospital in London.

"Nutritionally, there's nothing to be gained from eating your placenta - raw, cooked, or dried," Collins said. "Apart from iron, which can be easily found in other dietary choices or supplements, your placenta will provide toxins and other unsavory substances it had successfully prevented from reaching your baby in utero."

Gary Moss, a pharmaceutical scientist, patiently points out to Palmer that while caffeine may have an effect on cellulite, rubbing coffee granules into the skin is unlikely to work, since the caffeine can't escape the granules to penetrate the skin.

Phelps's claim that it's fine to pee in the pool because "chlorine kills it" is put straight by biochemist Stuart Jones, who reminds him that "urine is essentially sterile so there isn't actually anything to kill in the first place".

And for Cowell, Kay Mitchell a scientist at the Centre for Altitude Space and Extreme Environment Medicine warns that very high levels of oxygen can in fact be toxic - particularly in the lungs, where oxygen levels are highest.

"Celebrity comments travel far and fast, so it's important that they talk sense," said Sense About Science's managing director Tracey Brown. "The implausible and frankly dangerous claims about how to avoid cancer, improve skin or lose weight are becoming ever more ridiculous. And unfortunately they have a much higher profile than the research and evidence."

To encourage more vigilance among celebrity pseudo-scientists in the future, SAS provided a checklist of "misleading science claims" it suggests should be avoided:

• "Immune boosting" - you can't and you don't need to
• "Detox" - your liver does this
• "Superfood" - there is no such thing, just foods that are high in some nutrients
• "Oxygenating" - your lungs do this
• "Cleansing" - you shouldn't be trying to cleanse anything other than your skin or hair.

More from The Body Odd:

You can literally throw your bad thoughts away

What is an itch, anyway? Another clue found

Gossip protects us from the slackers in the group

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Burke/triolo Productions / PictureArts

Overwhelmed by negative thoughts? Write them down and toss them in the garbage. You'll feel better.

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More from The Body Odd:

• And here's why you are now incredibly itchy
• Happy holidays! Here is a rash shaped like a Christmas tree
• Itchiness is contagious, just like yawning

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Gossip usually gets a bad rap, but a new study suggests it can do some good: It might discourage some of us from slacking off. 

The study reveals that the good form of gossip can protect a group from individuals looking for a free ride, which can be a good thing for co-workers on a project team, students in a study group, or parents serving on a school committee, to name a few.

We tend to think of gossip as the nasty rumors spread behind someone's back or what busybodies blabber about for lack of anything better to say. But it can be more than that, says study author Bianca Beersma, PhD, an associate professor in the department of work and organizational psychology at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. "Gossip is not merely a trivial activity, nor is it always detrimental to group functioning," says Beersma says. "It can serve neutral and even positive functions for groups."

In one experiment, published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 221 college students completed a questionnaire rating people's main motives for gossiping.

They found that exchanging and validating information was the most important reason to instigate gossip. Students also rated its negative influence as the least important reason to gossip, and its social enjoyment and group protection ranked second and third, respectively.

As a result, Beersma suggests that malicious gossip may be a relatively infrequent type, but its consequences may be disproportionately large -- such as when gossip is part of bullying someone for a long period of time. 

In another experiment, the same college students read a situation describing an employee who was not doing their fair share at work. Study participants were then told to imagine they ran into a friend or a co-worker at a bus stop after leaving their job and asked whether they would gossip about the annoying slacker at work.

Researchers found people were more likely to gossip about a co-worker who was slacking off to another colleague, and the main reason was to protect other group members from this norm-violating behavior. 

For example, it's always tempting for some individuals to slack off in a group project, contribute little, and let others do the work. But the study found that one of the motives to gossip was to warn other group members about someone who was looking for a free ride who could hurt the rest of the group's overall performance. 

"Our study clearly shows that there is more to gossip than just the malicious aspect," says Beersma. "We are in need of a more nuanced view of gossip to enable organizations to benefit from its positive aspects."

But when it comes to workplace gossip, Beersma says the biggest challenge for an organization and its employees is to distinguish between positive, group-protecting gossip and the malicious, self-interested kind. 

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Summit Medical Group

In this image provided by Summit Medical Group, an unidentified man shows off his case of pityriasis rosea, which often appears in the shape of a Christmas tree.

It may start with a sore throat. After that, there's the aptly-named "herald" patch, a round or oval pink patch that usually shows up on the chest or abdomen, then fades. Days or weeks later, the pink dots start. Sometimes they're on the front, sometimes the back.

And what's really weird is their pattern.

"It was like a tattoo that covered my back in the shape of a Christmas tree," says Mark Jared Zufelt, a 41-year-old Seattle writer/director/photographer, who came down with the rash in his 20s. "It fanned out from the top and worked its way down. It was gross." Zufelt doesn't have a photo of his strange skin condition, but Summit Medical Group has a great example of what the condition, officially called pityriasis rosea, looks like.  

Despite its name, the Christmas tree rash has nothing to do with Christmas trees or even the holiday season. In fact, it usually shows up in the spring and fall, according to Dr. Kenneth Beer, a Palm Beach, Fla., dermatologist.

"Nobody really knows why people get it but a lot of the time, it follows a sore throat or upper respiratory tract infection," he says. Doctors believe the condition is caused by a virus, and it's not thought to be contagious. 

Itchy and scaly (each pink dot is covered with a thin white scale, like cigarette paper), the rash is fairly common and sometimes confused with ringworm, eczema or psoriasis. Beer says he sees about a dozen cases of Christmas tree rash a year, usually in people under the age of 40.

Ironically, his teenage son came down with the worst case he's ever seen.

Dermatlas at Johns Hopkins Medicine

This image provided by Dermatlas at Johns Hopkins Medicine, shows another view of pityriasis rosea.

"He was bright red and had it everywhere -- his chest, abdomen, back, arms, legs," says Beer. "He was miserable."

Treatment for the rash usually involves topical steroids and antibiotics.

"We'll put some people on oral medications but we usually just do topicals," he says. "But the other thing that helps is a little bit of sun or ultraviolet light, UVB. People can go outside and get 15-20 minutes of sun a day or go to their dermatologist's office and use their light boxes." Tanning beds, which primarily give off UVA rays, won't help, he says.

The rash, which Beer terms "uncomfortable but not horrible" usually goes away within two to four weeks with treatment. In addition to topical steroids, oatmeal baths can help alleviate the itching.

While pityriasis rosea has no connection to actual Christmas trees, holiday greenery isn't completely blameless when it comes to allergic reactions.

In 2007, a British teacher named Nicola Coleman made headlines when she broke out in red hives shortly after putting up a Norway spruce. Researchers have also found that some people are allergic to the mold found in pine or fir trees. They've dubbed this allergy -- which triggers a runny nose, sneezing and asthma attacks -- Christmas tree syndrome.

"You can also have contact dermatitis allergies to the sap in some of the trees," says Beer. "But that's totally different."

Zufelt says he doesn't remember what time of year it was when he broke out with his Christmas tree rash, but remembers that it definitely wasn't December.

"I know it wasn't Christmas because that would have been too serendipitous," he says. "It would have made the Christmas card had that been the case."

Related:

Do you hear what I hear? Your brain on Christmas music

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When looking for love, dating books and well-meaning friends may advise guys and gals to play hard-to-get. And now pretending not to be interested in a potential partner to increase your desirability is gaining some scientific support:  A new study suggests that if you want a serious relationship, it pays for men and women to be hard-to-get.

According to the research, one potential benefit of playing hard-to-get is attracting a higher-quality mate with the greatest level of commitment for a long-term relationship. 

In the study, published in the European Journal of Personality, psychology researchers ran four different experiments to determine how and why people play hard-to-get and if or when it works in attracting a mate.

In one test, they identified the ways people play hard-to-get and how often men and women use them. From a list of 58 strategies, nearly 500 American college students rated 'acting confident' and 'talking to others' as the two most commonly used methods of playing hard-to-get.

But there were slight differences in strategies between the sexes. When gals acted coy they tended 'not to call,' 'not to talk a lot,' and 'to stay busy,' more than guys did.

When guys wanted to appear less available, they used only three methods more than gals did including 'acting snooty or rude,' 'saying all the right things but not calling,' and 'treating others like s#@t.'

Not surprisingly to anyone who's been single, researchers found that women played hard-to-get more often than men did.

"Women derive more benefit from playing hard-to-get because it allows them to test men out and increase the demand men place on them," says study author Peter Jonason, PhD, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Western Sydney in Australia. 

"Because women have greater value in the biological mating market, they can afford to play hard-to-get more than men can," he explains. "Men who are too hard-to-get may miss out on a mating opportunity." 

A second experiment of nearly 300 U.S. college students identified the top two reasons for playing hard-to-get were to increase demand (to make a romantic partner want someone more) and to test a partner's willingness to commit (to gauge interest and keep up a mate's pursuit).

The study also found that for a committed romantic relationship, women preferred a man who was medium in availability (not too easy or too hard-to-get) while guys preferred a gal with low availability (harder to get).

For a hookup, the results suggest a different story: If you're a women looking for casual sex, it does not pay to be hard to get. But if you're a man looking for a casual fling, it pays to be impossible to get, says Jonason. 

And when it came to spending money and time on a potential romantic partner, 425 college students revealed that the less available a person is, the more a prospective mate is willing to invest time and money in him or her.

The researchers admit that since their study only looked at college students their results may not apply to other age groups of single people. But their findings indicate some of the games people play when dating.

"We all would want honesty in dating but this is never going to happen," says Jonason. "We are not overtly lying, but we're always trying to marry up."

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Stress and a lack of sleep can cause a lack of melanin, causing that haggard, jaundiced look.

It’s almost midnight and you’re stuck in a tangle of wrapping paper and ribbon while cookies burn in the oven. You're exhausted but your holiday to-do list keeps you up and working.

After a few hours of fitful sleep, you stumble into the bathroom and gaze in the mirror. Your skin is sallow and the bags under your eyes make you look as if you went five rounds with a prizefighter.

What is it about lack of sleep and stress that makes us look so ragged?

“Stress causes a drop in the skin’s ability to protect itself,” explains Dr. Amit Sood, associate professor of medicine and chair of the Mind Body Initiative at Mayo Clinic. “All of this happens with chronic stress -- if you do not have healthy collagen in your skin, you would have baggy sort of skin under your eyes.”

And stress can also lead to less melanin, causing that jaundiced, haggard look. Melanin pigments the skin, giving humans their complexion.

According to Sood, author of Train Your Brain, Engage Your Heart, Transform Your Life: A Course in Attention and Interpretation Therapy, we're at war with ourselves whenever we're stressed.

“You lose efficiency; your sleep is not as restful; you eat more, you gain weight; your relationships are affected,” he says.

As a result, our faces look, well, uglier. And puffier. But where does the puff come from?

Dark circles and bags appear when the body is unable to rejuvenate at night due to lack of sleep, says anesthesiologist, internist and bestselling author Dr. Michael Roizen, who compares puffy eyes to swollen ankles.

As we go through the day, we sometimes accumulate water in our bodies instead of passing it (as urine). The excessive water pools beneath the eyes, giving those telltale dark, puffy circles. If we don’t get enough sleep -- on our backs or sides -- our skin does not have the chance to refresh itself and tighten up.

"Normally when you sleep, you distribute water in the body," says Roizen, chair of the Wellness Institute at the Cleveland Clinic. Not sleeping causes us to accumulate water under our eyes, giving us that extra "baggage".

Roizen agrees with Sood that experiencing a lot of stress leads to lack of sleep -- and this can become a dangerous cycle. But stress does more than make people look weird.   

“What you get from stress is the wrinkles of aging,” says Roizen, who co-authored several bestsellers with Dr. Mehmet Oz, including YOU: Being Beautiful: The Owner’s Manual to Inner and Outer Beauty. “Stress causes you to age.”

Roizen also notes that stress not only causes wrinkles on the face but wrinkles in your arteries, as well, which can cause serious problems at an earlier age.

And the aging effect doesn't stop there.

“Your cells are biologically 10 to 15 years older … if you are chronically stressed," says Sood. "If you are 45, the cells signal as if they are 60 years old."

Both believe that reducing stress can enhance physical appearance and improve health.

“Stress and joy are two sides of the same coin,” advises Sood. “Engage with life and find meaning in it.” 

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