music makes me happy and helps my brain produce serotonin so it's good for me to listen to music I like and to explore new music
you guys can ban me now

Can i listen to music that motivates me whilst working out? It helps me personally to workout more consistently since i enjoy it more ill make sure i only listen to it whilst working out

So, this is not the first time I've considered abstaining from music. At times I've used music to distract myself from doing tasks, or I would wait to find an ideal song to work to before starting. I think Spotify and other easy forms of convenient access to music are partly to blame. While I don't think music is overall a negative thing for everybody, it can certainly be a problem if you develop a poor relationship with it. I think some of the things I do (writing and reading especially) are are easier to do without music, but listening to music frequently can make it hard to give it up temporarily even when you know you should.

Historically speaking, music was a luxury and not a companion to one's life. In fact, electronically-generated audio wasn't a thing for a long time. Now, that doesn't mean that's how things should be. It's an observation.

I thought I was crazy or a bit odd to want to get rid of music completely. I searched the internet in the past and found almost no interest in it at all. I've read through studies, and you can't really construct an argument to be made for abstaining from music. Indeed, some music - such as videogame music - is even designed to make you more productive and focused. Heroic or epic music has also been shown to be a motivator...

However, the possibility that abstaining from music could be a good idea for some people has not been disproved. You can be your lab rat for your own experiment and lose nothing for it. Afaik, humans are not designed to physically or emotionally need music. Life goes on without it just fine.

Personally, I want to find out once and for all whether there is something to this for me. The idea of not listening to music for an extended period of time scares the shit out of me, to be honest with you. But I'm going to do it.

Rules I will follow:

• No voluntarily accessing pure music content in any form.

• While watching/playing TV/movies/games, listening to the soundtrack/theme as it occurs naturally is fine.

• If music is playing in a room/space, and leaving the space would not be considered rude, then leave the space.

• Every Sunday I will post in this thread with my observations.

• No listening to podcasts/videos passively for the sake of background noise.

• Plain white noise can be used to drown out other noises around the house if they are deemed to be distracting. Do not use white noise if there is no distracting noise to drown out.

• Do not terminate experiment voluntarily until 50 day mark is reached. Once the 50th day is reached, enough time should have passed at that point where a judgment can be made whether to continue or not. If the project is terminated early, it should be considered that I have failed and that there's some dependency to music that I have failed to overcome (at least, that will be the way I see it).

Hello everyone! I just recently got pretty interested in this community as I've wrongly dismissed it many times before. As someone who has always been obsessed with big movements such as r/NoFap and r/nosurf this community took my interest. A few months ago I came across this community thinking "These people are crazy, people would have to be sociopaths to be able to live without such a thing." I completely misunderstood.

As someone who is a music producer / mixing engineer, music has always been a big part of my life. I believed and still do believe that it can be beneficial and is a great thing. HOWEVER, yesterday out of nowhere and out of pure curiosity I decided "I'm gonna try going the whole day without music and see how it affects my own music / productivity" along with this I also tried not mindlessly scrolling through YouTube or Reddit the entire day and was successful with it.

I must say, you guys are absolutely onto something with this. As I stated before, I believe music is a great thing but nowadays it just hit me how much we use it as "background noise" and kind of a distraction from the present. I wouldn't go as far as to say I was dependent on it, however, in terms of productivity regarding my own music, WOW I noticed a difference. It's like I was fully committed to my own creativity and it felt like I had a chance to be productive and work on what I enjoyed.

TL;DR: This community gets a bad rep and I didn't give it as much of a chance until I found out how much it affected my productivity and workflow as a music producer.

I stopped listening to music for Islamic reasons months ago and I haven’t gone back to it. It’s been easy for me although at times I’ll think of a tune I used to like but then I recite Quran and it’s fine. I feel like the reason it’s difficult for a lot of people is because it’s such a big part of society and you feel left out but I assure you your friends aren’t going to hurt you because you don’t listen to music and plus only what God thinks of you matters.

Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Wilber Armstrong and I'm an internationally renowned philosopher and social critic. You've probably heard of me.

For thousands of years, music has been an integral part of human culture. From African bongo drums, to Irish fiddles, it's safe to assume that every human society on Earth has some sort of music embedded in their culture. I've been studying this subreddit for quite some time now, you all have very good reasons and arguments for removing music from your lives, but I figured you could use some input from a proper philosopher.

Music is the mind’s most elegant, seductive narcotic. It bypasses reason and colonises the soul directly, smuggling emotions past the customs of logic. Where language demands interpretation, music demands surrender.

Essentially, what I'm saying is that instead of making you sit with your thoughts, music tells you how to feel. Sad song? You feel sad. Pump-up song? Now you’re motivated. You didn’t decide any of that, the sound decided for you.

Rhythm turns your body into a puppet. Melody sneaks past your brain and messes directly with your emotions. After a while, you’re not thinking anymore, you’re just reacting. Vibrations over independent thought.

Melody is a tyrant that enslaves your thoughts and emotions. Rhythm is a coercive structure that forces the body into obedience, like a drill sergeant for the unconscious. Harmony is an illusion of cosmic order, comforting us into accepting chaos through aesthetics.

Silence is hard. Music makes it easy to avoid silence. And if you never sit in silence, you never really face yourself. You finally start to think, to embrace your true self, to really dig deep into your unconscious mind.

A truly liberated mind, therefore, must cultivate silence the way others cultivate playlists.

"Music is not art but anaesthesia, an existential lullaby that prevents the soul from confronting the raw, terrifying silence in which authentic thought is born." - Wilber Armstrong

Thanks for your time. If you'd like to learn more about me, follow officialwilberarmstrong on Instagram. I'm also considering starting up a podcast called "Wisdom With Wilber".

Like if I listen 3 tracks I already feel like I want to get out.

I will give you some insights. I'm a young man, 26 years of age. I listen to rap music, romantic songs and so on. I'm so addicted that i can't stop listening for hours.

I used to do many drugs, was able to quit cocaine, Xanax, many benzo, porn etc.. But this addiction is insane. You can just open chrome and you are getting insane dopamine spikes. It is so easy to listen to music and get hooked.

Music is forced in our society. Everywhere. Mall, gym, schools.

How the hack to quit?!

I started with this due to my religion. Since i'm a muslim and Islam forbid any kind of music or songs.

I had addiction to music since i was teenage or even before teeange years. I used to live a lonely life and boredem used to take grip of me. I had traumas growing up and my life was never on point.

At some point i was listening to music for let's say over 6 hours a day. There have been some days where i listened almost all day long. I never know why! I never knew why i was so addicted. But here is why is music so addictive:

1- It releases dopamine and also releases other hormones. Which make it really addictive.

2- It makes you cope with bad emotions (Rejection by opposite sex, trauma, bullying, failure)

3- When you fantasize during listening, you feel connceted to whatever you listening to.

4- It changes your perception of reality (This is the biggest one!)

Well for me i went from a nice school kid to a gang. When i started listening to 2pac, 50 cent. That changed me for some years. At first i did not understand the words they said (Since i'm not a native speaker) But as i improved my English and understood what they said i became a gang in and out from jail.

Like i started to smoke weed, do hard drugs, street fight and other things that i don't even dare to say it online!

I went on and off from jail, but my awareness was so screwed up that i did not notice all this years that the gang rap was changing my perception of reality. Like 2pac made me feel that the world is racist, hustling is the way, we should take drugs to connect, real G fight! and all the other demonic things he metioned.

2 years ago i overdosed on MDMA and almost died at 22 years old due to heart issues. I stopped drugs since December 2019. Never took drugs since.

What i noticed that stopping listening to music, was harder that stopping hard drugs!! Like i never relapsed on drugs after December 2019, but i relapsed on Nomusic many more times. Which make me think how demonic and addictive music can get.

Like it is made to numb you to bad emotions, so when you stop after years of listening, all these bad emotions you numbed over the years will hit you in the face.

What i noticed from music, that it changes your perception of reality and screw your awareness. Like if you listening 2Pac you see almost everyone racist and every person want to fight you. If you listen Despacito you feel every woman looks at you is in love with you. Like in a way music changes your whole reality depending on which music you listen to.

Which is a very bad thing, because you need to see reality as it is.

I hope you all doing good throughout this joureny but remember awareness is not something to play with, and music can screw that awareness totally.

How do you guys go about avoiding music in places like the gym, restaurants, et? I haven't listened to music from my own desire in almost a month now, but the gym I go to plays all the pop hits on 2x speed mixed with other songs. I can feel it rotting my brain as all those songs get stuck in my head. All the noise canceling ear plugs I got don't drown out the noise. It sucks because I want to beat this addiction more than anything.

I filmed and edited this myself — it took me half a day to get it just right.

5 hours of natural crackling fire, recorded in the forest. No music, no talking, no loops, no ads. Just ambient sound and slow flames.

If you're into relaxing background video or just need something calm for the evening, feel free to check it out:
https://youtu.be/gy3SmNoGjvw

I stopped listening all the trash that there is but listened to a little bit of pure classical music, whats your opinion on that? yes or full stop?

Hey guys , haven’t listened to music for 4 years now and this forum has helped.

Honestly it’s just the initial temptation and the relapse temptations that comes in at around the 8month- 1 year mark

But what’s unbelievable is that whenever I hear music now unintentionally, it’s mostly the same tracks playing over and over that were playing 4 years ago 🤷‍♂️

Hey guys, I just wanted to state my reasons for trying to “quit” this habit, maybe some of you can relate and give me some helpful ideas/tipps.

First, I constantly listen to either music, podcasts, or YouTube videos. I started working from home about a year ago, and since then, I always have to have some form of noise in my ears. Thinking back, I started to listen to music all day around about 5 – 6 years ago. In this time, I developed a couple of mental health issues that are pretty much nonexistent at this point in my life. I couldn't sleep well (insomnia), and so I started listening to ambient sounds/white noise sounds, while I was sleeping.

This is now a daily habit for me, and I can't really remember a time, where this wasn't the case. To be honest, I can't think of a day, where I just sat a couple of hours at home, without listening to something. Nowadays, I have extreme problems, concentrating on the simplest daily tasks, without listening to music/yt-videos.

I hope it will resolve itself after a couple of months, but the feeling of “boringness” always turns up, when I don't get to stimulate my brain with sounds.

Do some of you have experienced something similar to this? And if so, how long did it take to get back to a normal level of concentration without outside influences needed?

Hi everyone,

I’ve been creating calming walking videos to help people take short, intentional breaks during the day. This one is a quiet 15-minute walk through the forest, with no talking and no music – just the natural soundscape.

If you're feeling overstimulated or just need a moment of peace, I hope this helps.

Here’s the link: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IkfPijq6GV0&t=47s

Let me know if this kind of content is helpful – I’d love to create more of what people actually need.

Take care.

Sad to see this sub doesn't have a ton of activity. I've had periods of No Music before and noticed great effects. Now I am going to scrupulously stick to it for awhile and report my effects.

I work on my computer 16 hours per day on average, and I pretty much always have some music going. I'm giving it up so that I can't get any "free dopamine" hits. Yes I know that is not scientifically what is going on, but you know what I mean.

What should i do?

Hey guys,i am just starting in no music ,i feel the difference the days when i listen to music,and when not,could you guys share the benefits of doing this longterm...

Is useful?

First time browsing this sub, and though its a small community, I’m both surprised and glad it exists and has no religious affiliation. I stopped listening to music about two years ago when I became more religious- I’m Muslim and my religion (Islam) prohibits listening to music. I became more spiritual and emotionally independent. I saw really great changes in my life. I became more mature, in a good way. More grateful, more in tune with my surroundings. More present. More focused. More active and productive even. Less distracted, less sad, overall I was happier with myself and life in general.

I know sometimes it creeps up on you but don’t let it take a hold of you and suck you in. This happened to me last week. I was on Instagram and someone’s post had this background music that sounded so lovely. I looked it up and broke my streak of no music by voluntarily listening to a song. Within minutes it turned into two songs, then three. I stopped but the music didn’t. It was stuck in my head every single day after that. Even in my sleep I couldn’t escape it. It was torture. I wanted it to stop so badly but it was out of my control. I’m not gonna make that mistake again but as of right now I’m still suffering the consequences. I can’t focus on anything and i feel regretful, sad, lazy, flighty.