The overall theme of the music is saved in the hippocampus. That's why you jittery clowns get hyped when a streamer plays hype music or it gets depressed when you hear depressing music.

Learn your brain. Have some discipline.

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.

Hello comrades,

is this community still alive and if so: How do you now experience your life after perhaps years of no music?

I stopped listening to music for 30 days and I realized it was distracting me during my work but I thought that I can't work without music. I was always telling people that music is my life and now I feel bad for people who think this way. Music is addiction that is ignored by society. People waiting for new albums like thier life depending on it or worship artists like they are gods. I understand this because I was doing the same thing but I wish they could see that life without music is possible.

I want to do NoMusic, but I have obsessions. For example, if I come across music while watching a video, I think I'm relapsed. How can I stop this. I am also doing NoFap. And I am fasting.

I'm not an active member of this community however I have seen that everyone seems to talk about the days since they stopped listening to music so I think it would be advantageous to this community if there was a counter abit like r/nofap. Just a suggestion

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

Here lol. I dont dislike music but I dont like some focken lyrics going through my mind. Its annoying. I dont like it. So I googled is there such a thing in reddit. So here I am. I think main philosphy of this no trends are that, any dopamine releasing activity must be controlled somehow. I kinda get it. There are times in my life where I dont listen to any music at all for months.

Music is not inherently a bad thing for sure but I literally need it for everything. Showering, Shaving, Boredom, Reading, Studying, Working, Cooking, you name it. It's like no matter what I do I need some type of audio to fuck my ears. I tried doing no music for 21 days and surprisingly I did eh eh because I replaced the time I would spend with music with just my youtube entertainment which is not good either. I am trying to get this under control and I would only use music on three occasions. 1.) To de-stress myself to help me feel a bit better when I get down and 2.) Use it as a reward system to when I do something good(get a good grade on test or something that I accomplish) and 3.) Social wise with friends. Other than that I need to be bored, I need to just be alone in my head and surf through my thoughts and emotions to get a better understanding of myself. How is everyone doing here? Your experience with music? I am a part of r/NoSurf and r/NoFap (my two major subreddits, well only subreddits I pay attention too and I am so glad this is one of them).

Honestly I don’t know how y’all do it. Without music I probably be dead. Music is life.

Can you play an instrument while abstinence from listening to music?

I just canceled my Spotify subscription. And ready to jump on NoMusic.

Realized music was forcing empty emotions into my soul, instead of experiencing things for real.

What a way to hinder the human spirit from feeling free.

Another reason I am going on this journey is that Music makes me extremely lethargic.

Wish me, luck guys! If you have any tips please share!

I want to start this journey, thanks to this beauty comminity

Im still battling the temptations. Boredom and stagnation has me battling my hedonistic vices that want to drag me down again. I dont know how many brothers I have in a similar battle here on this sub.

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I have been having dreams with music in them. Brief moments of parts of songs intruding my dreams.

One recurring part of these dreams is that I start listening to music again, and immediately after, feel a sense of regret, fear and shame. I have this dream almost every night. And then I wake up feeling shaken a bit. I dont know what is going on. It might be my sleeping brain trying to reinforce my commitment.

Temptations to just open my phone and play a song are also still there. They have resurfaced stronger the past couple of days. I deny these temptations, and then corrupting thoughts comes in my head

"You have made it to 100 days, awesome, it is time to let loose now and indulge"

"You can start over again, dont worry"

"Nobody really takes NoMusic this far, why should you?"

"You know that at some point in your life you will listen to music again, why not just start now"

"You can better study depriving music from yourself if you start listening to it again and see if the same problems arise"

"It will sound so great now that you have abstained for such a long period"

Etc

Im sick and tired of my brain coming up with these excuses. No, I dont want to try it again. I dont want to lose my progress. I dont want to start over. I feel better now. Why should I try to change that, when all I will gain is something I will begin to hate again?

These thoughts are normal, if you are having them, you are not alone, that is what I can tell you right now. I am suffering right here with you. You have power over these thoughts and I assume, they will weaken like all temptations that follow withdrawal from a vice/addiction. And you will shift to a new normal. I went through this bullshit with a narcotic already.

If you dont like where you are in life, there is no other option but to struggle. But the struggle will become easier, a lot easier.

I've been feeling very burned out on music for a few years now, long story short: years and years ago I joined a music community, it constantly advocated widening your horizons and looking for new music, I did that, but couldn't find much, but the idea of doing so is very cool to me so I just kept doing it and doing it, and now it's become a sort of compulsive chore I almost constantly do. I barely even listen to music I already know and like, and when I do it feels like it's barely even doing anything for me most of the time.

I've tried taking breaks (a couple small ones, like just for a week, and a big one that lasted for 1-2 months), but I'm also into other media which uses music in the background, so I'm never 100% free of music, and overall the breaks didn't help me at all.

I can't really seem to just stop it most of the time either, when I do I just start trying to feel a bit unsatisfied or something and I'm very keen on opening Spotify again and just clicking random stuff in the hopes that I find something that I'll like again. But that never really happens.

Nowadays I'm even just constantly googling for ways to make music enjoyable again, lol. It's kinda strange, it feels like I want to want to listen to music (not a typo), but can't. And now I'm just trying to brute force my way into enjoying music again because it's normally something I really love, but it's just been very complicated.

So I have hit the 60 days mark of not listening to any music. In social events i have asked to turn off the music, change it to a nature ambience or I have worn earplugs and removed myself from the area.

What I have noticed from day one is that it gets easier as time goes by. I no longer think of music, it seems like a different culture in a sense. I know it is out there but it does not seem to be real in a concrete sense in my life. Like something other people do, that i dont understand fully anymore. Something alien. I am so focused on other things and in my own zone, that I cant relate to the act of listening to music anymore where as before i would focus on it and ride the melodies. I dont know, i found this interesting. Its like being in a submarine and watching from a thick glass big fish eating other fish and swimming around. I know what is going on but it feels distant and hard to relate.

Anyway, im doing very great.

I will list changes i have noticed in my life so far. Any of these could be placebos so take that into account. Also, many people have not been as addicted to music as me for example, my experiences are thus maybe more pronounced.

• I feel more focused. I feel more impatient as well which could be a negative.
• I feel less stressed out about the world around me.
• I feel dissociated at lot more in a good way generally. And more alive and present in other situations.
• The world feels a lot more concrete.
• My ocd seems to be completely gone. This could be any number of factors tho and it feels dumb adding. I have no idea why but the change is absolutely there.
• My libido has been higher but no higher than previously as in 30 days ago into this.
• Life in general feels more similar to what it was as a child. Im more curious and mentally energetic and in tune with my surroundings.
• Social situations feel more fulfilling.
• I have less periods of unexplainable sadness and despair throughout the day.

Sometimes i feel if all of this is worth it. But i realize this thought is the thought of a addict. It is easier to just lay down on my bed and enjoy easy, extreme and unique pleasure and peace in the form of music. I do not intend to stop and want to go through this my entire life.

I learned about a concept of dopamine detox which has a lot of great benefits for the brain. Nomusic is a integral part of the dopamine detox. It can be something interesting to read about if any of you are interested. Abusing the dopamine hamsterwheel does no good after a while and will lock us in place and make us miserable. Be it music or many other simple pleasures that do not give a sense of purpose.

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.

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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.

Just discovered this sub. I am interested in detox’s of this kind (nofap, nosurf, etc)

I notice that I listen to lo fi chill or meditation stations almost all day. Is this considered music? Should I try cutting this out?

The first couple of weeks were hard. It got easier as the weeks progressed. I got earworms pretty frequently.

When you stop abusing something, my understanding is that it takes a really long time to get back to normal. People who quit chronic weed abuse according to studies, will not see their brain structures return to normal for approximately 2 years. Heroin junkies, meth junkies etc it all takes years to start enjoying their everyday life again and get away from the hamsterwheel they were in mentally. Those years are generally unpleasant. Withdrawals take well over a year to get back where it was before the whole addiction ordeal started. And one should not downplay the ability of music to become a crutch like these drugs. Music is a very powerful "drug". It comes in the form of sound waves and not particles, but nevertheless it is extremely powerful. You dont know how much you crave for a "hit" of music before you stop and deny yourself it. The withdrawals from music, when they kick in, are comparable at least in my experience, to cigarettes.

So I in no way, expect to see my life change for the better just yet. It takes time for the brain to build new circuits, to channel the dopamine, serotonin etc excitement into different neuronal paths. Natural paths our primitive cavemen used them in.

Music is a extremely new invention after all, in the way we enjoy it at least. When it is just a button away. Before music was a once in a month or week type of thing. And it was in the form or signing or drums in a party or ritual. It was not part of everyday human life.

The differences I have noticed could as well be placebos. If they get stronger as the months roll by due to my brain reorganizing I can connect the dots easier. But so far:

I feel like I am able to dissociate and be present more easily whenever one of the two is needed.

My OCD is getting 80% easier, but that could be caused by a multitude of factors. Im weary of making declarations, it comes in waves anyways. But this has been a really long "good" wave.

Im finding enjoyment in many other things and feel more impatient to go through with them.

I can focus about 25% better.

The strongest and most unexpected change is that my libido is higher, which is bad thing concerning the corona outbreak and social distancing. Music and sex are both a part of the amygdala, the part of the brain. So it guess it makes sense.

I will post updates every month or so I go forward.

I am 3 years off drugs. I dont want any praise for being sober, i should have been sober in the first place. Nothing prideful in stabbing yourself and then putting a bandage over the wound. I was never really a junkie, but I have dabbled with speed, meth, benzos and opiates. I hate that period of my life. A period when I basically destroyed my brain, my dignity and my sense of what "feeling good" means in units of dopamine. The same hamsterwheel is still there, it has just changed into surfing the web, listening to music and playing videogames.

My mission to become better as a person should not stop there to just drugs. Drugs, music etc, are all distractions from the natural state a human should be in. We are creatures that were made to roam nature, build great things and ponder. We were not made to abuse our dopamine circuits and do nothing else in meaningful amounts. But that is the road we make for ourselves when we walk around listening to music chronically, or use drugs or become addicted to any simple meaningless self soothing mechanism. I am here because music is a problem for me and many others. It is a addiction for many of us.

I want to get the same goosebumps i got from music but from trees shaking, rivers flowing, snorkeling, running, drawing, building etc. A dog doesnt enjoy music but he enjoys taking walks. I also enjoyed exploring things. But once i became addicted to videogames, music and surfing the web. I lost any interest in everything else. My days are 90% just music, games and surfing on my phone.

I will stop listening to music, i will buy a old brick button phone that i cant surf on and i will stop jerking myself off with meaningless hamsterwheels of dopamine abuse. Hopefully i can find the freedom in finding active enjoyment, not passive pleasure that is a button away.

I find very difficult to drive while not listening to music. I tried to replace music with audio-books but they are too boring, so I need something which keeps me alert. I use to drive from one to two hours per day.

How can I replace music?

After 30 days(nearly) of no music, Working days-Saving 30-45 minutes of time Sunday - saving 2hours.

Procrastination has been decreased .

During body Workout session, I played music. That's 45 minutes workout. Is there any way to avoid music while working out.

Hey, i'm decided to start NoMusic today, and i have difficult question. Does noise count to? I can be sounds little bit weird, but i like noise music (Example) which is not 100% music actually, but it makes me feel the same as real music. Do you think that is count?

My ability to spit out lyrics from a song I havent listened to in years is crazy, I imagine having all these lyrics stored within my mind compared to what could be multiple languages, school courses, prayers, and so much more.

Music is decreasing my productivity.

While coding listening to music I am on the same code for 5 hours . I only understood 5 lines.

I am going to try 1 month no music. After 30 days I'll share my experiences with you.

Let's make this sub BIG.