Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / Q&A - Using Music to Quieten Thoughts

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Q&A - Using Music to Quieten Thoughts · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

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  Speaker 1: I've said this many times on the podcast. I've written
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  Speaker 1: about it in my books. Avoidance reinforces anxiety. When our
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  Speaker 1: children are having a hard time and they avoid the
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  Speaker 1: thing that's causing them difficulty, it can reinforce the anxiety
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  Speaker 1: by making them feel better because they avoided it, hence
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  Speaker 1: reinforcing the avoidance and making everything feel better. It's a
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  Speaker 1: vicious circle when we want our children to be strong
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  Speaker 1: and resilient but they're struggling. But sometimes avoidance is exactly
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  Speaker 1: what you need because there's a certain threshold, and once
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  Speaker 1: something causes a certain level of anxiety, we need to
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  Speaker 1: go a lot more gently and find otherwise. In fact,
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  Speaker 1: sometimes it's completely reasonable to avoid things altogether. For example,
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  Speaker 1: I'm kind of afraid of sharks. I have higher levels
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  Speaker 1: of anxiety if there's a shark in the water, I
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  Speaker 1: don't want to surf anymore. Avoidance reinforces the anxiety, but
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  Speaker 1: that's a good thing because it's keeping me safe. Our
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  Speaker 1: children sometimes feel like they are swimming with metaphorical sharks.
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  Speaker 1: They want to get out of the water, but we
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  Speaker 1: know that they're not sharks. They're friendly dolphins, and it's
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  Speaker 1: our job to keep them swimming. Today on the Happy
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Families podcast, we answer a tricky question from a mum
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  Speaker 1: dealing with exactly that challenge.
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  Speaker 2: Stay with us today what to do when.
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  Speaker 1: Your child has anxiety and will not confront the demons
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  Speaker 1: that are scaring them. Hello and welcome to the Happy
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  Speaker 1: Famili's podcast, Real Parenting Solutions every day. It's Australia's most
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  Speaker 1: downloaded parenting podcast. We are Justin and Kylie Colson and
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: if you're new to the pod, welcome. We're so glad
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  Speaker 1: to have you along. We continue to see new people
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: coming on board and having a listen. We hope that
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  Speaker 1: you'll stay. We hope that it makes your family happier.
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  Speaker 1: Every Tuesday on the podcast, we answer your tricky questions
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  Speaker 1: about family and relationships and wellbeing and screens and mental
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  Speaker 1: health and discipline and all that stuff. If you would
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  Speaker 1: like to submit a tricky question, we've got a really
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  Speaker 1: simple system at Happy Families dot com dot a. You
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  Speaker 1: You just scroll down to where it says podcasts, click
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  Speaker 1: the record button.
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  Speaker 2: And stay talking.
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  Speaker 3: Like Samantha from Brisbane, my daughter said she doesn't like
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  Speaker 3: being alone with her thoughts at night, so she plays
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  Speaker 3: music to drown them out. How do I help her
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  Speaker 3: learn how to deal with or direct her thoughts.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, I really appreciate this question, Samantha from Brisbane. And
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  Speaker 1: the reason for it is because avoidance is one of
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  Speaker 1: those things where we feel uncomfortable and we just rather
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  Speaker 1: not confront the scary dog that's barking at us. We
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  Speaker 1: don't want to go up and put her hand up
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  Speaker 1: there and let it sniff our hand and become familiar
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  Speaker 1: with it, get closer. There is a lot of research
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  Speaker 1: that shows that the best way to overcome anxiety is
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  Speaker 1: to move towards rather than a way. So the anxious
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  Speaker 1: response is to move away. The anxious response is to
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  Speaker 1: flee or flight. But research seems to indicate that the
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  Speaker 1: more we can move towards the thing that scares us,
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  Speaker 1: the better having And that's the whole idea of exposure therapy,
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  Speaker 1: right the person who's afraid of spiders, So then we
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  Speaker 1: look at one in a book, and we have one
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  Speaker 1: in ajar on the other side.
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  Speaker 2: Of the room, and we move closer and closer.
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  Speaker 1: The difficulty with something like this is we don't know
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  Speaker 1: exactly what your daughter is worried about, firstly, and secondly,
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  Speaker 1: exposure therapy is usually best conducted by somebody who has
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  Speaker 1: the appropriate training. It's not great when a parent says, oh,
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  Speaker 1: you're afraid of this, Well here, let's get your nice
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  Speaker 1: and close to it really fast.
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  Speaker 2: So let's talk.
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  Speaker 1: About whether or not listening to music and avoiding what
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  Speaker 1: could be going through your mind is effective or not.
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  Speaker 1: So the first thing that I want to emphasize is
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  Speaker 1: that listening to music and distracting yourself distraction is an
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  Speaker 1: effective short term choice. Like sometimes when I'm really upset
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  Speaker 1: with one of my children, or when I'm having a
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  Speaker 1: bad day, I'll sit down and I'll watch some cycling
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  Speaker 1: or some surfing on YouTube, or I'll play a game
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  Speaker 1: on my iPad because.
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  Speaker 2: The distraction is relief.
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  Speaker 1: It feels like I get to just recalibrate my brain
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  Speaker 1: and my physiology, my system.
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  Speaker 4: But a distraction is something that you would do from
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  Speaker 4: time to time correct as opposed just something that's happening
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  Speaker 4: on a daily basis, because we're avoiding what's actually really
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  Speaker 4: going on.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, which is why I say it's an effective short
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  Speaker 1: term choice. But the drawbacks are it should never be
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  Speaker 1: a long term choice, and having music on it at nighttime
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  Speaker 1: potentially impacts lost sleep ability to be peaceful means more
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  Speaker 1: tiredness tomorrow, which could be associated with even greater anxiety,
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  Speaker 1: and it does make avoidance the primary coping strategy. So
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  Speaker 1: I would suggest that there's other stuff we can do here,
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  Speaker 1: one thing that you I'm just I'm stumbling around here
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  Speaker 1: because I'm going to sound a little bit woo woo.
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  Speaker 4: No, I think it's not that you're going to sound
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  Speaker 4: woo woo. I think it's that you have to acknowledge
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  Speaker 4: that I was right. That's what I think the problem is.
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  Speaker 1: All right, So essential oils, I'm just going to say it.
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  Speaker 1: I'm just going to say the word. No, I don't
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  Speaker 1: sell them. No, we're not trying to flog anything here,
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  Speaker 1: because anything with network marketing kind of get some people's
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  Speaker 1: hair standing on end. But we have found essential oils
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  Speaker 1: to be incredibly effective, and I've shifted on it completely.
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  Speaker 2: Don't terror anyone. Oh gosh, there is actually research.
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  Speaker 1: You don't hear about it much, and I think it's
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  Speaker 1: because of the connotation and the woo woness. But once
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  Speaker 1: upon a time nobody talked about mind from us meditation
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  Speaker 1: either because it was too woo wu. And now it's
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  Speaker 1: a central pillar of well being. Research, and I think.
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  Speaker 2: I really do believe.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, I just picked up a book recently by
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  Speaker 1: Ethan Cross from.
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  Speaker 4: A unifor of Ethan says it, then it must be
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  Speaker 4: true the University.
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  Speaker 1: Of Michigan, and he runs the emotional control Emotion Control
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  Speaker 1: Lab at Michigan University, and even he's talking about how
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  Speaker 1: using fragrances can be anxiety reducing.
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  Speaker 2: So the research evidence is there. Now.
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  Speaker 1: Anyway, we need to talk about some other ones. Let's
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  Speaker 1: do that after the break. We're gonna get a little
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  Speaker 1: bit loser.
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  Speaker 4: I was going to say my thing.
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  Speaker 1: Oh sorry, anyway, that's me just getting it out there
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  Speaker 1: and sat that it could be helpful.
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  Speaker 4: Well, I have a few extras and these were really
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  Speaker 4: beneficial to me as a teenager. Right, So, I think
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  Speaker 4: one of the most important things to do when our
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  Speaker 4: kids are struggling is to actually take time in that
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  Speaker 4: quiet space to sit with them. And if they're not
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  Speaker 4: open or willing to chat about what's actually going on,
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  Speaker 4: they might not even know what's going on. One of
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  Speaker 4: the best things I think we can do is point
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  Speaker 4: them to gratitude and just having a few moments each
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  Speaker 4: night where we can sit together and talk about the
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  Speaker 4: things that we're grateful for. It changes the mental construct
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  Speaker 4: that our children then fall asleep to.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, So I'm just going to put one gentle caveat
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  Speaker 1: in there, and that is that if you have a
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  Speaker 1: child who is highly elevated emotionally, that's not the time
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  Speaker 1: to say if you just think of some things you're
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  Speaker 1: grateful for, you'll feel better.
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  Speaker 4: No, no, no, no, that's not what I was suggesting.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's got to be in a different context altogether.
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  Speaker 1: We're just talking about what's good in our old.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: So, whether you're religious or not, you have a prayer
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  Speaker 4: with each other, or or it's just about quiet time.
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  Speaker 4: It's just about connection. What are you grateful for today?
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  Speaker 4: And if they're struggling, you could share the things that
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  Speaker 4: you're grateful for the other thing that I think is
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  Speaker 4: really important. She doesn't want to sit with her feelings, right.
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  Speaker 4: The problem we have is when they're inside, they're trapped
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  Speaker 4: and they just go around. A friend talk to me
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  Speaker 4: about the monkey brain literally just going around in this
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  Speaker 4: kind of just whirlwind of thought and we can't actually
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  Speaker 4: put words around it. And so she taught me to
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  Speaker 4: just do what we call a thought download. Literally there's
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  Speaker 4: no filter to it.
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  Speaker 2: It's just just just.
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  Speaker 4: Journal and white. And as a child, I used to
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  Speaker 4: do this all the time. Didn't realize it was a thing,
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  Speaker 4: but I literally I read my journals now and think,
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  Speaker 4: poor person who has to read this in one hundred
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  Speaker 4: years time, because it was literally.
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  Speaker 2: Poor little Kylie.
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  Speaker 4: If there wasn't anything scary, it was just I wrote
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  Speaker 4: everything and I couldn't actually go to sleep until I'd
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  Speaker 4: done it. But I think that that was a really
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  Speaker 4: important part of my progression as a teenager.
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  Speaker 2: All right, so quick summary.
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  Speaker 1: We've got music can be effective, we've got the woo
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  Speaker 1: woo essential oils, we've got gratitude, and we've got a
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  Speaker 1: journal emotional dump of sorts. I just want to quickly
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  Speaker 1: highlight that whole getting it out thing. The default mode
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  Speaker 1: network is part of your brain. Oh several components of
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  Speaker 1: your brain that switch on when all the screens and
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  Speaker 1: everything else switches off. And it's really important for kids
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  Speaker 1: to figure out who they are that their default mode
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  Speaker 1: network is active. Unfortunately, too many kids today have suppressed
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  Speaker 1: default mode networks because their brains are always fixed on
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  Speaker 1: screens and they never get to do the inner work
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  Speaker 1: and the deep thinking that's necessary to figure out who
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  Speaker 1: you are and what your life is about and find
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  Speaker 1: meaning and purpose and so on. That was a lot
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  Speaker 1: to say this. Sometimes kids have an overactive and maladaptive
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  Speaker 1: default mode network, and it sounds like Samantha's daughter is
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  Speaker 1: in that boat. So where we really that's where the
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  Speaker 1: rumination comes in. The default mode network kicks in and
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  Speaker 1: it doesn't know how to apply the brakes to unhealthy
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  Speaker 1: and maladaptive thoughts, and so all of these strategies are
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  Speaker 1: designed to do that. I've got three more quite psychologically
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  Speaker 1: oriented ones right after the break. Okay, Kylie, we've got
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  Speaker 1: a list of regulation tools. It's quite solid, quite solid,
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  Speaker 1: quite solid.
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  Speaker 4: I was gonna say, is that another word? I haven't
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  Speaker 4: heard that way?
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  Speaker 2: No, it's quite solid. Let me say that again. Oh
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  Speaker 2: my good. We've got a salad list. We've got a
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  Speaker 2: list of.
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  Speaker 1: Now, I just want to emphasize we're not trying to
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  Speaker 1: eliminate difficult thoughts. What we're trying to do is have
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  Speaker 1: a healthy relationship with them. So three more ideas that
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  Speaker 1: will be helpful here.
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  Speaker 2: The first is.
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  Speaker 1: To normalize and validate the experience. So when your daughter
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  Speaker 1: is experiencing these really big negative, horrible thoughts. We don't
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  Speaker 1: have to fix it. We just want to say, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: sometimes being alone with racing thoughts is pretty uncomfortable, isn't it,
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  Speaker 1: And that will move us through and help to.
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  Speaker 2: Regulate those skills better.
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  Speaker 1: Anxiety often peaks at night because we're in the dark
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  Speaker 1: and distractions.
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  Speaker 2: Aren't there anymore.
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  Speaker 1: So I think by normalizing it by literally saying to
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  Speaker 1: your daughter, this is normal, a lot of people struggle
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  Speaker 1: with nighttime thoughts. We're not trying to eliminate the discomfort.
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  Speaker 1: We're trying to build tolerance for it. In the same
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  Speaker 1: way that when I'm doing my breathing exercises, because I
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  Speaker 1: like to hold my breath for a long periods of
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  Speaker 1: time with free diving, I want to build up my
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  Speaker 1: tolerance for CO two in my blood. We don't you know,
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  Speaker 1: when you hold your breath and you want to breathe,
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  Speaker 1: it's not because you need oxygen. It's because you need
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  Speaker 1: to get rid of the CO two. And so by
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  Speaker 1: holding my breath for a longer periods of time, I'm
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  Speaker 1: just building up that CO two tolerance. It's the same
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  Speaker 1: at nighttime in bed. We want to build up our
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  Speaker 1: tolerance for the discomfort. Around some of our thoughts, recognize
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  Speaker 1: that it's normal and recognize.
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  Speaker 2: That good thoughts arrive as well.
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  Speaker 1: Second one that I've got is that we want to
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  Speaker 1: build a what would I call it a gradual tolerance toolkit.
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  Speaker 1: So instead of taking away the music entirely, I'd be
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  Speaker 1: working collaboratively to come up with other options. Maybe it's
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  Speaker 1: starting with music that gradually becomes quieter and more calming,
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  Speaker 1: and then experiment with other.
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  Speaker 4: Maybe you could add meditation to it. So yes, there's
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  Speaker 4: a form of music in the background, but it's not
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  Speaker 4: the main thing. Starting to train her thoughts to think differently,
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  Speaker 4: or nature sounds.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, I always joke about how my mum used
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  Speaker 1: to make us listen to Tonio kind of CDs that
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  Speaker 1: she brought from the post office when I loved that.
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  Speaker 1: Do you remember those with that kids with all the
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  Speaker 1: rivers and the birds chirping and the waves crashing on
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  Speaker 1: the ocean. Mum used to be into deepat Choprah and
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  Speaker 1: Stuart Wilde and Anthony Robbins, all those people. And I
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  Speaker 1: just think involving her in creating these solutions rather than
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  Speaker 1: imposing them one other things would help you feel calm.
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  Speaker 1: What would you like to try that kind of discussion,
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  Speaker 1: not in the moment, but out of the moment.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, having a bath with Ebsence salts and using magnesium
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  Speaker 4: to kind of help calm touch. I don't think we
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  Speaker 4: put enough emphasis on the empert touch and how important
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  Speaker 4: that is to helping co regulate.
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  Speaker 2: Yep, yep, yep.
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  Speaker 1: And as much as I want to say this could
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  Speaker 1: be very serious and professional help might be useful, I'd
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  Speaker 1: be spending a little bit of time on all of
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  Speaker 1: these solutions. First, There's one more that I'm going to
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  Speaker 1: quickly throw in, and that is that we as parents
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  Speaker 1: need to address the underlying thoughts, not just the symptoms.
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  Speaker 1: And I'm sure that Samantha's doing this. I just think
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  Speaker 1: a lot of these nighttime struggles stem from unprocessed worries
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  Speaker 1: and anxieties and fears that have occurred during the day.
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  Speaker 1: So we want to create lots of opportunities where she's
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  Speaker 1: able to process what's on her mind with us. We're
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  Speaker 1: not trying to solve everything. We're just saying, hey, tell
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  Speaker 1: me what's going on. I'm here for you. I just
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  Speaker 1: want to I want to hear. I don't want to
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: leave you alone with your thoughts. Sometimes the racing thoughts
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  Speaker 1: are less about the specific content and more about just
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: feeling overwhelmed and unsupported. I don't think that that's case
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: in Samantha's situation, but it's worth highlighting. Having those chats
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: in the car or going for a walk, spending time
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  Speaker 1: in nature and doing the things that we've talked about
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: in that very comprehensive list I think will move the
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: needles substance. And if it doesn't, of course, the advice
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: is to go and get help, have a chat with
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: the GP, have a chat with the psychologist, a school counselor,
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: and see if there's something that you can do about it.
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  Speaker 1: We really really hope, Samartha, that's been helpful, and for
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  Speaker 1: any parent who's dealing with anxious kids, hopefully there's some
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: ideas there that are going to make a difference for you.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for the question. If you have
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: a tricky question for us, jump online Happy families dot
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• 13:23
  Speaker 1: click the record.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: Button and start talking.
• 13:26
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