Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #505 Can Mindfulness Help?
Transcript
- 0:03Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for the
- 0:07Speaker 1: time poor parent who just wants answers.
- 0:10Speaker 2: Now, when you're in the car and you're freaking out
- 0:12Speaker 2: because you're going to be late and everything's happening, it's
- 0:14Speaker 2: really hard to remember.
- 0:15Speaker 3: Oh, and this is my opportunity to be mindful.
- 0:17Speaker 2: I need to just take some deep breaths and get
- 0:19Speaker 2: back into that zen sort of space.
- 0:21Speaker 3: But that's where we need to go.
- 0:22Speaker 1: And now here's the stars of our show, my mom
- 0:26Speaker 1: and dad.
- 0:26Speaker 2: Hello, this is doctor Justin Coulson, the founder of Happy
- 0:29Speaker 2: Families dot com dot au and dad to six kids
- 0:33Speaker 2: who we share I share with my wife and mum
- 0:36Speaker 2: to those six kids, Kylie, who is with me today?
- 0:38Speaker 3: Did I make that harder than it needed to be?
- 0:40Speaker 3: Just a little bit? I kind of feel like I say.
- 0:43Speaker 4: That, I know that if you want to take all
- 0:44Speaker 4: the credit, you have to take all the blame as well.
- 0:46Speaker 3: Right, thank you for that. It's the twelfth of Is
- 0:48Speaker 3: it the twelfth or the twelfth?
- 0:50Speaker 2: Is there an f in there? I'm going to have
- 0:51Speaker 2: to google this. Is it the twelfth or the twelfth?
- 0:54Speaker 4: The twelfth?
- 0:55Speaker 3: I didn't hear it in that.
- 0:57Speaker 2: I just heard you say twelfth. Is it like that
- 1:01Speaker 2: there is a there's an F in there, so there
- 1:04Speaker 2: is there is a say it, come on twelfth. You're
- 1:09Speaker 2: sort of I'm not hearing the F You're not supposed to,
- 1:13Speaker 2: so should I be saying twelfth?
- 1:15Speaker 3: Is it the twelfth? Or is it the twelfth?
- 1:19Speaker 4: Are you going to make everything hard today? Maybe I
- 1:23Speaker 4: just wight everything? Okay, Hey, yah, welcome to the podcast.
- 1:27Speaker 4: I'm so sorry to have done that to you. I
- 1:28Speaker 4: don't know where it came from, but I'm sure there'll
- 1:31Speaker 4: be plenty of English teachers out there prepared to teach
- 1:33Speaker 4: you how to say it Jewish Day.
- 1:36Speaker 3: No, it's not. How did you say that Tuesday? Well,
- 1:39Speaker 3: like you're choosing which day it is Tuesday? Tuesday?
- 1:42Speaker 4: But our eight year old is very adamant that it's Tuesday.
- 1:47Speaker 2: Yeah, but our eight year old also says can't instead
- 1:49Speaker 2: of can't, I can't do this?
- 1:53Speaker 3: Where are you getting this American stuff from?
- 1:54Speaker 1: That?
- 1:55Speaker 3: Can't?
- 1:55Speaker 4: So?
- 1:55Speaker 3: Do you I just say Tuesday.
- 1:58Speaker 4: There have been two teachers in our kids schooling who
- 2:00Speaker 4: have all been very adamant about Tuesday.
- 2:03Speaker 3: Tuesday.
- 2:03Speaker 4: Yeah, no, it's not Tuesday, it's Tuesday, said.
- 2:10Speaker 3: Don't think too much about it.
- 2:11Speaker 2: So like when you've got to walk somewhere Tuesday to
- 2:17Speaker 2: It's like when you've got to walk in front of people,
- 2:19Speaker 2: like walk across the stage. You know how to walk,
- 2:21Speaker 2: You've been walking your entire life. But have you ever
- 2:22Speaker 2: had to walk in front of an audience and suddenly
- 2:24Speaker 2: you're like, I'm not sure if I can do this now.
- 2:27Speaker 4: No, I've never had that experience.
- 2:28Speaker 3: Happens to me all the time. Tuesday, Tuesday, No, it's
- 2:31Speaker 3: not Tuesday. Let's get on with the podcast. Is that? Okay? Hello,
- 2:38Speaker 3: we've already done the intro. We have have we? Okay? Great?
- 2:42Speaker 3: Please forgive us. This is just this is how we
- 2:44Speaker 3: love you.
- 2:45Speaker 4: You didn't intro me?
- 2:46Speaker 3: Who are you?
- 2:49Speaker 2: We have to we have to do a podcast here.
- 2:51Speaker 2: I've been looking at some science lately and I want
- 2:53Speaker 2: to share it. This is a Doctor's Desk episode about
- 2:57Speaker 2: once a month we dive into the latest research, have
- 2:59Speaker 2: a look at what scientists are discovering about how to
- 3:01Speaker 2: make our parenting lives better or giving us food for
- 3:04Speaker 2: thought in case we need to make any big and
- 3:06Speaker 2: intentional decisions about what's going to happen with us and
- 3:09Speaker 2: our children. A new study just published this one in
- 3:12Speaker 2: the International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, and it's related to
- 3:17Speaker 2: mindfulness which has been the buzzword in pop psychology for
- 3:21Speaker 2: probably the last i'd say ten years, maybe a little longer,
- 3:25Speaker 2: maybe the last fifteen years. Everyone's been going on about mindfulness.
- 3:28Speaker 2: Mindfulness does everything, and it seems that this latest study
- 3:32Speaker 2: conducted with pregnant mums doesn't quite do everything after all.
- 3:39Speaker 2: So we know that if you get stressed, it can
- 3:44Speaker 2: be associated with it can actually lead to excessive weight gain.
- 3:47Speaker 2: And if there's going to be weight gain, pregnancy is
- 3:49Speaker 2: a time where this can really happen, like it's going
- 3:52Speaker 2: to happen naturally.
- 3:53Speaker 4: It's the time when you are most stressed, well potentially
- 3:57Speaker 4: your body is most stressed.
- 3:58Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 3:59Speaker 2: Yeah, But we're not talking about the natural, healthy weight
- 4:02Speaker 2: gain that comes with pregnant, So we're talking about the
- 4:04Speaker 2: excessive weight gain that some people can experience, and like
- 4:07Speaker 2: you said, pregnancy is a time where that can occur.
- 4:08Speaker 3: So these researchers got a bunch of.
- 4:11Speaker 2: Pregnant women, one hundred and fifteen of them, and they
- 4:13Speaker 2: did some mindfulness training and what they were interested in
- 4:18Speaker 2: discovering was whether or not mindfulness could help the pregnant mums,
- 4:21Speaker 2: the expectant mums to be less stressed, to eat more healthily,
- 4:28Speaker 2: and they basically wanted to have a look at what
- 4:30Speaker 2: their overall weight gain would be. So they had one
- 4:33Speaker 2: hundred and fifteen mums that went to the mindfulness training
- 4:36Speaker 2: for eight weeks.
- 4:37Speaker 3: They had one hundred and five.
- 4:38Speaker 2: Mums who were the same socioeconomic status and same weight
- 4:42Speaker 2: equivalency having treatment as usual. And what they found was
- 4:47Speaker 2: that the mums who had the mindfulness training did experience
- 4:52Speaker 2: less stress, well, less depression.
- 4:55Speaker 3: They experienced less depression.
- 4:57Speaker 4: And less stress and anxiety.
- 5:00Speaker 3: You've been reading the science, You've been reading the study. Yeah,
- 5:02Speaker 3: but pick out keywords.
- 5:04Speaker 2: But it didn't have any impact on their weight gain
- 5:07Speaker 2: at all. They experienced the same levels of excessive weight gain,
- 5:10Speaker 2: not just regular weight gain, but excessive weight gain as
- 5:12Speaker 2: the control group. And so I think it's just an
- 5:14Speaker 2: interesting one to be mindful of, if I can use
- 5:17Speaker 2: that term. Mindfulness can do stuff, but it can't do
- 5:20Speaker 2: all the stuff. Mindfulness does have a relationship with the
- 5:23Speaker 2: extent to which we experience stress, depression and anxiety, but
- 5:27Speaker 2: it's not the I don't know, it's not the thing
- 5:29Speaker 2: that makes everything all better all the time.
- 5:32Speaker 4: Yeah, this intrigues me a little bit because I never
- 5:35Speaker 4: would have thought that it did. When I think of mindfulness,
- 5:38Speaker 4: I think of, I guess, the ability to calm right
- 5:42Speaker 4: my own mind and to be able to work through
- 5:45Speaker 4: that those thought processes that would lead to anxiety, stress,
- 5:48Speaker 4: or depression.
- 5:49Speaker 2: So that's a healthy approach to mindfulness. Unfortunately, and I'm
- 5:51Speaker 2: going to talk more about this in a sec but
- 5:53Speaker 2: there have been a lot of people who have made
- 5:55Speaker 2: a bunch of planes.
- 5:56Speaker 3: It's kind of like essential oilsial.
- 6:00Speaker 2: Oyals, no doubt, can do stuff for you to make
- 6:02Speaker 2: you feel better about life, but they can't do everything.
- 6:04Speaker 2: I mean, there was one essential oil company recently there
- 6:06Speaker 2: was in the news for claiming that it could help
- 6:08Speaker 2: with COVID, it could cure COVID. Some people just take
- 6:11Speaker 2: these claims a little bit too far. Here's another mind
- 6:13Speaker 2: from the study that caught my attention though, and again
- 6:15Speaker 2: talking about young mums infants, well actually not young mums,
- 6:20Speaker 2: but young mums and their babies. Infants whose mums participated
- 6:26Speaker 2: in a mindful their Space program during their pregnancies had
- 6:31Speaker 2: healthier stress responses at six months old. Now, I find
- 6:35Speaker 2: this fascinating.
- 6:35Speaker 4: So not the mum, as we're talking about the infant.
- 6:37Speaker 3: That's exactly right.
- 6:38Speaker 2: So this is the first known study that shows that
- 6:41Speaker 2: a parental intervention can improve the health outcomes of the child.
- 6:47Speaker 2: And they were looking at what they call autonomic nervous
- 6:50Speaker 2: system responses. So what the researches essentially have done is
- 6:53Speaker 2: they've studied one hundred and thirty five mum and bub
- 6:57Speaker 2: diads gave them an eight week mindfulness based program, So
- 7:01Speaker 2: eight weeks seems to be about the standard in these
- 7:04Speaker 2: current situations, and they found that those little babies had
- 7:07Speaker 2: a faster cardiovascular recovery from something that was stress inducing,
- 7:13Speaker 2: as well as more self soothing behaviors than the kids
- 7:17Speaker 2: whose mums didn't go through the mindfulness intervention. I find
- 7:22Speaker 2: this extraordinary, so so interesting.
- 7:25Speaker 4: So I'm not scientific by any stretch, but I remember
- 7:28Speaker 4: all of the conversations that I had as a young mum,
- 7:31Speaker 4: where you know, all of those feel good things would
- 7:34Speaker 4: be passed through my milk to my baby. So this
- 7:38Speaker 4: feels like a scientific way of telling me that.
- 7:43Speaker 2: Maybe, although this is not milk related, what I would
- 7:47Speaker 2: guess is happening here and I don't have a whole
- 7:51Speaker 2: lot of additional data, and the researchers didn't really make
- 7:54Speaker 2: too many hypotheses about this either. They've basically said, we've
- 7:57Speaker 2: done this, here's what's happened. But I think that the
- 7:59Speaker 2: reason for it is that when you've got a calmer mum,
- 8:03Speaker 2: you have a calmer baby.
- 8:05Speaker 4: Yeah. Well, emotions are catchy, right, and that's the I
- 8:08Speaker 4: guess that's the reality. The conversations that I had as
- 8:12Speaker 4: a young mum with professionals was very much about if
- 8:15Speaker 4: I can lower my anxiety levels, and I guess the
- 8:19Speaker 4: way I respond in different situations and my baby's going
- 8:22Speaker 4: to respond totally different.
- 8:24Speaker 2: So the critical thing as a take home message from
- 8:27Speaker 2: both of these studies is number one, don't expect that
- 8:29Speaker 2: mindfulness is going to be the cure all but it
- 8:31Speaker 2: can be helpful for reducing stress and anxiety for a
- 8:34Speaker 2: whole lot of people who may not otherwise be mindful.
- 8:37Speaker 2: The trick is learning how to be more mindful. Now
- 8:41Speaker 2: that's probably another podcast in and of itself. I don't
- 8:44Speaker 2: think we can dive into that right now. But the
- 8:47Speaker 2: evidence is there that suggests that it's good for you
- 8:49Speaker 2: and it's good for your kids, even from the time
- 8:52Speaker 2: they're born, even when they're in utero, and certainly over
- 8:54Speaker 2: that subsequent six months. You and I both know that
- 8:56Speaker 2: when we're more mindful, when we're more calm, our children thrive.
- 9:00Speaker 2: They do better as well, even though they're all grown up.
- 9:02Speaker 2: In fact, you and I like being around each other
- 9:04Speaker 2: more when we're more mindful and more present.
- 9:06Speaker 3: It's just a fact of life.
- 9:08Speaker 4: Well, I know you said there's not a lot of time,
- 9:09Speaker 4: but this is the podcast for a time poor parent
- 9:12Speaker 4: who just wants answers. Have you got at least one tip.
- 9:15Speaker 3: After the break?
- 9:21Speaker 2: Neurodiverse children are beautiful, but they also bring unique challenges
- 9:24Speaker 2: for parents and educators. The world does not always accommodate
- 9:28Speaker 2: them easily or well. Communication, affection, behavior, learning, and almost
- 9:34Speaker 2: every other aspect of life can be challenging for the
- 9:36Speaker 2: child and their families. The webinar A Parent's Guide to
- 9:40Speaker 2: Autism by leading autism expert Michelle Garnett can help parents
- 9:45Speaker 2: and educators strengthen the bond with their autistic children for
- 9:49Speaker 2: better outcomes for children and families. A Parent's Guide to
- 9:52Speaker 2: Autism is available at Happy Families dot com dot a U.
- 9:56Speaker 4: It's the Happy Families podcast, the podcast for a time
- 9:58Speaker 4: poor parent who just want answers. Now, you're such a tease.
- 10:01Speaker 3: What do you mean I'm such a teas after the
- 10:03Speaker 3: break for the break.
- 10:04Speaker 4: What is one thing that parents can practice in being
- 10:08Speaker 4: more mindful to reduce and lower stress and anxiety levels.
- 10:12Speaker 2: The simplest thing is just breathing. I mean, it's so simple,
- 10:16Speaker 2: and people roll their eyes like as if I'm going
- 10:18Speaker 2: to breathe and that's going to make it all better,
- 10:19Speaker 2: But it actually does. Breathe in for five seconds three
- 10:22Speaker 2: and o's hold it for five seconds, breathe out for
- 10:25Speaker 2: five seconds three.
- 10:26Speaker 3: Your mouth just makes everything feel better. Full stop. End
- 10:29Speaker 3: of story. Breathing simple. There are much more advanced and
- 10:33Speaker 3: sophisticated mind from the strategies. You can google them. They're
- 10:36Speaker 3: all over the place.
- 10:37Speaker 2: I share them with parents regularly as well in other
- 10:39Speaker 2: contexts and in my webinars and things.
- 10:41Speaker 3: But just breathe. Just focus on the here and now
- 10:44Speaker 3: a second one. Here's another really quick one. Because you
- 10:46Speaker 3: look at me like you're not satisfied.
- 10:47Speaker 4: No, I was going to explain breathing because I think
- 10:49Speaker 4: it's really important.
- 10:50Speaker 3: Okay, explain breathing.
- 10:51Speaker 4: When I went to eat in about six months ago.
- 10:53Speaker 4: They helped me understand the power of breathing. When we
- 10:57Speaker 4: get stressed and we're anxious, what happens to our breathing.
- 11:01Speaker 3: It gets faster, it gets shallower.
- 11:03Speaker 4: Totally, and what that signals to our body is that
- 11:07Speaker 4: we are not safe.
- 11:09Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 11:10Speaker 4: And so when we are mindful about our breath and
- 11:13Speaker 4: we take the time to slow it down, what we
- 11:15Speaker 4: actually send the message to our body is that we
- 11:19Speaker 4: are safe where we've got this under control. So even
- 11:22Speaker 4: when the situation is stressful, if we're able to lower that,
- 11:25Speaker 4: we actually are telling ourselves and telling our body physiologically
- 11:29Speaker 4: we are safe. And for most of us, we're not
- 11:33Speaker 4: being chased by a Tyrannosaurus rex.
- 11:36Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 11:36Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just that there's that meeting that we're going
- 11:38Speaker 2: to be late for, and if we breathe, we're going
- 11:41Speaker 2: to get to the meeting whatever time we get to
- 11:42Speaker 2: the meeting, no matter whether we're breathing shallow and fast
- 11:45Speaker 2: and panicky or breathing deep. So breathe deep and calm
- 11:48Speaker 2: that autonomic nervous system. That's really what the message here
- 11:51Speaker 2: is another way that you can be mindful. I'm not
- 11:53Speaker 2: going to worry about the other doctor's desk study that
- 11:55Speaker 2: I was going to share. We'll save that for next
- 11:57Speaker 2: time we do a doctor's desk. The other way that
- 11:59Speaker 2: you can be mindful is that you can just pay
- 12:01Speaker 2: attention to what your senses notice. And I love doing
- 12:04Speaker 2: it as a countdown to calm. That's what I call it.
- 12:06Speaker 2: I don't know if it's got an official name. I
- 12:08Speaker 2: can't find it, but that's what I call it. So
- 12:11Speaker 2: have a look around and identify five things that you
- 12:13Speaker 2: can see and name them. I can see the door,
- 12:16Speaker 2: I can see the lights, I can see the stove.
- 12:20Speaker 2: I can see the greenery outside. I can see you, missus,
- 12:24Speaker 2: happy families. And what are four things that I can
- 12:27Speaker 2: feel well? I can feel my feet on the tiles.
- 12:30Speaker 2: I can feel my hand on the seat that I'm
- 12:32Speaker 2: sitting on. I can feel my back up against the
- 12:36Speaker 2: bricks that I'm touching because we're in this tiny little
- 12:39Speaker 2: airbnb and it's a little bit cramped. And I can
- 12:42Speaker 2: also feel on my face. I shaved this morning and
- 12:45Speaker 2: I've just got a little bit of razor burn above
- 12:47Speaker 2: my top lip, and I can feel that as well.
- 12:49Speaker 3: And what are three things that I can hear well?
- 12:54Speaker 4: Even though I'm wearing headphones, I can still hear the
- 12:56Speaker 4: quiet chirp of the birds outside.
- 12:58Speaker 2: Right, And there's the I can hear you, of course,
- 13:01Speaker 2: and there's the gentle whir of traffic because we live
- 13:04Speaker 2: near a busy road. Now and then we can also
- 13:07Speaker 2: do two things that we can smell and one thing
- 13:09Speaker 2: we can taste. And just by going through that process,
- 13:13Speaker 2: as you've been listening to us share these mundane details
- 13:16Speaker 2: about what we can see and feel and hear and
- 13:22Speaker 2: smell and taste, it brings everything back to here and now.
- 13:28Speaker 2: It makes us mindful of the moment in a non
- 13:31Speaker 2: judgmental way. It helps everything to be calm and peaceful,
- 13:37Speaker 2: and the pressure and stress is gone.
- 13:41Speaker 3: So the mindfulness industry that's grown out of these ideas
- 13:46Speaker 3: is helpful. It's useful.
- 13:48Speaker 2: But I guess the one thing that I would highlight
- 13:51Speaker 2: again is that mindfulness can't do everything. And there's a
- 13:55Speaker 2: lot of people out there who are selling courses and
- 13:58Speaker 2: making promises about mindfulness that are just not fair and
- 14:02Speaker 2: that it's just not right. Mindfulness has exploded, But there
- 14:06Speaker 2: was this recent review by the I might actually see
- 14:08Speaker 2: if I can link to this in the show notes
- 14:09Speaker 2: as well. There was a recent review maybe three or
- 14:11Speaker 2: four years ago now by the US Agency for Healthcare
- 14:15Speaker 2: Research and Quality, and they found that mindfulness based therapies
- 14:19Speaker 2: provide only moderate help in treating anxiety, depression, pain, and
- 14:26Speaker 2: don't do a whole lot to reduce stress or improve
- 14:29Speaker 2: quality of life. And I think that's probably because, sorry,
- 14:33Speaker 2: and there is no evidence at all at this point
- 14:36Speaker 2: that mindfulness can help people with substance abuse, or with
- 14:38Speaker 2: eating habits, or with sleep problems, or with weight control.
- 14:42Speaker 2: So there's a whole lot of potential positive benefits, and
- 14:45Speaker 2: some people may find mindfulness benefits in those areas and others,
- 14:50Speaker 2: but overall, we need to recognize that mindfulness can't fix everything.
- 14:56Speaker 4: I think it's really important to understand that it's one
- 14:58Speaker 4: tool that we have in our.
- 14:59Speaker 2: Tool Yes, yes, And the other thing to remember is
- 15:04Speaker 2: you've got to actually do it. Like you can be
- 15:06Speaker 2: taught it, But when you're in the car and you're
- 15:07Speaker 2: freaking out because you're going to be like and everything's happening,
- 15:09Speaker 2: it's really hard to remember, Oh, and this is my
- 15:11Speaker 2: opportunity to be mindful. I need to just take some
- 15:13Speaker 2: deep breaths and get back into that zen sort of space,
- 15:17Speaker 2: but that's where we need to go. So Coylie, that's
- 15:19Speaker 2: our doctor's desk for today. I know we've goofed off
- 15:21Speaker 2: a little bit. We've had some fun and we didn't
- 15:23Speaker 2: get through all of the studies, but we can catch
- 15:25Speaker 2: up on the other studies in our next Doctor's Desk episode.
- 15:28Speaker 3: The take home message mindfulness. It feels good. It can help.
- 15:34Speaker 2: It won't help with everything, but there is pretty good
- 15:37Speaker 2: evidence that our emotions are contagious. They're catchy, and if
- 15:41Speaker 2: you can be holding it together nicely, the kids are
- 15:44Speaker 2: going to feel that and everyone's going to do better.
- 15:46Speaker 2: The Happy Family's podcast is produced by Justin Ruland from
- 15:49Speaker 2: Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our executive producer. Next Monday Night,
- 15:54Speaker 2: we have the webinar that you can not miss.
- 15:57Speaker 3: It's called Carrots and Sticks.
- 15:59Speaker 2: It's all about how punished moments, rewards, praise, control, bribes,
- 16:03Speaker 2: time out and more undermine our ability to effectively discipline
- 16:07Speaker 2: our kids and what we can do instead of using
- 16:10Speaker 2: the behavioral Carrot and stick. I hope you joined me
- 16:13Speaker 2: for it. If you're a Happy Family's member, it's included
- 16:15Speaker 2: in your membership. If you're not a member, it's just
- 16:18Speaker 2: thirty bucks, and you can get all the details at
- 16:19Speaker 2: happy families dot com, dot a u