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Anxiety Calming Music | The Positively Healthy Mom Podcast with Barbara Minton
23 Plays6 days ago
🎧 The Positively Healthy Mom Podcast
Episode: Anxiety Calming Music with Barbara Minton, PhD
In this episode, host Laura Ollinger, Teen and Parent Well-Being Coach, talks with Dr. Barbara Minton, PhD Psychologist and founder of musicandhealing.net, about how music can calm anxiety, improve focus, and support emotional wellness.
Dr. Minton shares how her neuroscience-based approach uses specific music frequencies to shift the brain into states of calm and healing. Her new album Calm the Storm, created with world-renowned guitarist Peppino D’Agostino, is designed to reduce anxiety, support sleep, and ease chronic pain.
💡 In this episode, you’ll discover:
- How music influences brain waves and emotional regulation
- Why not all calming music works the same for everyone
- The connection between rhythm, movement, and stress relief
- How neurofeedback and music can train the brain toward calm
🎶 Visit musicandhealing.net to learn more and listen to Calm the Storm.
🔗 Connect with us:
Website: positivelyhealthycoaching.com
Podcast: positivelyhealthycoaching.com/podcast
YouTube: @positivelyhealthycoaching
Facebook Group: The Positively Healthy Mom
Instagram: @positivelyhealthycoaching
#PositivelyHealthyMom #AnxietyCalmingMusic #BarbaraMinton #MusicTherapy #BrainHealth #Neurofeedback #ParentWellbeing #PositiveParenting #MusicAndHealing #MentalHealth
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Transcript
Introduction to Positively Healthy Mom Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to the Positively Healthy Mom podcast, where positive parenting meets well-being.
00:00:10
Speaker
Hello and welcome to today's episode of the Positively Healthy Mom. I'm your host, Laura Ollinger, teen and parent well-being coach.
The Role of Music in Influencing Brain States
00:00:17
Speaker
And I'm so excited to introduce you to Dr. Barb Minton, who is a PhD psychologist.
00:00:23
Speaker
And today's conversation is going to be amazing. I already know because of what she does. So Dr. Barb, can you explain what it is that you do? Yeah, so i I've just been so fortunate I've been able to do a lot of things throughout my career, but the most um immediate thing that I'm focusing right on right now is how to use music in order to calm the brain or create whatever brain state you want and My background, kind of what got me into this was I was a music major in college with the very trendy instrument of pipe organ and write what everybody wants to play.
00:01:03
Speaker
And then I got away that away from that for many, many years. doing kind of typical psychology stuff.
Understanding Neurofeedback for Anxiety Networks
00:01:11
Speaker
I got into neurofeedback and I don't know if people know what neurofeedback is, but neurofeedback is a form of brain training where you look at what the brain is doing. And for example, in anxiety, the anxiety network seemed to be super active.
00:01:27
Speaker
And so you can actually train those networks, teach those networks to calm down. And as I was doing this, um you know, I started thinking like, wow, there's all this data out there on music about how music can be used to have very powerful effects on the brain and on the body.
00:01:46
Speaker
So for example, it decreases depression by about 50%, which is huge. right wow i have not heard did not know that i know there's like all this stuff out in the literature that no one is paying attention to it's sitting in the research literature no one's bringing it out into the real world and i got a passion for bringing this out into the real world so just to give you a couple other examples if you have to have a procedure you're teenager has to have a procedure listening to music. You know, if you have to have a biopsy or go to the hospital or something, it decreases all the anxiety around that kind of a thing.
00:02:24
Speaker
um Music can actually- So can just for a second?
Effects of Music on Depression and ADHD
00:02:28
Speaker
I really would love to get clarification on that. Does that mean any music or is there a specific type of music? No, I think there's specific type of music.
00:02:38
Speaker
Thank you for asking that question. yeah I want to just say, One other thing that we often discover with our kids, especially when they transition into junior high is ADHD.
00:02:50
Speaker
So actually music helps people with ADHD and we can, you know, unpack some of the details of this. I actually have a two day workshop where we go through all this stuff and then we actually play music live. So you, you know, there's at least two days of stuff to talk about with this. So we'll just skim the surface today. Yeah. well But Yeah, no, it's not any music.
00:03:14
Speaker
i And what's really funny is as I started reading this stuff, I was like, wow, this is so interesting. Like, this is just most of these studies, this music, the experimenters picked out, right? Like sometimes it was Beethoven, sometimes it was Enya, sometimes it was, you know, Mozart. It's just like, they picked out a piece of music. And I started thinking, wow,
00:03:37
Speaker
I know all the neuroscience about how the brain mimics music and mimics frequencies. Like, couldn't we compose music that was vetted, you know, where we actually took where is the brain stuck in anxiety? Where is it stuck in insomnia? I know those frequencies in the brain. I know the frequencies the music can put in.
00:03:57
Speaker
I know. how the frequencies of the brain will follow the frequencies of music. Can we compose music to actually train the brain in a more nuanced and powerful way? And that's what this album, Calm the Storm with Pepino D'Agostino is all about, is where we did that.
Composing Music to Target Brain Frequencies
00:04:15
Speaker
And then I did pre and post brain imaging with eeg so and if you go to the website you can actually see some of these um the website's music and healing.net and i posted a couple pre and post imaging and so um we took somebody's eeg made a 3d um kind of configuration of their brain played the song and then did it again and
00:04:43
Speaker
honestly, was just blown away at the changes. If you go to the website and see, you'll see, I'm like, oh my gosh, this should have worked theoretically, but it actually worked in the real world.
00:04:56
Speaker
Like, wow. I mean, how many times as a researcher, I've been in the field over 40 years, I've done some apply, bunch of applied research and you know, that usually doesn't happen, but it was, yeah it just blew me away to see this stuff.
Integrating Music into Therapeutic Practices
00:05:10
Speaker
And um so there's kind of the general power of music that i think is so important for us to think about and especially well everyone i was going to say especially teenagers but we often don't pick the music that's best for us and so when we can start picking the music that's best for us knowing that it has a very powerful effect on our brain and on our body we can start to optimize our functioning
00:05:36
Speaker
And so, you know, if you're when you're coaching somebody and I really feel this is true of the mental health field, the medical field, occupational and physical therapy, like music is so cheap.
00:05:48
Speaker
It's so easily available. You can listen to multiple times a day. It's fun. Like we should all be using music along with our other interventions to help move people into wellness.
00:06:02
Speaker
Well, okay, so this is where I just wanna reflect for a minute because I feel so excited right now because, so I didn't you know tell you my whole background, but my background is ah originally as a health coach, then a life coach, and I also have a master's in health and wellness education.
00:06:16
Speaker
And I have to say the things that I always focus on with my clients are the modifiable lifestyle factors, which we commonly think of ah diet, exercise, stress management, um sleep,
00:06:28
Speaker
Things like that, just things that are in our daily life that we control for, including relationships, healthy relationships versus not so healthy relationships. And the one thing I've never, mean, actually, I do suggest like a calming playlist to when I work with girls, you know, kind of tween age girls.
00:06:45
Speaker
But it's not something I incorporate into my everyday coaching with clients. And so I just feel so excited right now that I love it when there's something that is not commonly known. And then I can kind of like help spread the word and share the information. So I'm just having like an excited moment here. So, OK, tell us how else this gets used.
00:07:04
Speaker
Yeah, so um we'll just come to come back to your comment. ah It just when I first got into doing a literature review in this area, I felt the same way. I was just like, how can all this stuff be out here and people aren't using it. And what is it about our system where we all get trained so narrowly that something as ubiquitous as music, we don't even think to use it, you know? And we should all have on our intake forms or our little questionnaires like,
00:07:34
Speaker
What kind of music do you listen to What kind of music do you like? And it's also a way of making just that alone and talking to people like, what do you listen to? What do you like? Like, it's such a beautiful way to make a connection with somebody like if they're like, oh, I like this particular artist and you're like, oh, man, tell me about them, like, pull up something and let's listen to it together. You know, just forget all the research like that alone.
00:07:59
Speaker
is a huge connector. It's a huge way to connecting with someone and it's also a huge way to understanding what their world is about. Right. So if somebody says, man, I love rap music and you're like, wow, well, tell me some of your favorite songs. Like, let's listen to them.
00:08:18
Speaker
And you hear the lyrics of these songs. You know, or they say I like classical music. Well, what classical music do you like? All of a sudden, it opens up a world of insight into this person's internal life.
00:08:31
Speaker
that you would have very much trouble accessing any other way. So just that alone, I think, is gold. And I've had people who work with teenagers actually say, man, I never could get this teenager to open up to me.
00:08:46
Speaker
And after they had come to my workshop on music, the brain and healing, and I said, you guys should talk to your teens about music. And she said, so I asked, like, what do you listen to? And she said it changed everything.
00:09:01
Speaker
The kids started talking and sharing, and then they started sharing playlists, and then they started you know saying, like, well, what does this mean to you? like What is this access? What's the emotion it's accessing for you? And it just opened up a huge, rich conversation.
00:09:18
Speaker
So before we even get to these other parts, you know i think that in and of itself, it's so easy to do. It's gold. Yeah. You know i I love it. I'm going to start using this because I mean, every once while I ask my clients, you know, like, what do you, you know, things like that, but it's not like my go-to question or it's not a common question, but I feel like i'm going to start incorporating that just in, you know, every time I'm getting to know a new client, just add that to, you know, the way to build rapport, way to build trust, way for them to know that I care about them. I want to understand them more and get to know them. So I think just right there is amazing. So holy I mean, if I were your client and you said, what do you play? And I said, pipe organ, like you would know something about me, wouldn't you? You would be like, why pipe organ?
00:10:04
Speaker
And that would hope and open up a whole aspect about me that you would probably never know. And I would never i would never think to disclose that because I'm trying to be what I, you know, think is in the lane and you're trying to be in the lane. And so that's what I think the beauty of this conversation is.
00:10:25
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I have another question where I see these things on Instagram when I'm scrolling through and it's, and I think it's what you're talking about, but I want to clarify, it's a certain frequency that helps calm ADHD.
00:10:40
Speaker
And it's literally just like one continuous note. It's like B, Like, is that the neurofeedback part of it or what it took? Can you explain that part to me?
00:10:51
Speaker
Yeah, let me. So I actually was trying to get away from that and I'll tell you why. So there's many, many of these just frequency approaches and some of them have research behind them and some of them don't. Some of them have sort of philosophy behind them.
00:11:08
Speaker
The reason I really wanted to use music is because if you have that beep and I've listened to a ton of this stuff, after a while you're like you know don't think i want to listen to this anymore it's like whereas music if you have a song that you really like you can listen to it over and over right like i had some clients listen to some music that i wrote uh for 60 hours while they were doing their neurofeedback training
00:11:38
Speaker
And so I really i really wanted beautiful um melodic songs that you could listen to over and over and also music that stood on its own. Right.
00:11:51
Speaker
So if you don't have ADHD or you don't have this or you don't have that, and you just want to listen to beautiful music. You can listen to beautiful music. And I was so fortunate to work with Pepino D'Agostino, who is one of the he's been named as one of the 50 most transcendent guitarists of all time well the guy is amazing and you can imagine i'm going in there like well we need to keep the frequencies in this range and we need to do this and that and it's like i was telling somebody else the other day it's like i don't know telling yo-yo ma how to play the cello or something but he was so kind and so warm and we worked so hard to make these
00:12:35
Speaker
songs. So I do think that individual frequencies can do something because the brain will try to copy frequencies. But I felt like having a song and most of us know this, right? Like we've had a favorite song and we'll play it over and over. Or we have what I call these sort of anthem songs like that we they're our go-to songs so maybe if you feel depressed you know like you'd play let it be or someone the other day who was he very young and said i listened to carol king's tapestry album because i always feel so much better and i'm like well yeah this the song you've got a friend like
00:13:16
Speaker
is tell you, it's such a loving, warm, hopeful song. And, you know, so to me, there's ah an advantage to music that way. If the frequencies work for you, I'm all over it.
00:13:31
Speaker
My goal was to do something a little different. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. So what is it when a ah I assume you work with individual
Combining Talk Therapy and Neurofeedback
00:13:40
Speaker
clients? Is that kind of? I do. Yeah.
00:13:44
Speaker
So when an individual client comes to you and what what are they kind of ah complaining of and what do they get by working with you? Yeah, so I do talk therapy plus kind of traditional talk therapy plus neurofeedback.
00:14:00
Speaker
And neurofeedback is mostly taking my business over. And let me just tell you a little bit about neurofeedback. So if you don't know what neurofeedback is, many people don't. What you do with neurofeedback is you collect an EEG and then you can actually make a two or three dimensional image of the brain.
00:14:18
Speaker
and because of all this research we have now coming out of neuroscience we can look at the anxiety network the attention network the depression network the network that helps optimize your golf game i mean there's tons of these things and then we can People come in twice a week and we put the electrodes on and as the so you might play some music that they like, and as the brain starts to oscillate towards normal you reward the brain so like the music is sort of dim and then it gets louder as the brain oscillates towards normal, or you can watch a movie and the movies dim.
00:14:55
Speaker
Vandenbroek, Ph.D.: And it gets brighter all the brain likes that, and so it will change itself in order to get that picture brighter or in order to get that music louder. Anneke Vandenbroek, that's that's what neuro feedback does, and so, if you haven't responded to coaching or talk therapy or you don't want to go on medications neuro feedback is a non medication kind of training alternative. Anneke Vandenbroek, Ph.D.: Where you don't have to talk about stuff you just train the brain into a different configuration.
00:15:23
Speaker
And so i this it's sort of interesting you asked me that question because when I first started into neurofeedback, the programs, the neuroscience and the math of these programs is super sophisticated, but the music I was like,
00:15:39
Speaker
this music is not the best. And I actually put together some software to play better music. And then it kind of fit in with what I ended up doing. Like if you have music that's in training the brain in the direction you want to go. So if you're anxious and you have music that's helping the brain calm down, plus you're doing neurofeedback, then you have two things pushing you in the right direction and then you can take the music home and play it at home before you go to bed or whatever and so it really amplifies the effectiveness of what you're doing i think i don't have research on this so i can't assert that logically it makes sense to me
00:16:23
Speaker
It does, it does. And um this might be a silly question, but is it the obvious music choice? Like, for example, if you have anxiety, is calming music the right choice? And if you're depressed, is upbeat music the right choice? Is it like what makes sense or is there something else to it that I
Individual Variability in Music's Impact
00:16:41
Speaker
don't know? Oh man, I'm so glad you asked that question.
00:16:44
Speaker
No, it's, I think it's way more complex than that. And let me give you an example. So I did an album previous to this with ah another amazing guitarist named Callum Graham.
00:16:56
Speaker
And so this album Calm the Storm is really calming music for insomnia, chronic pain, migraines, stuff like that. In this other album, we did a range of songs.
00:17:07
Speaker
so We had songs that made beta and beta is that bright eyed bushy tailed wave. So if you have ADHD or you're just tired and you want to focus, you want to put these songs that made beta on. And so they had like electric guitar, organ, acoustic guitar, drums, all kinds of stuff like that. And they're really upbeat.
00:17:28
Speaker
And so most people were like, wow, that That made me feel good and I was happy and I felt more enlivened and la la la, but we had one subset of people so we collected EEGs on 27 people with these songs who said, Man that song just really calmed me down I feel so much more you know calm and chill you chill and relaxed and I was like.
00:17:53
Speaker
Wow, like we compose this to be upbeat. Why? Why are people reporting? Why is this one subgroup of people reporting? It's making them calmer. Well, so I went back and looked at all their brain maps, and it turns out that these are people who are way, way activated. Right?
00:18:12
Speaker
So if you're way, way activated and you listen to something that's activated, the brain will come down a little bit and you'll feel calmer, whereas everybody else feels activated.
00:18:26
Speaker
And my analogy to this is, you know, we all know people that are like, man, I know I shouldn't be on my phone at night or I shouldn't be watching TV be right before bed, but I have to do it. If I turn off the TV and play calming stuff, I just start to spin, you know, I start to ruminate, think I can't shut my brain off.
00:18:45
Speaker
But if I watch TV or get on my phone, I'll fall asleep. And I'm like, yeah, I totally get that. Like you need something to tie your brain up because it's so activated.
00:18:58
Speaker
You've got to have something to kind of bring you down just the next step. If you listen to something calming or like this ambient music that you always hear, like this is calming meditative music, like that's not going to work. You're just going to keep spinning.
00:19:12
Speaker
And so I think what you bring to the situation interacts with what the music brings to the situation. It is definitely not one size fits all. If you do a study and you average it out over everybody, yes, you'll get that finding.
00:19:29
Speaker
but Anne Knowles- are an individual, you are not an average of a bunch of people in a study and you might have a different reaction and if you're super agitated and we all know this if i'm super hyper and somebody plays calming music I feel more agitated and insulted. Anne Knowles- yeah right.
00:19:49
Speaker
I want somebody, I want to hear music where I'm at. I want to hear heavy metal or I want to hear, know, something like when you've just broken up with somebody and you're depressed, you want to hear a breakup song, right? You want to be validated. You want something to meet you where you are and know that you're not alone in this experience.
00:20:09
Speaker
Then maybe you move out of it. Right. Yeah, I have, I have an equivalent, but it's different. So, um I found for myself when I'm feeling particularly overwhelmed and feeling a little bit of anxiety, you know, the common thing is like, Oh, we'll just breathe.
Using Rhythmic Activities for Arousal Management
00:20:26
Speaker
Oh, just have some mindfulness. And I can tell you that does not work for me in most situations. What I found is that, i so we have an exercise bike, a Peloton.
00:20:37
Speaker
need to get on there and go crazy for like 15 or 20 minutes and cycle as hard and fast as I can. And then I feel such a relief. I feel so calm. And so when I meet with clients, I ask them that question, like, do you like to go up or do you like to go down? and And it's different for different people. So it sounds like very similar to what you're saying, but with the music part.
00:20:56
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's right. And you you hear this all the time in people that run. They're like, I have to go running to calm down. Well, of course. And I i think what it is is when you get hyper like this, you know you have adrenaline, norepinephrine, like you're flooded with these activating chemicals. You can't turn those off easily. i mean, they will go away after a while, 20 minutes or more. They say 20 minutes, but come on, takes more than that.
00:21:22
Speaker
um So you need some expression of these and then once you have the expression of that and things like running or riding a peloton or swimming.
00:21:33
Speaker
um I think they help express these but it's it's also interesting like when you think about all these things running exercise bike swimming. They're all a rhythm aren't they.
00:21:46
Speaker
Oh. So you're creating a rhythm when you're running, you're creating a rhythm when you're cycling, you're creating a rhythm when you're swimming. And that rhythm is in training your brain.
00:21:58
Speaker
Like you can't possibly make a rhythm with your body that's as fast as what your brain is doing because it can, you know, you're usually up at around 25 to 30 hertz when you're in a state like that, which is your neurons are firing 25 to 30 times per second.
00:22:15
Speaker
Well, no matter how fast of a peddler you are on the Peloton,
00:22:23
Speaker
but so you're going to probably be in sync in rhythm with where your brain is and then slowly your brain starts to mimic what it is you put in and it starts to come down.
00:22:35
Speaker
So I think this idea, you know, well, first of all, if you get your Spotify relaxing playlist, like we don't have data to show that those songs are really relaxing, but They're just things that people are like, oh, slow music is relaxing, slow lyrical music is relaxing. So we put that in the relaxing category.
00:22:55
Speaker
And for many people, they enjoy that, but not for everybody. So knowing who you are and knowing some of the complexities of this. um I got really interested in this when I had a teenage client who loved heavy metal music, who had severe anxiety and trauma. And I was like, why?
00:23:13
Speaker
Chavez- listening to heavy metal music and then I talked to a bunch of ex combat vets you know cia operatives and stuff and they all love this high intensity like heavy metal music and i'm like well of course I think about it for a while i'm like of course this makes sense right.
00:23:30
Speaker
Chavez- you're hyper agitated it drives all that out of your mind and you're just left with being the intensities there, but the content.
00:23:42
Speaker
Chavez- thing. of the trauma is gone, and then you can, it's just like writing your Peloton, right, then you can start to let that go and you just feel better, you take a breath.
00:23:53
Speaker
It's almost like working with the momentum instead of against it. Yeah, that's a great way of saying it. And also, I think it's the same thing, like recognizing where you're at.
00:24:05
Speaker
Like when you get on the Peloton and cycle, you're like, there's something there's something important about that, like validating where you're at. Yeah, yeah. just Like you should be somebody different right now. You should be this like super chill person. It's like I'm not that super chill person right now. It's not going to happen.
00:24:24
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. It almost just, yeah, it just makes it worse. Like, it you you just want to be like, shut up. Don't tell me to breathe. but I know, right? Calm down, calm down. Like, when has that ever calmed anybody on the planet down? It just makes everybody just more angry.
00:24:39
Speaker
Yeah, I know. I remember my my dad saying, put a smile on your face. And I'm like, Dad, how do you do that? It's insulting. Yes, all the things. Okay, so I have to.
00:24:52
Speaker
A client who actually, um you know, I obviously maintain his confidentiality and, but, you know, he would want me to ask. So I'm going to ask. He is a college student and he's having some insomnia where he's able to fall asleep at night.
00:25:08
Speaker
He wakes up every night about the same time. And so he's tried different things. He's talked to a doctor. He and I have talked about it, all the things we can do. I do think he's had some PTSD in the past from something, some things that happen.
00:25:21
Speaker
And so we've been working on this, but the reason I ask you specifically is because it just so happens. He's a, I won't say the instrument, but to, but he's a music major.
00:25:31
Speaker
And so music is his life. And so what could we share with him that would help him? um Like, as far as like the sleeping part, like how does what you listen to in the day help you at night?
Music for Calming and Insomnia Management
00:25:43
Speaker
Yeah. So is he waking up like two, three in the morning? Yep. Yeah. Dr. let me let me tell you what I what happens, generally speaking, and you know I don't know this person, so this is not clinical advice disclaimer. Dr. I'm talking in generalities of what we know kind of happens to many people, which is that when you're hyper aroused during the day and then you go to sleep and a lot of people have this problem, I mean I hope he recognizes this is very common.
00:26:19
Speaker
This person is not the only one, many, many people have this this happens to me and i always can tell when I have something exciting going on in my life, it happens to me, and the reason it happens is because.
00:26:30
Speaker
Anne A. We go through about 90 minutes sleep cycles, but as the night wears on each time we go through the sleep cycle, we go down into the deep sleep a little less.
00:26:41
Speaker
Anne Knowles- And into the higher sleep a little bit more, and so you have to the way the brain deals with this in order for you to stay asleep is the brain makes a little thing called the sleep spindle and asleep spindle is this, and you can actually see it in a EG is super Knowles- It makes this little what we call a 12 to 15 hertz sleep spindle, which is where.
00:27:04
Speaker
you're in these slow waves and then you'll see this little like fast wave in there and that actually keeps you asleep. So there's two ways to deal with this. One is to make more, learn, teach your brain to make more 12 to 15 hertz ah rhythms.
00:27:20
Speaker
And actually in the very original studies they did on neurofeedback, ah They were with cats and they actually discovered this 12 to 15 hertz rhythm in cats, and it actually made them resistant to like poison and seizures and all this kind of crazy stuff. I mean, the original, I mean, that's a whole nother conversation. It's just unbelievable.
00:27:42
Speaker
but like that for But this 12 to 15 hertz rhythm helps um keep you asleep. So there's two ways to deal with it. One is to lower your level of arousal throughout the day so that as you come up to that two and three and four a.m. stuff.
00:28:01
Speaker
Actually, there's three ways to deal with it. One is to lower your level of arousal. The other is to teach your brain to make more 12 to 15 hertz. I think the easiest way to do that is with neurofeedback.
00:28:13
Speaker
It's pretty hard to do on your own, but you could try music ah that resonates with that 12 to 15 hertz. I mean, that would be an interesting little project. I don't i have no idea if it would work or not.
00:28:25
Speaker
um And then the other thing is to not worry that you're waking up at two or three in the morning and just find a way of going back to sleep. So, for example, when I'm hyped up over something like In a couple weeks we're going to finish hopefully composing for this next album, which is for PTSD and I know i'm going to be hyped up because i'm with these amazing musicians we're making up songs.
00:28:53
Speaker
You know, blah blah blah, of course i'm not going to sleep well, but what I can do is when I wake up in the middle of the night, I can click on calm the storm our album. because I know that it is going to start in training my brain back down into sleep mode.
00:29:09
Speaker
And I've actually done this a couple of times for myself. And the other day I was doing it and I was like, oh man, like it skipped some songs in the middle. How come? And I was like, no, actually it didn't skip songs in the middle. I actually fell asleep.
00:29:25
Speaker
That's why I didn't hear the songs. So you can just not worry about the fact that you wake up and put in this type of information that helps the brain bring itself back down. Usually when we wake up, we start ruminating, right? like Nancy Fraser- to do this, or I need to do that, or how come i'm awake i'm going to be so tired tomorrow all this kind of stuff you want to shut that off.
00:29:50
Speaker
Nancy Fraser- thing i like about having the melodies that are on our album is it gives your brain something to do, besides think about stuff. Yeah. so um you know, I would say those are three things to do.
00:30:06
Speaker
When you first get certified in doing neurofeedback, you have to train yourself. And I actually trained myself for sleep. And oh it was really funny because I was like, oh, man, I'm this is terrible. I'm not seeing any progress.
00:30:20
Speaker
You know, I'm just like not the little thermometer isn't going up, you know, on the on the computer that's supposed to go up. And then one night I Dr. Amy Moore's iPhone 2,030-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1193-1
00:30:36
Speaker
she he slept
00:30:39
Speaker
but so you know that's a beauty of something like neurofeedback
00:30:44
Speaker
Okay, this is amazing. So we are a little bit over our time, but I do have one more question.
Long-term Effects of Neurofeedback
00:30:50
Speaker
so when I have, you know, obviously read about neurofeedback, I've known people that have done neurofeedback. And my biggest question is, how long do you have to keep doing it? Because I did know one girl who did it and it worked well for a little while, but then she just kind of went back to, she stopped going. And so it's like, it almost feels like you have to continually do it. So what's the point where you feel like it's it's worked and it's done yeah and of course the answer to that is it depends right so if i said well how many coaching sessions is it going to take and then will i ever have to come back to you and you'll be like well that depends um if you look at the re the best research on neurofeedback we have is on adhd and it showed that when people had about 30 sessions of neurofeedback
00:31:39
Speaker
The changes held for at least 10 years. They didn't do further than a 10-year follow-up. But I tell you that many of the clients that come to me have more complex issues than just straight ADHD, right? You might have ADHD plus anxiety plus depression plus trauma plus this and that.
00:31:58
Speaker
And so these people, i mean, I would say most of my clients tend to go 50 to 60 sessions, I see very few of them back. Some of them I do if you know, especially if something happens that sort of read triggers all this stuff.
00:32:14
Speaker
um So again, I think. your individual experience is more important than when you average everything out. So I think for some people it holds and for other people it doesn't. And neurofeedback, there's so many types of neurofeedback. Some are well vetted, research based.
00:32:33
Speaker
kind of mathematically sound and others are kind of flaky. And so you really want to make sure you get a vetted competent neurofeedback provider if you're going to do that.
00:32:45
Speaker
Okay. Don't necessarily go to the cheapest person. yeah because it's like not all equivalent. ah Okay, get what you pay for. Um, so all right, how can people find you or follow you going forward?
00:33:00
Speaker
Yeah, so musicandhealing.net, which is just is the website and you can email me through there. i love to hear from people, especially if you download the album. I'd like to hear from you good or bad because we're making the next album and I'd love to have feedback from people on it.
00:33:23
Speaker
um And then we also do workshops and concerts and things like that if folks are interested and you can get on the mailing list there. I'm also on Facebook and I think I'm Barb.Minton.5 or something on Facebook, but if you hack around enough, you'll you'll be able to find a comment. Yeah.
00:33:43
Speaker
Awesome. Awesome. And then um is there, i i mean, one last question I have just because you we aren't local with each other. um If someone was looking for a neurofeedback specialist, how would they find um a higher quality provider?
00:33:58
Speaker
Yeah. So you can go to bcia.org, which they they're a certification provider. entity that actually makes sure people meet minimum standards of training and education and stuff like that. There's also ISNR, which is the International Society for Neurofeedback and Research. So these are some of the areas. And there's another one, the International, I said it's the International QEEG Board. I can't remember their website address offhand.
00:34:32
Speaker
The thing that they do is they they vet they probably have the highest so you can be a diplomate in quantitative electroencephalogram so that's probably the highest level of training so finding seeking out these boards and seeing if people have that.
00:34:48
Speaker
kind of training and then looking at their software and seeing if they have legitimate software is really important because this is your brain you're talking about. You don't want to be like messing around with your brain.
00:35:01
Speaker
And so, but you can also email me if you're like, oh man, you know, I had somebody from Australia the other day, like, here's a couple of places. And I'm like, ask them these questions and let me know, and then I'll help you. So you're always welcome to contact me.
00:35:16
Speaker
Cool. Well, thank you so much for the offer. I hope people do the research and take you up on any questions they might have. So this has been a wonderful conversation. i've thoroughly enjoyed it and meeting you. So thank you so much.
00:35:28
Speaker
Well, thanks for having me. All right. Have a good day.