Happiness for Cynics podcast
This week, Marie and Pete talk about coping with stress through music and the surprising effects it has on our mental well-being.
Transcript
[Happy intro music -background]
M: Welcome to happiness for cynics and thanks for joining us as we explore all the things I wish I’d known earlier in life but didn’t.
M: So, if you’re like me and you want more out of life, listen in and more importantly, buy in because I guarantee if you do, the science of happiness can change your life.
P: Plus, sometimes I think we’re kind of funny.
P: [Motherly voice] Hello Possums!
M: Hello! Laugh. Oh, that’s a cultural reference there Pete.
P: Laugh! For those people who aren’t Australian, in our listening audience, Google Dame Edna Everage and you’ll have a little laugh.
M: And look at the fabulous glasses!
P: Oh, yes. That was the Dame Edna of late. The Dame Edna the original was a very dowdy housewife. Yes, comedian character, created by Barry Humphries, 1950’s Melbourne housewife who came to stardom and was reinvented as a celebrity in the 1980’s.
M: It was probably my first ever interaction with a transgender or a man dressing as a lady.
P: Yeah, that character very much helped to normalise the experience for many Australians.
M: Mmm hmm. It was very progressive for that time.
P: It was, It was very brave of Barry Humphries to do that.
M: Mmm hmm.
P: Very brave.
M: I’m sure he would have gotten a lot of hate mail. It would have been sent in the regular post. For those of you who remember what that is because it was a while ago.
P: Laugh, a letter? What exactly is a letter?
M: We are showing our age! Laugh. But I have some news today, Pete.
P: Ooh, some news.
M: Look what I got?
P: Oh, wow. Marie is holding up a wristwatch. Is that a…
M: A Fitbit.
P: Clickbit.
M: Fitbit. And now I will know how unfit I truly am.
P: Laugh. Are you lying on the couch eating crisps? Yes. Yes, I am.
M & P: Laugh.
P: And loving it!
M: So, I’m really hoping to rely on my Fitbit to do a bit better measurement of my overall wellbeing.
P: These things are amazing. I came across a client the other day who had a ring.
M: Yes. The Oura ring.
P: Awesome.
M: Yeah, they’re pretty cool.
P: So, he’s been monitoring his sleep, and you and I both appreciate how wonderful and fabulous sleep is and how we don’t get enough of it. We’ve talked about it before, see our podcast list.
M: Mmm hmm.
P: And yeah, I was, I was intrigued. I was like, I’m going to get one of those, cause they look great.
M: If you want the ring, it doesn’t have as much functionality as I think, ah, what’s the Chinese one? [Xiaomi mi] So, there’s Fitbit, there’s the apple watch and then wewu [venu?] or something like that is another kind of Android one.
P: Yeah.
M: And then the ring does a few things more things, but is a lot more limited.
P: I kind of like that, though, because I don’t want to watch telling me to wake up and to go to the toilet and all that sort of stuff. Laugh, I’d rather listen to my body.
M: Just so that we’re clear my watch doesn’t tell me to go to the toilet.
P & M: Laugh.
M: That is not the functionality of a fit-watch.
P: Laugh.
M: Before we get sued.
P: It’s time for a bowl movement.
M & P: Laugh.
M: On that note. What are we talking about today, Pete?
P: Laugh. Well, we’re not talking about bowel movements, and we’re not talking about watches, but we are talking about music.
M: Oh! Dum dum dummmm!
P: Laugh, and how music can make you happy. Can music make you happy, Marie?
M: It’s not that direct.
P: Ooh, it never is.
M: My big, my big learning here. So, yes, it can help you relieve stress. And the reason I’m really keen to talk about this is because of a new study that came out. And I don’t know about you, Pete, but I am seeing so many more people around Australia experiencing stress and lowered mental resilience.
P: Mmm hmm.
M: And high-strung emotions.
P: Yes, I would agree with you completely.
M: Laugh, it’s the most diplomatic way I can put all of that.
P: I’m seeing it clinically in my presentation of clients at work. Very acutely and oddly, the need for touch is also becoming quite obviously a need for a lot of people who are in Sydney because we are in an extended lockdown. So, yeah, definitely agree with you on that one. And the fractiousness of people is becoming a little bit more obvious. I think there’s a lack of patience. There’s a lack of, there’s chinks in the armour starting to show.
M: Yes, absolutely. And you know, just because there’s a chink one day doesn’t mean it’s there the next.
P: No.
M: I think we’ve called it the Corona Coaster before.
P: Oh.
M: The ups and downs.
P: Ooh, can we patent that?
M: Well, any woman who’s been through a normal menstrual cycle would know how ups and downs work.
P: Ew!
M & P: Laugh.
P: La, la, la, la.
M: I think the whole world is experiencing these in 24 hours cycles right now.
P: Laugh! Hey, I had my man period a couple of weeks ago. I can relate, laugh!
M: Was it the response to covid shop, is that it?
P: No, no, no, no, no, no. I just had a bit of an emotional moment in the park and had to sit down in a gutter and compose myself for a couple of hours. Laugh.
M: Look, exactly, and this is exactly what I’m talking about. And I just want to be really clear that we need to experience those emotions.
P: Mmm hmm.
M: But we also need to pick ourselves up and move forward through them and not get stuck in them.
P: Yeah, don’t unpack.
M: Well, do the opposite. Unpack it, experience it, feel it, talk to people, get help if you need to. But resilience is all about bouncing back and not getting stuck in that space.
P: Mmm hmm.
M: And if you’re going down into that emotional place, it’s really worth looking at all the habits that you have and practises that you have in your life and whether or not they’ve been so disrupted that you’re leaving yourself without happiness and resilience cover right now.
P: Yeah, true.
M: So, if you can’t see your friends, that’s one of the pillars we’ve said. Or if you’re really just missing your friends and family and that face-to-face contact if all your hobbies and exercise, and all of that has just been stripped away from you. And, what’s the third pillar, Pete?
P: Laugh, p –
M: Purpose and meaning!
P: I was just about to say! Laugh.
M: Purpose and meaning. You know, if you’ve lost your job.
P: Yes.
M: And you’re just spending long hours watching Ellen and Oprah.
P: Laugh, or not even lost your job, but just at home and unable to work. This is the thing, a lot of people are at home and unable to go to work.
M: Exactly.
P: And it’s finding that purpose in your daily activities, waking up and going, ‘what do I do today?’
M: Mmm hmm. And so, if you haven’t replaced any of those things and even it’s just one of those pillars that’s been pulled away for the first time ever in Australia, we have so many of us in lockdown, so many in lockdown.
P: Mmm, it’s a new experience for us, isn’t it?
M: It’s a new experience for Australia and particularly new experience for our regional areas.
P: Yes, very much.
M: So, if you have had all these things stripped away from you and you are feeling a bit emotional, you are on the Corona coaster right now. What are going to do to replace some of those things? Because otherwise you run the risk of sinking further down that hole and entering depression potentially or increasing anxiety again, don’t watch too much news.
P: Yep, get those techniques out that we’ve talked about in our happiness literacy episode.
M: Laugh.
P: If you’d like to go back and check that out. Getting my promotion on!
M: Laugh.
P: I’m dropping all the numbers here, [click, click] Laugh! But, no. Getting active and controlling what you can control and finding a purpose in something that you actually can do rather than seeing what you can’t do.
M: Yeah.
P: Flip the switch.
M: And so, one of those things, and we talk about many things [like] getting exercise, you can do by watching your TV and pulling up a 10, 20, 30 minute exercise or yoga class or any of, meditation even. There’s plenty of things on there that you can do.
P: Mmm.
M: From a mindfulness perspective as well. And it’s all free. It’s just about making sure you introduce these new habits. So, pick one. And now we’re going to talk about music, laugh.
P: Laugh.
M: Back to where we started. So, we’ll talk about this study. The Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics.
P: I love that ‘empirical aesthetics.’
M: Laugh, it’s a bit of a mouthful.
P & M: Laugh.
M: They have recently done this study. It involved six countries on three continents during the first lockdown in April and May 2020.
P: 5,000 people.
M: Yep.
P: That’s a lot of people, that’s a big study.
M: Absolutely, so from Germany, France, Great Britain, India, Italy, and the U.S.
P: Mmm.
M: A big group of people that they studied, and they looked at whether music impacted their moods and their stress levels.
P: I’ll jump in here, and just go from the complete impassioned response, and music so affects every moment of my day. I’ve always been very affected by music, and I use music as a way of connecting with different elements of my day and in my treatments, and when I’m working out and when I’m having quiet time. There are specific types of music that I tap into, so this is very close to my heart. It’s something I’ve always done. Even as a kid.
M: I tend to agree, but I don’t rely on music a lot it’s not a big part of my life.
P: Right.
M: But, depending… So, my writing days are Friday’s.
P: Ahh, yes.
M: And there’s a very big variety of music.
P & M: Laugh.
M: Depending on what I want to be feeling at the time.
P: Laugh!
M: What this study found, which I thought was most interesting, was that music itself isn’t the coping aid.
P: Mmm.
M: But music related behaviour.
P: Laugh.
M: So, the way people have adapted their musical behaviours during the crisis.
P: Ok.
M: So, if you were feeling down or if I was feeling down, I would put my Disney playlist on.
P: Laugh!
M: And I may or may not, get the shower then and sing to my heart’s content.
P: Believe me people, I’ve heard it. It’s been broadcast.
M & P: Laugh.
M: So, for me that’s the way of actively trying to turn my mood around.
P: Mmm, and it so works.
M: Singing, smiling, thinking back to being a kid, really, just letting it all go.
P: Yep.
M: To help balance the negative emotions. That’s what we mean by a coping mechanism.
P: Mmm.
M: Now, if music was just playing in the background and there wasn’t that intentionality, that mindfulness behind it.
P: Yep.
M: Then it probably wouldn’t have the same effect.
P: Yes, I’d agree. You need to be engaging with it consciously.
M: Yes, picking the music to influence you.
P: Yeah, definitely.
M: There’s good news here, in that people who were experiencing increased negative emotions – so just what we were talking about before – were found to engage with music, primarily as a way to regulate depression, fear and stress.
P: Mmm.
M: And then people who reported more positive emotions overall were found to use music largely as a replacement for social interaction.
P: I like this idea of using music as a replacement, I think that’s again that’s a solution-based perspective. They’re going ‘What can I control? I can control how I feel by using music when I can’t see my friends or reminding me of my friends because of a certain musical interlude or a certain musical experience.
M: And then more than that, a lot of musical people went out and made music.
P: Ah, oh yes! Yes, go the creatives.
M: Absolutely, and they have gone viral in so many ways. So, the company I work for has a fabulous employee who also plays guitar and sings. And she created a ‘Corona sucks’ video.
P: Laugh!
M: Where she lamented all the things that we’re all experiencing that we’ve mentioned many times here before. You know, the stretchy pants and the extra five kilograms we’ve all put on.
P: Laugh.
M: The fact that our hair is twice as long as when we started. There’s some very interesting men with some pretty interesting haircuts.
P: Yep, laugh.
M: Or lack of haircuts. Or they’ve just taken to the razor and taken it all off.
P: Laugh, yeah I’ve seen that.
M: Yep, laugh.
P: I’ve seen some guys come in with some coifs going ‘I just want my barber to be open.’
M: Laugh, mmm.
P: And then you see the guys coming in, ‘Yeah, the wife got to me.’
M: Laugh. And they’ve got a number one.
P: Yep, all over. Laugh.
M: Laugh.
P: Bowler cut.
M: Yep.
P: Laugh.
M: So, a lot of people have been making music about our experiences, and again that really can bond people.
P: Mmm.
M: Help you to know that you’re not alone.
P: Absolutely. There’s a wonderful story of a mutual friend of ours Marie, fabulous Brazilian boy. When the first lockdown happened, he manages a hotel in Sydney and they were part of the… Oh, the words escaped me.
M: Group of quarantine hotels?
P: Yes, the group of quarantine hotels. And on the last night at the 14 day quarantine. So, night 13 our friend Lucas organised for a DJ to come into the courtyard and played all these disco tunes for the people who are in lockdown, who could I think they could open their windows slightly. And they were all kind of dancing around in the disco.
M: Laugh.
P: And I thought, ‘What a wonderful way to bring a group of people who can’t actually communicate or even speak to each other together.
M: They can’t leave their rooms.
P: Yeah, and give them a little celebration. And there was another video that went viral in Sydney of a Sydney drag queen –
M: Yes!
P: – who jumped out on the roof of her apartment building and set up a disco ball and a DJ and got someone to film her doing full drag in the summer sun whilst everyone else was locked up in their rooms, laugh! I thought it was rather fabulous!
M: And do you remember early on in Covid. So, this would have been March, April last year in Italy with people playing on their balconies?
P: Oh, yes! That was amazing. Yes.
M: Yeah.
P: That was incredible!
M: Power of music! Laugh.
P: It is so powerful. And it has such an ability to change your mood. Which is why I’m interested about your point Marie in terms of its not the music, that’s the solution, it’s the behaviour around it.
M: Yes, so again, I think it’s like everything we talk about. You’ve got to be mindful, right?
P: Mmm.
M: Right? So, just putting on a playlist in the background and reading a book and not really registering it, it just becomes background noise.
P: Yep.
M: If, even that same playlist the next day, if you put it on and decided, you’re just going to head bang to it around the lounge room.
P: Laughter!
M: Very different physical and mental response to those two scenarios.
P: Mmm, Ok. And that elevates your mood. It’s that physical response to the music, which is actually doing the things with the neurotransmitters and changing the brain waves and the connections.
M: Physical, physiological, psychological response, all of it together so you don’t have to jump up and down and head bang.
P: Laugh.
M: I don’t want people to hurt their necks, but you maybe sit and just meditate or something over the music. I learnt that the other day, meditation, it’s a thing.
P: Laugh! I’m actually more buying into the head banging thing, because for me, being a former dancer, I wasn’t a technician, I was a musical performer like music. Music and movement was the thing, and I could perform or dance to a certain piece of music in such a way that was completely different to something else. And for me, it is that physical response. It’s that buying into the, putting Julie Andrews on with the opening of The Sound of Music and throwing yourself into a pirouette and spinning out into the backyard, going ‘The hills are alive!’ You know, that laugh.
M: I would have gone with Queen.
P: Yeah, everyone has their, has their breakout song.
M: Queen!
P: Yeah, you do. You jump around, you make yourself physical and I think this is, this is definitely a key for it.
M: I don’t know anyone that can play Bohemian Rhapsody without screaming it from the roof tops.
P: Laugh!
M: And then when, when that guitar solo comes in, laugh!
P: That guitar moment, yeah.
M: The headbang! Yeah.
P: I blame Wayne’s World for that one. I don’t think anyone ever did the head banger before Wayne’s World.
M: Laugh.
P: If you can’t remember Wayne’s World kiddies, look it up. Laugh!
M: There you go. There’s another cultural reference for your Netflix watching, laugh.
P: There you go. I want to just jump in here Marie and mention that it’s not only during Covid that music has been used a coping mechanism. There’s a lot of references to music being used as a coping mechanism in other great trials of humankind. And, of course, one of those is the Holocaust from the Second World War in Nazi Germany.
M: Yes.
P: There was a lot of music being used by people in the concentration camps and people in Auschwitz and things like that to find emotional comfort and also to connect because they couldn’t speak to people in the other gulags. But they could hear them, and it was as simple as whistling. And there’s a story of one young boy who actually whistled along with the band, and it resulted in him getting less, less duties in the concentration camp.
So, there was this lovely connection. I’ve got a couple of quotes here,
‘Music gave us so much. To escape, even for a few moments to a “normal” world. Music allowed us a complete disconnect and emotionally escape from the horrors of the daily life.’
M: That’s so powerful.
P: It’s completely powerful.
M: What do I say after that? [Nervous laugh]
P: Yeah, and it’s momentous. And even after that, it’s that buying in. And again, it’s mindfulness because when you hear the strains of something beautiful. I mean, if anyone’s watched Schindler’s List that that haunting melody it can definitely suspend whatever moment you’re in. And if you can buy into that and choose to listen and disengaged for that 30 seconds that can provide that respite and it can even provide connection.
M: It can take you to another time and place. I think it was, was it a week ago?, two weeks ago? That I wrote to you and I was almost balling, laugh. This is again another Corona stress-filled moment.
P & M : Laugh.
M: Baby Mine came on my playlist.
P: Oh! Disney!
M: From Dumbo, and Dumbo was the movie that we had on VHS when I was little and it was what I watched probably 50 times.
P & M: Laugh.
M: But it was my sick movie, that and Annie, and I watched Dumbo a lot. And so, Baby Mine came on this playlist, laugh. And I got all teary and emotional.
P: Laugh!
M: Poor Dumbo, his mother behind bars.
P: Laugh. Yep, totally agree with that one.
M: And it really just took me back to being in my lounge room on my orange velvet couch.
P: Oh wow!
M: Yeah, yeah. We were out of the seventies. We held onto it a bit longer than we should have.
P: Laugh!
M: But comfy couch. It really just took me back to that place and time. So, I’m just sitting here in my first world home with my income and with my husband and cats. And that was such a wonderful experience of escapism for me as well.
P: Mmm.
M: That was meaningful, but yeah, absolutely there are people going through tougher times than us, definitely.
P: Yep.
M: And music has helped people who have been through probably one of the worst periods.
P: Mmm. And it can help you, I think. And that’s the thing if you are feeling like you’re struggling, maybe give music a go.
M: Well, I think again, as we’re saying, give something a go.
P: Mmm, mmm. Find something you can control and give it a shot. See how you feel, buy in.
M: Absolutely, buy in. We’re no longer cynics you know, you’ve kind of convinced me to buy in.
P: Laugh, yeah.
M: We might need to change the name of the show pretty soon, laugh.
P: No, because I think I have moved into the cynic world.
M & P: Laugh.
P: I had a little moment last night, where someone was talking about a certain esoteric absence and I was like, ‘what a crocker!’
M: Laugh!
P: I’m like ‘Oh dear. What has this show done to me? Laugh! I want science. I want studies, I want scientific evidence-based research! Laugh.’
M: I love it, and soon we will be one Peter.
P: Laugh! Oh, youngling.
M & P: Laugh.
M: All right, well, I think we might wrap it up there for today. But we will also maybe finish our episode with a clip from one of Pete’s favourite songs.
P: [Gasp] Oh!
M: I’m not going to tell you what it is. But our producer Lea, will end our episode with that.
P: Laugh!
M: So, until next week.
P: I’m going to have to listen back now.
M & P: Laugh!
M: All right, bye everyone.
P: Have a happy week.
[Snippet from the song supercalifragilisticexpialidocious in Mary Poppins – Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke]
It’s supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
Even though the sound of it is something quite atrocious
If you say it loud enough, you’ll always sound precocious
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
Um diddle diddle diddle, um diddle ay
Um diddle diddle diddle, um diddle ay
Um diddle diddle diddle, um diddle ay
Um diddle diddle diddle, um diddle ay
[start of fade out]
Because I was afraid to speak when I was just a lad
Me father gave me nose a tweak and told me I was bad
But then one day I learned a word that saved me achin’ nose
The biggest word you ever heard and this is how it goes
[faded out]
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