[00:00:00] Welcome to another episode of the Balancing Busy Podcast. Today, we are going to talk about slowing down our busy brains. And I’m especially excited about this topic. I am going to be honest. I selfishly chose it for myself because I’m like, Oh, I want to know how to slow my own brain down a little bit.

Leah: So I’m very excited. And I think that there’s so many of us who are like, Just especially in this world that we live in right now where there’s constant, uh, fragmentation, trying to get our attention and the, the constant feedback that is all around us, uh, that, that busyness, that constant just chatter can, can feel like a lot.

Leah: So my guest today is Mindy Hockadall and Mindy, will you just take a moment and introduce yourself to everyone and tell everybody what you do? 

Mindy: Yeah. Thanks for having me, Leah. My name is Mindy Hokedal. I am a licensed marriage and [00:01:00] family therapist and I am located in Oakdale, Minnesota. I am the owner of Afton Therapy.

Mindy: Um, I’ve gone to school for a very long time. I am a licensed school counselor, I’m a licensed school principal, I am certified brain professional through Amen Clinics, and I am board certified internationally in neurofeedback. So I have discovered that I am passionate about healing holistically, and I think that it starts in the brain, and if you can take control of your brain, you can calm down the busyness, and you can holistically and whole body feel incredible.

Mindy: Oh, I love 

Leah: it. Okay. I am super excited to unpack that so that we can all feel more incredible. So will you start by just kind of talking me through that busyness, that chatter, where is it coming from, and how can we take control and do something about it? 

Mindy: Yeah. So life is chaotic. You know that if you’re a busy mom, if you’re a [00:02:00] student, life is just constantly throwing more stimulation at us, right?

Mindy: And so much of our time is spent on electronics. Um, we’re not sleeping well. And so our brains are going a mile a minute. And what I have discovered is in certain parts of the brain, you want it. Certain brain waves, such as if you’re going to be doing anything cognitively and you need to think we need our brains to work and we need our brain to be activated.

Mindy: And when we go to sleep at night, we want our brains to be quiet and we want to be able to rest and repair and not have the racing thoughts or thinking about what tomorrow looks like or what I should have accomplished the previous day. And so our brains can just go into this fight or flight state and your brain can run you versus you running your brain.

Mindy: Okay, so 

Leah: let’s, let’s start by touching on the, the person who goes to lay down at night and her, her [00:03:00] mind just starts going and racing.

Leah: What can she do? What action can she take to help herself be able to, get into that rest state and let her mind rest faster? 

Mindy: So if somebody is having a hard time sleeping and maybe they’re not seeing me or seeing anybody, what they can do first, I’m a huge advocate for weighted blankets.

Mindy: And one thing about me as a therapist is that I will never recommend something unless I have tried it myself and I can feel what Good comes out of it. So if you lay with a weighted blanket, even if you don’t like the weight when you’re sleeping at night, if you just cover from neck down with a weight, it actually releases oxytocin in your brain, which is a calm, loving, safe, and secure chemical.

Mindy: So that can really help people. Some people will lay with it on and then just take it off when they go to sleep because they don’t want the weight on their joints. Um, that is powerful. [00:04:00] Also having like a fan or some sort of noise, but you want noise that isn’t going to make you think. I have a lot of clients who will tell me they want to go to sleep with their TV on, or they want to listen to music.

Mindy: Well, if you’re doing that just naturally, your brain starts thinking about the words or what you’re hearing. Therefore, you’re speeding your brain up where you can’t fall asleep. If your brain is running fast. Um, another tip would be going through the alphabet. saying the alphabet in your mind or counting to a hundred.

Mindy: It’s similar to counting sheep because you’ve been counting your whole life. And so again, you don’t need cognition to really do that. You don’t have to think about it. You know what those numbers are. So you’re using your brain, but you’re not really thinking. Thinking so that can work too. 

Leah: Okay. Okay. So for sleep, we can try weighted blanket, we can try counting and we can try listening to [00:05:00] things without words and I, that makes so much sense to me. So I’ll be honest, I’m that person where the second that my head hits the pillow. I am out like it is a joke with friends and family.

Leah: Anyone who’s ever traveled with me, I take about 30 seconds. Um, so, so I, I don’t experience this myself, but I’ve always been surprised by those who say they listen to a TV because I think like that just seems counterintuitive for trying to fall asleep. Um, but I also understand that with my brain, I can’t even listen to music.

Leah: As background, even if I’m working, like I need everything silent. I need to be able to just tunnel in because if I can hear music, especially if it has words, I can’t help but start analyzing the words. And it’s not even just me listening it, listening to it. I have this, this funny tendency to start analyzing the words and being like, Well, that seems strange.

Leah: I wonder why they feel that way. Why would they say that? I mean, I just go down this whole thing, and so it [00:06:00] completely distracts me. 

Mindy: And it sounds like for you, if you are busy all day long, and you are using your brain all day long, our brains only have the capacity to be used so much. And so for you, I would imagine that you have used it all day and when your head hits that pillow, it is just done.

Leah: Yeah. Yeah. That’s, I am a go, go, go. I, uh, yes, I am. I wake up and I’m on and I just go, go, go. So the second that I, well, lay down, I’m out. But if I’m being really honest, even if I sit down, there’s a really good chance I could fall asleep because it’s like, if I rest, my body’s like, Oh. Hooray, we’re doing this!

Leah: And I am, like, we get in the car to go really anywhere past 30 minutes, and I will be asleep. Like, I, we all, everybody knows it, we all know, we sit down for family movie night, unless it’s really gonna captivate me, I’m [00:07:00] asleep. Like, it’s just, yes, yes, that is, that is definitely me. Okay, so, you I love that we talked about sleep because obviously sleep is so, so critical for our mental health, for our brain function, for literally everything.

Leah: Like we need to recharge. We’ve got to get sleep. So I love that we started there and we talked about, you know, some ways to settle our minds, um, to be able to get that sleep. Now, what about for the person who just feels like Their brain is just going a mile a minute. I feel like we really see this when we’re trying to sit down and maybe focus on one task and yet we keep our brain just keeps going and going going.

Leah: So we’re thinking about a lot of other stuff, which then distracts us and pulls us in other directions. What can she do? What are some tangible steps she can take? 

Mindy: So for somebody who has a lot of things going on and they can’t seem to rein [00:08:00] it in, it’s really important that this person would almost start a list, write down the things that need to get done because it sounds like that person’s brain fears forgetting something.

Mindy: And that brain feels overwhelmed in thinking about how am I going to accomplish all these different things? And so if this person were to write things down and then maybe take a post it note and write one thing at a time and shut their planner, shut their list, so they’re not overwhelmed looking at the list, they look at that one little note and it says, you know, pay these bills.

Mindy: Okay, well that doesn’t seem as daunting and overwhelming. So then as she accomplishes that, Cross it off, open the book back up, cross that off the big list, and choose another thing. It’s also important though, that somebody’s brain isn’t going all day long, and it’s almost like, um, I tell a lot of my patients, if you are giving of yourself constantly, it’s like driving a car that’s going to run out of gas, right?[00:09:00] 

Mindy: You’re giving, you’re answering this patient’s question. Person, you’re doing this, you’re talking to your kids. You go, go, go, go, go, go, go. If you haven’t fully spent like 15 minutes, filling yourself back up again, you have nothing left to give and you’re going to crash. You’re going to burn out. You’re going to become emotionally dysregulated.

Mindy: Something’s going to happen because you have not taken the time for yourself. So for me, I’m not multitasking.

Mindy: I am not responding to messages. I’m not checking my email. It is 15 minutes that I can enjoy and it can kind of fill myself back up. Or even taking a shower and playing music or a bath and not having your phone with you. Just doing something that physically fills your soul every day for 15 minutes.

Mindy: It will really start to regulate the brain so that it’s not so spastic and, and overwhelmed and going a mile a minute. 

Leah: I think that there is so much power in what you said about something that fills your soul and that. [00:10:00] Calms you down and I’m a really big believer in in having technology free time and zones and areas and you know there’s so much research out there about as you’re falling asleep all the effects that if you’re looking at your phone and that blue light it’s bringing you back up like oh okay it’s morning instead of creating that serotonin you need to like start falling asleep and start feeling relaxed or the melatonin and you know feeling like okay it’s bedtime and you know I think about the power of like.

Leah: Getting a book and trying to read a few pages, right? Uh, making those rituals, you know, I love the idea of like, you know, maybe you take a shower and you listen to music and, um, I’ve, I’ve loved the research and the, the things that I’ve read about creating like a nighttime ritual. And, and I think we could take that into in the middle of the day, right?

Leah: Like, so someone like me, okay, I can’t really do any of those nighttime rituals because I’m just asleep. Okay, um, I’m gone. But maybe I make them in the middle of the day, something that I’ve been really trying [00:11:00] to Do more is to pause in the middle of the day and go for a walk and let some of like some of the walks I want to be listening to a podcast or one of my books or whatever, but some of the walks trying to just make myself sit in silence.

Leah: I guess I’m not sitting, I’m walking, but like walking in silence and and just kind of like paying attention to where my thoughts are going, but also just noticing what’s around me and and just. Trying to enjoy that a little bit more. Um, something that I’ve been thinking a lot about is feeling more comfortable doing less in stillness, taking rest.

Leah: And I think our current climate and culture right now is, you know, We feel like we’re supposed to be on all the time. We’re so accessible all the time. Our attention spans have been fractured. Um, you know, I just think about how when I was a kid and I [00:12:00] sat down to watch a movie, I was very engaged in that movie the whole time.

Leah: And we can definitely see this with the, with our kids, but I’ll admit even with myself that I’ll sit down to watch something and I find myself getting bored and like. Looking at my phone at the same time, right? So how can we protect our brains so that we, we don’t, I guess, lose our attention span? 

Mindy: Yeah, it’s crazy.

Mindy: I am reading a book right now called Eye Minds. And it talks about all the damage that we’re doing to our brains from constantly being plugged into technology. It leads to depression, which is why we see such a rise in kids who are at home video gaming or when COVID shut down the world and everything was on technology, the major increase in depression and anxiety.

Mindy: Um, but our brains are just craving stimulation. It’s like as human beings now, we don’t know how to be content and how to sit outside [00:13:00] and listen to birds without checking our email without scrolling through Instagram. And so it’s like we have to reteach ourselves and retrain our brains to just be at ease and be content and not sneak all of these pleasure sensors that we think we need.

Mindy: I 

Leah: love that. It made me think about, um, okay, well, first of all, I have to tell you when you’re done with this book, read Anxious Generation, you are going to love that one as well. I feel like there’s a few right now. There’s, um, I think the third one, like I would put. The third one being, I think it’s called irresistible.

Leah: Um, but anxious generation, again, it’s all that same, oh, it’s just phenomenal. So with this, one of the things I’ve been thinking a lot about lately is the power of exposure therapy. I’m kind of going down like a, uh, uh, I’m going to give you a random spot here, but we’re going to just go with it.

But I’ve been thinking about how if someone is deathly afraid of spiders, okay, we’ll [00:14:00] say, um, and they want to get over that fear, exposure therapy would be introduced. And what I love is that. I think when I think of exposure therapy, I think it’s like kind of mean and brutal and like, I don’t know, like a spider gets thrown on him or something.

Leah: And that’s not real exposure therapy. Like it would be this very slow, loving process of like, you know, there’s a spider in a box that you can’t see, but it’s just there and then wait till you’re feeling more comfortable and then you can go, you know, Move on to a clear where you can see it, but you don’t have to.

Leah: I don’t, I don’t know exactly what you do when you have a spider phobia, but I, I imagine it’s, you know, working towards pushing yourself, um, Until you can feel comfortable and what I was, I was thinking about this because as you said, we need to learn how to be comfortable being still being with our own thoughts, I was thinking the only way to do this is exposure therapy like that’s the only way [00:15:00] we are going to have to put in some boundaries.

Leah: In place to protect ourselves so that we can learn to be comfortable, and I think this goes without saying, but we need to be doing it for our kids to right. We need to help them to be able to detach from technology and from screens and being plugged in and feel comfortable just being by themselves.

Leah: But it starts with us. That’s the honest truth. It has to start with us and So just thinking about, you know, different things that I’ve done over the years to try to feel more comfortable just being by myself, being in my own thoughts, being completely unplugged to, you know, where I really love it and cherish that time and, and don’t like as much when I’m plugged in.

Leah: Um, but then I see, you know, like this next generation and they’re so uncomfortable. In that space and how we can help them. And I just think back, you know, I think part of it’s growing up. I [00:16:00] remember as a teenager, my dad telling me how he went and saw a movie by himself. He went, he went and saw this movie and I was horrified for him.

Leah: I just couldn’t even comprehend how, like, why would you do that? Like, I mean, why would you do anything alone? And it’s so funny because, you know, maybe it’s part of growing up because like last week I went to lunch by myself and it was, Delightful. And I didn’t need my phone. I didn’t need anything. I mean, and maybe this is because I’m a mom, but like, my dream is to go away by myself and be completely alone, right?

Leah: Like, so maybe part of it’s growing up, but I think also a huge part of it is You know, this, this constant plugin, it makes us fearful to interact with the real world, but then we miss so much, 

Mindy: Yeah, this generation, they’re so scared of doing something alone and they’re so [00:17:00] scared of, um, how it’s going to make them look, you know, they have this fear based thinking around everything. Um, if I’m alone, therefore I’m not meeting my sense of belonging because I’m not in a group of people.

Mindy: But these, these teenagers today and adults too, you know, they just want to be included and they want to be a part of something.

Mindy: And they get so scared that if they’re not a part of it, or even like the fear of saying, no, you wouldn’t believe the amount of adults who tell me that they will go to events. Even though they don’t want to, because they’re scared that if they don’t, they will no longer be invited for the next time. And it’s like they again, they just don’t feel comfortable with themselves and maybe they don’t love themselves.

Mindy: But they feel like they need to be needed and wanted. Whereas, like you said, your dad went to a movie by himself or you and I, I would love to go somewhere by myself, but life is busy and we don’t get that opportunity. 

Leah: Yes, absolutely. [00:18:00] So okay, so bringing it back to, uh, maybe the, the mom who’s just kind of recognizing Things are too busy.

Leah: We’re too plugged in, um, as a family and wanting to kind of give space for herself, for her kids, you know, for them as a family. Where could she 

Mindy: start? Easy. She could start in the bathtub or she could start on her front step or on the back patio. If mama is not feeling good and mom is frazzled and overworked, She cannot be present and be the best mom and best wife that she wants to be.

Mindy: And so mom really does need to practice self care and the amount of moms that don’t do that because they don’t make the time for themselves, they’re the ones that are in my office, burned out. and anxious and sad. Um, and so it’s just really important that you figure out what it is that [00:19:00] again, fills your soul and, and makes you feel good so that then you are showing those that you love the best version of yourself.

Mindy: And it doesn’t have to cost money. It doesn’t have to be going to a salon or going to a spa. For me, I will just leave my phone here at the house and I’ll go for a walk by myself. And I’ll listen to the birds and I’ll just breathe the fresh air. And when I come home, not only are my endorphins going, because now I’ve exercised, but I just feel so peaceful.

Mindy: And again, it was a moment where I wasn’t giving of myself. Cause again, we only have so much we can give and moms, we take on this responsibility that we have to have it all figured out and we have to go, go, go, and we have to keep up with everybody else and eventually. Like our kids feel our energy, right?

Mindy: And so if I’m overwhelmed or I’m anxious, all of a sudden I see it in my kids or I hear it in the snarky comment of my husband, you know, and I’ll say, what’s going on? He’s like, well, I feel like you’re tense and I can feel that you’re upset [00:20:00] about something and I’m probably not upset. I’m probably just exhausted and I haven’t had my time to just be still.

Mindy: And really even just focusing on breathing, you know, if you start feeling anxious, if mom just goes outside and breathes in and counts to four and blows out and counts to four, the breath work can calm down the racing heart, which is what causes the feelings of overwhelm. So just taking a few minutes to just fill yourself with deep breaths that can calm everything down to in the systems.

Leah: So good. Thank you. Okay, Mindy, where can everybody find you? 

Mindy: Yeah, so you can find me@atontherapy.com. I’m also on, um, Facebook and Instagram at Appin Therapy. You can email me at mindy@appintherapy.com. Um, and I’d love to hear from you. 

Leah: Perfect. And we’ll have links in the show notes and down below. So Mindy, thank you so much for being on the [00:21:00] podcast today.

Leah: Uh, for everybody, I hope that you are able to find more bliss, less hustle and balance that busy. See you next time. 

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