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E27. ADHD and Hypnosis (Interview with Tina Madsen)
Today’s ADHD Crash Course guest is ADHD coach and master hypnotist, Tina Madsen. As a self-proclaimed “brain nerd”, Tina offers us a wealth of knowledge about the art and science of hypnosis and the power of our subconscious mind. She also gives practical ways we can apply this knowledge to our lives.
Overview and Time Stamp Short Cuts
1:07 What is hypnosis?
2:05 Different types of hypnosis
6:17 Hypnosis vs.CBT
7:44 Hypnosis example; application
13:45 What is a “satisfying response”?
17:47 Breathing as a regulation strategy
20:23 parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems
24:13 cortisol response
25:24 pattern interrupt
28:17 parasympathetic nervous system activation/ breathing
Podcast Transcript
Donae 0:01
Welcome to ADHD Crash Course! Today we have Tina Madsen. Now Tina is an ADHD coach like me, only she's cooler because she is a hypnotist. And she's here today to tell us exactly what that means when it comes to coaching and her work and so I'm super excited, Welcome, Tina!
Tina 0:44
Hello, welcome. And so thank you so much for having me. I just want to preface it with I am not way cooler than you, nobody is cooler than anybody else. We all bring these amazing, unique skills and talents to the table. But thank you!
Donae 0:58
It's okay, I do not mind friending up. I'm cool with that.
Tina 1:03
Awesome. So what do you want me to dive into?
Donae 1:07
Okay, so I'm going to say the obvious thing for a lot of us, is that my experience with hypnosis was in a comedy club. I had... a group of us went, my friend went up on the stage, the hypnotist convinced her that everybody else smelled, and it was funny. And, and when she came off, I was like, "Was that real or not real?" And she's like, "I don't even know" like she was confused.
Donae 1:30
You know, you're not going to be the person that jams up the the funny routine. So, we still didn't know after that experience. What was that? If it was real? It has anything to do with hypnotism in general? I don't know. But you tell us. What was that? Is that anything related to what hypnotism actually is?
Tina 1:31
Yeah. Well, it's interesting, because a lot of the individuals that when they hear, you know, what do you do?, and I'm an ADHD coach, and I specialize in hypnosis.
Tina 1:58
And their first question is, "Are you going to make me get up on stage and cluck like a chicken",
Donae 2:03
Right?
Tina 2:05
So, there's different kinds of hypnosis. So, there's stage hypnosis, which is exactly what you partake in, partook in. And then there is direct suggestion hypnosis. So, that's the old school hypnosis where you want to think about the person who was, you know, waving the watch in front of your face, maybe you're getting sleepy and you are now a nonsmoker.
Tina 2:28
That's based direct suggestions based upon repetition. And what I do is insight based hypnosis, and insight based hypnosis is essentially...well, we've got a couple different layers in our brain, we've got our conscious mind, our subconscious mind, and then we've got our unconscious mind.
Tina 2:44
And in our subconscious mind, that's where all of our memories, our habits, our patterns, that's where it's all stored and it actually controls 95% of our actions and behaviors.
Tina 2:55
So, with insight based hypnosis, we follow whatever it is that you're wanting to shift, whether it's a pattern, whether it's an experience, whether it's a fear, follow it back, based upon emotion and together, we work through neutralizing the emotion.
Tina 3:11
So neutralizing the emotion so an individual can show up different, there is no longer an emotional charge. And I know you and I talked a little bit about my background before we got on this.
Tina 3:26
I was a coach and I've always been in love with the brain, the human brain and science and biology of the human mind. And that neuro perspective or neuroscience perspective was a natural fit for me with bringing hypnosis into my practice, because I found there were so many individuals that had underlying beliefs or misperceptions, misconceptions, negative beliefs, unhelpful patterns.
Tina 3:56
And sometimes we do so much work in terms of taking all the programs and maybe your audience can relate to this, taking all the programs, shiny object syndrome, as soon as somebody else has great copy that says, Oh, you do this and you're yet blank, blank, blank, blank, blank.
Tina 4:14
Well, if there's an underlying belief in us, or we have enough of a repeated experience of say, for example, failure, your subconscious brain goes above and beyond to protect you.
Donae 4:27
Right.
Tina 4:28
The number one role of the human brain or subconscious brain is to keep us safe. So it does that, a lot of the times, by saying, like, Don't you know what will happen you you're going to take this and it's going to require you step out and if you step out if there's an underlying fear of judgment or fear of criticism or fear of acceptance, that's always what's going to show up and it's going to show up with different coping mechanisms for an individual with ADHD. It shows up by we choose distracting behaviors.
Donae 5:01
Yeah.
Donae 5:02
And without ADHD, I see that, just everyone.
Tina 5:06
Totally, Yeah...
Donae 5:07
So, the shopping, anything that's just pulling you off of difficult emotions.
Tina 5:11
Yep. So yeah, it's That's exactly it. So, for some it's drinking for some it's overeating, for some it's scrolling, for some, it's shopping for some it's gambling. And, yeah, neurodiverse or neurotypical, it's a coping mechanism, that's your brain saying, this is uncomfortable, I'm going to elicit a distracting behavior to keep you safe.
Donae 5:37
Right. So, what relationship then does hypnosis have to maybe what I would consider like a more top down, like a, I'm going to pay attention to this, respond to this, versus a hypnosis approach in changing a belief?
Unknown Speaker 5:52
Yeah. So I think if I understand it correctly, you're asking how does hypnosis alter from just shifting the awareness around being able to recognize your thoughts and then create new habits and patterns? Is that correct?
Donae 6:10
Exactly. Like a CBT? Like a cognitive behavioral therapy approach would be taking that thought, whatever the thought, "I'm, you know, I'm not reliable". Right? And stretching it, challenging it. But...and the work, that work can be effective, kind of slow, right? And it sounds like hypnosis might have a different trajectory. Maybe?
Tina 6:35
it can. Absolutely. So CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy can be really powerful when somebody has the ability to look at it from the perspective "Well, is that really true?" And, you know, like, is that really true?
Tina 6:50
Like, can you think of other incidences where you encountered this situation, and you move through it. So those are examples where CBT that can be really, really powerful. And regardless, it's a powerful practice. I'm not dismissing that at all.
Tina 7:04
However, what happens or where the differences with hypnosis is, when we look at what I call the vertical model of the mind, and I talked about it, we have our conscious mind, where that's our logical or linear our critical thinking part of our brain. This is where, you know, we have thoughts and experiences. This is where they initially happen.
Tina 7:27
Then we've got our subconscious brain, which controls 95%. This is where our habits, our patterns develop, our way of being. And that's where our protective mechanism shows up. And then we've got our unconscious mind and our unconscious mind. Well, this can become automatic behavior with repetition.
Tina 7:44
So, where hypnosis comes into play is when we're younger, from the age of seven, and under, typically, we have an experience, and this experience can make us feel a particular way, good or bad. In the case of, for the purposes of our conversation today, I'm going to use the example of a misperception that happened with Sally.
Tina 8:08
Mom got really upset. Mum snapped at her. Sally made it mean "I'm not worthy". So, Sally doesn't have the cognitive ability and the critical thinking to be able to determine, "Oh, mom just got in a car accident, mum is super stressed out, mum is strapped financially, she's worried that this guy's going to sue her".
Tina 8:28
She doesn't have the cognitive ability to put together" Oh, it doesn't really mean that Mum doesn't think I'm worthy of love". But that's the misinterpretation she's made.
Tina 8:38
So we have a thought or we have an experience. That thought or experience, we give it meaning. So, what we give it meaning to, evokes an emotion in us. So, the emotion of inadequacy, stress, loneliness, sadness, anger, guilt. With that, after we have the emotion that elicits a feeling, the feeling elicits a chemical, physiological response that happens in our brain that gets spread throughout our body. And that is what is responsible for our behaviors and actions.
Tina 9:15
So, Sally, at the age of four, has had this negative experience. So, this is what she now makes of whenever she chooses to speak out and ask for attention. Like, "I'm super excited. I want to show mom what I made!" and Mom's having a rough day and mom snaps at her, Sally makes it mean," I'm not worthy".
Tina 9:35
Later on in life, Sally goes through many, many years of not wanting to speak out because she doesn't want to have that same feeling because it gets stored on what's called an emotional resonance level in our body. Later on Sally's in a relationship with her boyfriend, boyfriend decides. "No, no, no, I don't want to hang out with you tonight. I'm going out with the boys".
Tina 9:55
So, Sally immediately makes the interpretation, it's not the same experience as when she was four, but it elicits the same feeling in her body, that elicits the same emotion, the feeling, which makes her withdraw or not show up or whatever the behavior pattern is, right?
Tina 10:16
And so what hypnosis does is it allows the ability, because Sally may not understand why she keeps repeating the same behavior time and time again, right? All she knows is that she doesn't want to step out.
Tina 10:29
And it's your subconscious brain saying to you," Hey, don't speak out. Because if you speak out, you're going to get that feeling. And that feeling is not good. And so don't worry, I'm going to send out all the chemicals. So you just stay there in this nice little ball so you don't experience any of the discomfort" because your brain's just trying to protect you.
Tina 10:52
FEAR, false evidence appearing real, right? that acronym? Have you ever heard that before?
Donae 10:57
Yeah, definitely. Yeah.
Tina 10:58
Yeah. So, it's your brain, trying to protect you. So, with hypnosis, what I do with my clients is, we follow the feeling back to where it originated from. And we change the internal dialogue. We work with the subconscious brain, and we neutralize the emotion. So, there is no longer a charge.
Tina 11:23
So, clients walk away going, sometimes they'll walk away going, "Oh, my God, like I can't believe how different I feel" and then other times, it's this subtle, I can't believe it, like this incident happened. So say, for an entrepreneur, say it's a tech incident. They're about to go on and present to their group coaching program, and they have a tech issue. And in the past, this would have sent them over a tipping point actually had a client like this.
Tina 11:53
Yeah, the the tech issue for this particular client of mine was always a tipping point. And one day, she she called me, and she was like, "Holy cow, you're not going to believe it, like, everything that went sideways went sideways". And she was like, "I was cool as a cucumber. Like, didn't even faze me, didn't matter" And so that's the first time she was just like, oh, my gosh, like, I'm showing up as a completely different person.
Donae 12:23
Right. Wow, what I'm hearing you say, then is that we're interpreting a lot of our day, not really at that conscious level? Like, we're interpreting things all the time. It sounds like, on a subconscious level.
Tina 12:35
Yeah, it's based on beliefs. Right? It's based on misperceptions. It's based on beliefs, it's based upon experiences that we have given meaning to about us, right?
Tina 12:48
So, I'm not good enough. I'm not worthy. If I speak out, if I step out, like the fear of judgment, fear of criticism... When we start to treat our brain as a...so without hypnosis, you know, start to treat our brain as like, you know, "I thank you for trying to protect me".
Donae 13:08
Yes. Right.
Tina 13:09
Like, "I acknowledge you. And I want to do this anyways". And in particular, not just as someone who has an ADHD diagnosis, but a lot of the times, I'd love for us to do another episode on this and I think we're going to...but on something that I call the "feel bad-distract cycle", which, the feel bad distract cycle is really all about understanding, like, what's the emotion that I'm feeling? Right? So we name the emotion, we identify the cause of it. And then we elicit a satisfying response. And so...
Donae 13:45
What does satisfying... because I think you'd mentioned that before, a satisfying response in relation to the emotion it's, what is that?
Tina 13:52
So, a satisfying response in relation to something that can help them move through it? Right? Let's talk about the emotion of loneliness. as an example.
Tina 14:05
When you feel lonely, it's a voice inside you saying, you know, "I need to be with someone I care about and someone who cares about me", right? So, it's like, what am I feeling? I'm feeling lonely. Identify the cause of the feeling, like, you're experiencing a desire for human companionship because, you know, relationships are lacking.
Tina 14:23
And then a satisfying response would be using our imagination or, you know, getting creative, you know, okay, what can I do?
Tina 14:32
Well, I can call someone and I can share something meaningful. I can take a class to be around others, I can volunteer, I can join a special interest club, I can get a part time job doing something I enjoy. Right?
Tina 14:45
So, it's really about, you know, learning that the quality of our life depends on the quality of the questions that we ask ourselves. When we're in this state of being in a in a stress response, and when we're in this state of catastrophizing and rumination and running stories, we don't have the opportunity to get off the hamster wheel.
Donae 15:09
No, all that curiosity goes when you're elevated like that. It's it's not there.
Tina 15:15
Yeah, totally. And it's because our body is flooded and we talked about this a little bit, right? But the vagus nerve, the sympathetic nervous system, parasympathetic nervous system, and we can't heal, we can't move through, we can't process difficult emotions or uncomfortable situations cognitively when we're in a constant state of stress. So, when we learn to neutralize, then we're able to contribute towards stimulating our parasympathetic nervous system. And so...
Donae 15:53
Girl, you know, I'm going to ask you how to do it. How do we do it?
Donae 15:56
Yeah, totally. Right? So, do you want to share with your audience the crash course on on the vagus nerve, and then sympathetic.parasympathetic nervous system?
Unknown Speaker 16:06
Definitely. Because this is what I would consider a regulating strategy, right? Like this is a regulator or is that not the way...?
Unknown Speaker 16:13
Absolutely. It's a really, really powerful tool. It's actually something... So, this is a practice that I have my coaching clients embark upon and this is also a practice, when someone's with me in hypnosis, I actually give them a tool, so an anchor, so in the state of hypnosis, so they can pull up this feeling any time with practice.
Tina 16:39
So, give it to them in a hypnotic induction, I attach it to a hypnotic "anchor", so like their thumb and forefinger, rubbing it together. And when they get in a uncomfortable situation, or a situation that doesn't make them feel good, they can access this, and it will elicit the same feelings in their body.
Donae 17:00
That sounds awesome, grounding.
Tina 17:01
Yeah, so it starts from, the vagus nerve is your single most important nerve in our body. It originates in the brainstem. It runs all the way down the base of the spine, and it has nerve endings all over our body.
Tina 17:14
So, the most significant nerve receptors are located in the lungs, the bottom of the stomach and the heart. And when you stimulate these nerve receptors properly, you bring forward the opportunity to obtain a desired physiological chang, which is being in a state of calm and relax.
Tina 17:39
So, essentially, when we stimulate the vagus nerve, we interrupt the stress response, and we induce relaxation.
Donae 17:47
Okay, this is cool. So, you're basically giving me the science on deep breathing, right? Like, when we talk about regulation tools, I really have been curious. Like, why the breathing? a lot of the sensory ones, I get. Even the mindfulness ones, but the breathing was one that I was curious about. So, this is cool.
Tina 18:03
Yeah. Well, and this is something, you know... So deep breathing goes back to to Buddhism, right? So, ancient Indian practices. And so I'm not sure if you've ever done any breath work. Have you done any breath work in the past?
Donae 18:18
I have. Yeah.
Tina 18:19
Yeah. And so for myself, I actually did a 20 hour yoga, Teacher Training Certification purely because the woman who was teaching it also has a background in neuroscience. I love the science portion of it. So, I really wanted I wanted to understand.
Tina 18:19
I'm a huge proponent of really doing a deep dive to understand it. So, essentially, when we stimulate our parasympathetic nervous system, it brings us into, it stimulates a state of rest and repose.
Tina 18:52
It actually halts inflammation, as well, in our body, which is great, why it's so great for people who are injured. It enables the body to heal more effectively.
Tina 19:01
So, how that works is when we learn to properly activate these nerve receptors via proper deep breath technique, that means stimulating the diaphragm, it enhances our mood, and it has a decrease of the stress response.
Tina 19:14
So, it releases melatonin, which is great for helping us to feel calm, iduces sleep. Releases serotonin, which is a mood elevator, it releases endorphins, which are natural morphine and pain relief hormones. It decreases heart rate, decreases blood pressure, it helps anti inflammatory response in your body and it engages the body in a rest and relaxation state.
Donae 19:40
So it's a big winner. We need... Yeah.
Tina 19:44
it's a huge winner. And there's so much research that's done. This is something that I learned in my hypnosis training. I learned all about it and my trainer was actually an anesthesiologist in hospitals and so she was teaching her patients that were coming in, she was teaching them one, hypnosis, but also proper breathing techniques to help calm the central nervous system.
Tina 20:11
So, the physiological breath and how it plays into our autonomic nervous system is: our autonomic nervous system is made up of two opposing systems that work in tandem to maintain balance in our bodies.
Tina 20:23
The two systems are the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system. So, the sympathetic nervous system, it's responsible for our stress response. This is our caveman times, so fight or flight, and it prepares our body to get into action.
Tina 20:39
It's preparing our body for stress. It's a beautiful response when it's needed appropriately. It was originally created as a feature for caveman's, like during caveman times to be like, "Oh, crap, there's a saber toothed tiger, I got to bolt!"
Donae 20:57
And now we have it activated just because of life. I mean, there's so constant, exact no actual physical threat, usually...
Tina 21:05
No, you probably see this with your clients as well. I know, I personally, you know, when I went through a divorce, when I went through the loss of a loved one, you know, we experience those things.
Tina 21:05
So, the difference is that, you know, humans have evolved. We no longer need to be on alert 24/7, but our body hasn't evolved to reflect modern times. So, that means it can't tell the difference between the different types of "stressors", or (you'll see me doing air quotes right now if you're watching me) perceived stressors.
Tina 21:39
So, here's a few examples of when our stress response is triggered.Uncomfortable feelings, social media, like for an entrepreneur, like you know, who's liking and who's scrolling your posts. Or comparison, right?
Tina 21:52
Especially, like when we look at the younger generations right now and how impacted especially young women, how impacted they are because everyone's sharing their shiny highlight reel of life. Let's all get real out there people and everybody's poop stinks. So let's just own that. Okay.
Donae 22:11
True. It's so true. It's so funny, too, I think...that's such a tougher, it's so much tougher on them in that sense, just growing up with that. I mean, I'm grateful I didn't have to have everything documented and the commercial for everyone's life all the time. It's, it's tough.
Tina 22:29
Yeah. Some other ways that our stress response is triggered is, you know, when we have to have a difficult conversation, or not speaking our truth, like holding back...
Donae 22:40
Oh, that's a big one for the people I work with.
Tina 22:43
Yeah, denying our ability to speak because we are fearful of how it may be perceived. Right? Feelings of lack, or inadequacy.
Tina 22:55
These are all parts of our stress response. So, you know, I want to ask your audience, show of hands, mine is upright now, to say that I lived in this cycle for a really long time. Cycle of our sympathetic nervous system being stimulatedcan become habitual.
Donae 23:16
Absolutely. I think sometimes I've seen this in myself and others, like, it can also trigger kind of a productivity and some people actually find it beneficial in terms of productivity. Is it worth the body trade off, the wellness trade off? Usually people decide, no, but I've noticed that in the people I work with, myself too, is like, sometimes that elevated state, you find yourself super actions, super moving, if maybe motivation ...
Tina 23:48
It's a dopamine hit, right? But the dopamine hit is actually fueled by adrenaline, like once we understand our endocrine anatomy and how it all works, then we're able to take proactive behavior.
Tina 24:03
There's not a lot of information out there, especially with how it ties to ADHD. So, there's a whole bunch of factors that contribute towards activating our stress response, I just gave you that list.
Tina 24:13
But essentially, when stress is activated in our body, it signals a release of hormones, and one of the most damaging is cortisol. You talked about the helpful, right, so cortisol, as a short term stress response, it helps the body to reduce pain.
Tina 24:28
But when you have chronic stress activation, your cortisol levels are sub optimal, which means that, you know, when we're in a long term fight flight response, it's damaging to our central nervous system.
Tina 24:43
And it can also be a state that our body becomes accustomed to. So, our brain can be like, Oh, this is the norm. This is the norm. Our brain is savvy enough that if it doesn't stay in this perpetual state, it will look for ways to create that, it's habitual.
Tina 25:02
And it's our brain that will repetitiously send those patterns. And so this is where it's really powerful to be able to have that sense of awareness, recognize what's going on, and to do what I call a pattern interrupt.
Donae 25:17
So, breathing is one thing, one of those regulators and a pattern interrupt is a different thing. A different strategy.
Tina 25:24
Yeah. So, a pattern interrupt is really about, you know, having that sense of awareness about that, "Oh, this is a thought", like separating your thoughts from your physical actions, right, separating and then shifting.
Tina 25:38
So,we are where attention is, right? So, your brain is going to continue to send out those signals of like, "don't do the thing, don't do the thing, don't do the thing". Or "eat the sugar, eat the sugar", get the carbs, get the carbs, get the carb".
Tina 25:49
And, eventually, when your brain gets the carbs, it's like, "Ahh, okay", until it wants its next fix. But with every single time, it's like I talked about our emotions, it's not actually satisfying the initial feeling, right? It's a coping mechanism. It's a distraction technique.
Tina 26:12
So, our sympathetic nervous system is, it's a little bit of a double edged sword, right? It's activation of our sympathetic nervous system occurs when there's uncertainty in our day to day or the anticipation of uncertainty. Now let's talk about how to resolve it.
Tina 26:35
So, this is where we bring in the parasympathetic nervous system. So, the parasympathetic nervous system, it's responsible for inducing that state of rest and repose, it helps to calm the body, it helps our body to conserve energy, it aids in healing, right?
Tina 26:51
So, even our brain, when there's inflammation in our body and brain, it's going to draw our attention to it. I have clients who they have injuries, and their bodies aren't healing because they're in a constant state of inflammation, because they're in a stress response. Our body cannot heal.
Tina 27:10
So, the more desired state, is obviously to, to activate, and this aids to activate, your parasympathetic nervous system. And this is what specifically engages when we do the proper deep breathing. So okay, do you want to know how we do it?
Donae 27:25
You know, I do. I'm being so good at not interrupting.
Tina 27:29
Interrupt, please do please do love interruptions.
Donae 27:32
Tell me. Tell me how to do it. Because you hear, like, even with the breath work, everybody has a different opinion, maybe depending on what their objective is, but just what you're talking about, the kind of breath that is going to help us bring ourselves down.
Tina 27:47
Totally. Yeah, because there actually are. So, when I did the pranayama training, just so I could find out all the different types, for people who are really anxious or women who are pregnant, like there are certain practices that aren't recommended...
Donae 28:05
Ooh, I sense my next hyperfocus journey.
Tina 28:09
Oh, I can I can give you some amazing resources. Yeah, yeah. So...
Donae 28:14
I'll link them if anybody else wants to go with me. I'll link them in the show notes.
Tina 28:17
Yeah. So, when you take a proper deep breath, the lungs fill up. This is how this is how it all happens. So, when you take a proper deep breath, the lungs fill up, when the lungs fill up, it stretches the lung tissue, the lung tissue, do you remember I talked about the nerve receptors being located in the lungs, the stomach, that heart? The vagus nerve?
Tina 28:38
When you stretch the lungs, it stimulates the nerve receptors in our lungs. This is why it's important to take a full breath, right? So, the deep breath also applies pressure to the stomach as the diaphragm moves down the inside.
Donae 28:54
I know that with the breath, like a full breath, you're looking for your stomach... because I know sometimes people aren't really familiar with it, they're breathing from the top of their chest, you're looking for your belly to expand...
Tina 29:05
Yeah, so inhale, belly rises. Exhale, belly falls, right?
Donae 29:11
I used to do with kids., I would put a stuffed animal on their stomach and be like, "Okay, take a big breath and the animal needs to rise up and then when you let it out, he needs to sink down", We're not used to breathing that way. I think no,
Tina 29:23
Totally, we're not, right? Like, proper diaphragmatic breathing. Moving down, it activates the nerve receptors that are located in the base of the stomach. Then the engaged nerve receptors in the stomach and the lungs, send information back up to the base of your brain to slow down your heart rate to lower your blood pressure.This is the process that aids and shutting off your stress response by releasing melatonin, serotonin, and endorphins brain and the gut via the vagus nerve.
Donae 29:59
So, how much? How much breathing? Is it just...
Tina 30:04
Here, here's how we successfully engage it. See, we're totally on the same wavelength...
Donae 30:11
You know, Tina!
Tina 30:12
So, you have to take a full deep breath. And what I mean when I say that is no puffing your chest out, no arching your back, no tensing your shoulders, make your shoulders heavy.
Tina 30:25
So, it's breathing in for a count of three, holding for a count of three, exhaling for a count of six. So inhale, belly rises, hold, and then exhale for a count of six, belly falls.
Donae 30:38
I cannot listen to you without doing this. I'm like, I hope I'm making big breath noises...
Tina 30:43
So, all of the research indicates that to induce the parasympathetic nervous system, the magic number of breaths in a minute is four to six, four to six breaths, this particular practice 3-3-6 is five breaths per minute.
Tina 30:57
So, your listeners, you guys, you want to practice this breath, nice and slow and easy, relaxed pace, and imagine almost filling your lungs up, like you'd want to fill a balloon so it's almost ready to pop. Right?
Tina 31:12
So, that's how you know you're stretching your lungs to the degree that it needs to happen to stimulate those nerve receptors in the tissue of your lungs. So, yeah, so the best practice to receive maximum benefit is practice three times a day for 10 minutes each time.
Donae 31:33
I love things that you can access for regulation that are body level, because I just think the mind, like the thought level, is so hard to access when you're really elevated when you're really up there.
Tina 31:45
Absolutely. So, the woman who I did my my breathwork training with, like, not for the purpose of yoga, it was really just that I wanted the knowledge. She was doing a deep dive on endocrine anatomy and obsessed with the human brain.
Tina 32:05
But when COVID came around, you know, kids were home from school, and she was having a practice every day at eight o'clock online and so there was a whole bunch of us that would sit in our living rooms, eight o'clock in the morning.
Tina 32:17
My kids knew, like, oh, Mom's doing breathwork practice. And I was cool as a cucumber. I was like, wow, this stuff really, really works. Right?
Tina 32:26
So, this was three times a day, those three times a day, 10 minutes. So, this is going to aid in a more relaxed and calm state, a decrease in depression, decrease anxiety, a decrease in pain if you're experiencing pain.
Tina 32:40
And here's the kicker; is that once you've trained your brain to tap into this relaxation response via, we didn't get into this, but classical conditioning, have you ever heard of Pavlov's classical conditioning?
Donae 32:53
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Tina 32:54
Yeah. So, the dog, for anyone who has a pet, they know that, you know, as soon as you go to the dog bowl, or my cat knows, like, I opened the fridge and she's immediately like, "Oh, I'm getting fed!", like she's already anticipating. Right?
Tina 33:07
So, you can actually train your brain to step into this relaxation response in the future. So, practice it consistently and in the future, you could do it with one, two or three breaths.
Tina 33:19
And that's going to be enough to activate this response. So yeah, it's um, yeah, the, the breathing component is something that's a really, really powerful tool and it's like a muscle. It's a muscle that can be trained.
Tina 33:37
You and I touched on this with, you know, having a mindfulness practice. And I can't tell you how many threads I've been in where there is an ADHDer who's saying "I can't meditate, I won't meditate I..."
Donae 33:50
ADHDers, they have like a knee jerk reaction to mindfulness. And I get it like, because I think there's a maybe a an image of mindfulness that is...
Tina 33:59
You got to sit for an hour and meditate? No, like, I'm here to tell your audience that you can have a mindfulness practice in 12 minutes a day. And, and I'd mentioned to you Amishi Jha. She is a neuroscientist, and she's done so much research around this with Navy SEALs, Marines, people who are out in on the battlefields, who came home suffering from PTSD, depression, high rates of anxiety on a constant basis, well these individuals removed those feelings and she actually cites ADHD for part of her research, as well. And, you know, when we start to...
Tina 33:59
And they removed that with a mindfulness practice?
Tina 34:00
Yeah, right. So, like, Yeah, our brain fires differently. But you know, what if we could learn to truly understand that we have the ability to rewire and retrain our neural pathways, we have the ability to work with our brain, right?
Tina 34:56
And so from a coaching perspective, from a hypnosis perspective, you know, when we start to change the internal narrative, right? When we start to neutralize the beliefs, the stories, the misperceptions, this is where I do my greatest work with my clients, then we show up differently.
Donae 35:18
Absolutely.
Tina 35:18
It's not, you know, all smoke and mirrors and wishful thinking and being optimistic. It's about equipping one another with tangible tools, right, like you, I know, have some amazing tools and resources to support all of your clients. I really feel incredibly passionate about, you know, when we collaborate, and when we come together, and we take all of it, we can really have a profound difference in the world of ADHD.
Donae 35:49
Absolutely, hit it from every angle, right?
Tina 35:52
When I was diagnosed with ADHD, I felt so much shame; I had a lifetime of being like a square peg trying to fit into a round hole. I wasn't looking for an ADHD diagnosis, my doctor was like, "Hey, we should talk".
Donae 36:11
We've all had someone say that to us.
Tina 36:14
Like, what are you talking about? And then it was like, "Oh, my God, this is such a huge relief, because now I know what I'm working with!" But then I went down the rabbit hole of research and I found that a lot of the narrative wasn't empowering. It made me feel really ashamed and embarrassed. I bought into the narrative that, you know, "Oh, I'm always late, I'm disorganized. I'm not..."
Donae 36:39
An identity, Where it's like, okay, this is...
Tina 36:42
Exactly, I took it on an identity level and once I started to tap into information that was empowering and supportive, and gently, gently chipping away at the narrative, right? Just because we learn new information, it doesn't mean you know, we snap our fingersn, and it's instantaneous.
Donae 37:03
That's a really good point to make, because I think even that, like, you know, it's a process and it I mean, it, it took me so many years to chip away, right? Like, I think that's just a journey you go through, it's worth it. But, it's easy to feel impatient. Like I want to be here.
Tina 37:20
Yes. So worth it.
Donae 37:23
And it's not always linear, either. I mean, at least not with my practices. You know, that's life, it's just, you move forward overall, but it's not always...
Tina 37:33
Yeah. So, people come to me, when they're like, I've tried everything else, and nothing else works. So, I might as well try this. And I'm like, "Oh, okay, I get it like, so I'm your last resort, right? " And those individuals are the ones who have had, and maybe some of your listeners can relate to this, this was my story, but I did course after course, after program and the story was "if I just do this", like, we are...
Donae 38:00
Oh yeah, we are course collectors, I know that we...
Tina 38:02
Yeah, I don't buy courses or programs anymore. This ...
Donae 38:05
I've accepted that I'm not doing anything else now. So, it's just you know, I'm always fascinated, but I have accepted that it's just not getting done.
Tina 38:14
Yeah, I'm sure I will do some courses and programs, but I finally have the inner confidence to go. "I have enough knowledge and enough wisdom to be able to go out and make the impact that I desire" because on an inner sense, I know I'm enough, I know I'm smart enough. I know I'm good enough. And if I fall down, "Oh, okay, I fell down. Great".
Tina 38:14
You said that and I just had a memory of my sister seeing my books. They were like, all self help. And she's like, "Dude, you need to get some fiction". Like, it was all, my collection of books...
Tina 38:20
Totally, right?
Donae 38:51
I'm much more embracing fiction nowadays.
Tina 38:54
Right? Yeah. I think you and I share similar philosophies, it's coming from this place of, you know, learning to accept where we are, knowing, so there's there's a difference between trying to like whitewash over it and make it look pretty of this sense of acceptance or knowing, right? everything.
Tina 39:14
When we break down everything, how we show up, it's all based upon a feeling, right? We talked about this, the feeling expansive, right? Feeling expansive is like, yeah, feeling good. And feeling bad, makes us feel contracted. Right?
Tina 39:29
And I love that you take on this approach of learning to accept ourselves for our unique brains and knowing it's okay to like, you know, wish to have a different outcome, sometimes. It's like, okay, great. How can I learn to work with this? And then really adopting that "no shame" approach because, you know, we are all resourceful, creative and whole.
Donae 39:29
Absolutely, absolutely. And I love that. You've got to check out Tina and her website and all that she has going on because I love that combo approach, empowering, you know, what you can do to work with your brain, but accepting; this is you. And, you know it's good.
Donae 40:13
So, I know people are going to want to see what you have going on and find you. How can they do that?
Tina 40:19
How can they find me? So I'm at tinamadsen.com, that's my website. I'm on Instagram @ tinamadsen2.0, because, and I intentionally chose 2.0 because I like to do an enhanced version of stuff.
Donae 40:33
I want to be a 2.0.
Tina 40:34
Yeah, version 2.0. And then on Tik Tok, I'm tinamadsen2.0 as well.
Donae 40:36
Very cool. Well, thank you so much for being a guest and getting us up to speed on the the real deal with hypnosis because I know there's probably lots of misconceptions, and I feel like we understand it a little better now. Definitely going to have Tina on again, because we have a lot more to chat about.
Tina 40:59
Yes, we do. Thank you so much for having me.
Donae 41:02
Thanks, Tina.
You can reach Tina on her website@ www.tinamadsen.com