Speaker 1: Oh hi, it's the librarian with the green hair and
Speaker 1: the knuckle tattoos. Ali Ward. Welcome to a special and
Speaker 1: a very chill episode of Ologies. First things first, we're
Speaker 1: going to be talking about some unpleasant sounds, but we
Speaker 1: will not be providing audio examples of those unpleasant sounds.
Speaker 1: This is the trigger free zone, folks. This episode is
Speaker 1: all about how unpleasant those sounds are to some people
Speaker 1: who will definitely be listening. I'm sure you can imagine them.
Speaker 1: We're also doing limited little sound drops and asides because again,
Speaker 1: a lot of folks are going to be forwarding this
Speaker 1: episode to their loved ones who are noise sensitive, and
Speaker 1: that just feels like a real dick move to put
Speaker 1: too much extra stuff in there. Also, if I'm being
Speaker 1: completely honest with you, I'm feeling very tired and very
Speaker 1: lazy this week, so that's perfect for me. Now, this
Speaker 1: ologist what a gem, introduced to me by another gem,
Speaker 1: Helen Zaltzman of the podcast The Illusionist, who you remember
Speaker 1: as our guest from the Etymology episode. Helen hooked us up.
Speaker 1: I've wanted to chat with this expert since the last year,
Speaker 1: but pneumonia bested me. Things were delayed, but finally here
Speaker 1: we are. So this guest is not only a researcher
Speaker 1: in this field, but also a clinical psychologist who got
Speaker 1: their bachelors in psychology and a doctorate in clinical psychology
Speaker 1: and a doctoral research fellowship a little place called Oxford.
Speaker 1: And they have been an absolute leader and a champion
Speaker 1: in the field of musophonia and in therapies for it.
Speaker 1: And they wrote the book Sounds Like Mesophonia, How to
Speaker 1: Stop Small Noises from Causing Extreme Reactions. Now the back
Speaker 1: cover of this book it reads like an oasis for
Speaker 1: musophonic folks. It starts. Are you often infuriated by ticking clocks,
Speaker 1: noisy eating, loud breathing, or any other small sounds? Do
Speaker 1: you wish you could sometimes put the world on mute.
Speaker 1: Sounds Like Misophonia is the first dedicated guide to help
Speaker 1: you make sense of the condition and design a treatment
Speaker 1: plan that works for You'll get into all of that
Speaker 1: in just a minute, but first, thank you so much
Speaker 1: to patrons at patreon dot com slash ologies for supporting
Speaker 1: the show, which you can do for as little as
Speaker 1: a dollar a month, and we may read your questions
Speaker 1: in the episode. Thank you to everyone out there in
Speaker 1: Ologies merch fromologies meerch dot com. I don't know if
Speaker 1: I ever announced this, but we have some field Guide
Speaker 1: shirts that I absolutely love and I wear mine out
Speaker 1: and about and I hope that no one asks why
Speaker 1: my name is on my shirt. I just think it's
Speaker 1: quite stylin. So those are up at ologiesmerch dot com.
Speaker 1: Also thanks to everyone who has ever left to review
Speaker 1: for us, because I do read them all. And thank you,
Speaker 1: especially this week to high school science teacher Gabby Roxs,
Speaker 1: who said these episodes capture all the best things about science,
Speaker 1: the curiosity, the humor, the people it's ever presents. Sometimes
Speaker 1: it's easy to take those things for granted. Thank you
Speaker 1: Allianologies for making sure we don't. Thank you all for
Speaker 1: being here. I love this job. Okay, first thing, musicphonology. Now,
Speaker 1: the term misophonia was coined in two thousand and one,
Speaker 1: relatively recently, since this has probably existed for like tens
Speaker 1: of thousands of years. And in this episode we'll go
Speaker 1: for what it feels like to have it, how many
Speaker 1: people experience it, the most common sounds that trigger it,
Speaker 1: what your brain thinks is happening, why certain people are
Speaker 1: situations may be worse than others, how to be helpful
Speaker 1: to people with misophonia, headphones, earplugs, exposure therapies, cognitive behavioral therapy,
Speaker 1: experimenting on oneself, age and misophonia, and where zombies fit
Speaker 1: into it. With clinical psychologist, researcher, author, and mesophonologist doctor
Speaker 1: Jane Gregory.
Speaker 2: I'm Jane Gregory, and I use shee her pronouns.
Speaker 1: And can you define for people who have never heard
Speaker 1: the term? What exactly misophone or misphonia? Is it pronounced
Speaker 1: differently in different countries.
Speaker 2: There's no like shared agreement on how it should be pronounced.
Speaker 2: I used to say misophonia, but then I came up
Speaker 2: with the wordplay, It's not you, it's mesophonia, and so
Speaker 2: now I pronounce it a little bit more musophonia just
Speaker 2: for the sake of the joke.
Speaker 1: Nice, Can you define it for someone who's unfamiliar?
Speaker 2: Musophonia is a decreased tolerance to specific sounds and often
Speaker 2: brings up an intense sort of emotional or physiological or
Speaker 2: even behavioral reaction. So it could be like aggression or
Speaker 2: sort of shouting at someone. And the reason I say
Speaker 2: specific sounds is because it's not just a general intolerance
Speaker 2: of sound overall, it's sort of like your brain is
Speaker 2: attached to specific sounds being a problem. And for some
Speaker 2: people that can be one sound that one person makes
Speaker 2: and that's the only sound that causes problems. For other people,
Speaker 2: it could be one sound, but whoever makes it, it
Speaker 2: causes a problem. And for some people it's a bit
Speaker 2: more general. It could be lots of different sounds. And
Speaker 2: that's different from the sort of overstimulation that you see
Speaker 2: maybe in ADHD or autism, where people react to lots
Speaker 2: of different sounds, or if there are too many sounds
Speaker 2: that becomes a problem, whereas this is about specific sounds
Speaker 2: that the brain kind of latches onto and can't ignore
Speaker 2: and then ends up causing this kind of vit or
Speaker 2: flight sort of reaction.
Speaker 1: And can you give me a rundown of some of
Speaker 1: the most common ones. My husband has ADHD, and I
Speaker 1: didn't know until probably ten years into knowing him how
Speaker 1: much he hates the sound of forks on teeth and
Speaker 1: forks on a plate. No, I've had so many meals
Speaker 1: with this man, I had no idea.
Speaker 2: I am relating very hard to your husband right now.
Speaker 2: That sound drives me crazy, and especially on the teeth
Speaker 2: it's like it's like I can feel their fork on
Speaker 2: my teeth. It's like it makes me so uncomfortable. And
Speaker 2: then that squeaking sound of cutlery on plates as well,
Speaker 2: it's just really really jarring. And that's a good example
Speaker 2: of a sound where the acoustic properties of the sound
Speaker 2: really contribute to that impact that it has on people.
Speaker 2: So that's similar to like nails on a chalkboard, or
Speaker 2: sirens or alarms, sounds that the brain isn't supposed to ignore.
Speaker 2: That means that our brain is not supposed to ignore them,
Speaker 2: whereas with misophonia, it's often sounds that other people they
Speaker 2: might find a little bit annoying, but they can tune
Speaker 2: them out if they need to, So it could be
Speaker 2: sounds like eating is the most common one.
Speaker 1: Hilariously, as if to demonstrate just how wired our brains
Speaker 1: are to pick up certain sounds, an ambulance wailed past
Speaker 1: her Brooklyn sublet.
Speaker 2: The term is isophonia often gets talked about as if
Speaker 2: it is rage in response to chewing sounds, but it
Speaker 2: could be any sounds related to eating. Is sort of slurping,
Speaker 2: that sort of sound that people make when they're like
Speaker 2: sucking their teeth, like, I don't know how has to explain,
Speaker 2: and I'm not going to make the sound because people
Speaker 2: will who are listening who have is soophonia will hate
Speaker 2: me for it. So yeah, they're sort of the eating
Speaker 2: category of sounds. And then there's more like nose and
Speaker 2: throat kind of category of sounds that's like repetitive sniffing, coughing,
Speaker 2: clearing your throat, that kind of thing. And then there's
Speaker 2: a more general environmental category, and that could be sounds
Speaker 2: still made by people. It could be like cracking your
Speaker 2: knuckles or something, or sounds that are made by things
Speaker 2: that people do, like being on mobile phones, being on
Speaker 2: speaker phone, or the tapping on notifications from mobile phones.
Speaker 2: Or it can just be sounds in the environment, like
Speaker 2: an appliance kind of sound, especially if it's a really
Speaker 2: repetitive sound, and that would include things like rustling packets.
Speaker 1: And I'm going to stop there, but I feel like
Speaker 1: there's just the iconic sound of a lars end in
Speaker 1: a quiet theater. Oh my goodness, that is that's one
Speaker 1: of those very accepted you can't do that, that's very annoying.
Speaker 1: But a lot of these sounds and sonic triggers are
Speaker 1: really personal to people, right, and I imagine a lot
Speaker 1: of people sort of suffer in silence trying to contain
Speaker 1: their feelings about it. We all know that nails on
Speaker 1: a talkboard is a no go and the las end
Speaker 1: at play.
Speaker 2: One of my favorite notes from the copy editor for
Speaker 2: my book was it was just a little side comment
Speaker 2: that she'd added in response to a comment from one
Speaker 2: of my editors, and she said, no, no, no, I
Speaker 2: agree with Jane. Pasta should be eaten quietly, and so
Speaker 2: if it's loud, you would wanted to capitate them, of course,
Speaker 2: And it was in a section where I was talking
Speaker 2: specifically about how in the zombie apocalypse we will be
Speaker 2: the ones to survive because we will be tuned into
Speaker 2: these sounds that the zombies mate. It needs the context
Speaker 2: to understand the comment, but it was my favorite. If
Speaker 2: someone's eating pasta too loudly, you would wanted to capitate them.
Speaker 1: Misophonia. It's serious business, people, especially if you happen to
Speaker 1: be an undead corpse leading linguini or brains loudly, specifically
Speaker 1: if they're infected with the zombie virus, it makes sense.
Speaker 1: So gloopy, it's very wet.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's no way they could eat that quietly.
Speaker 1: No, And you know, we did an episode on disgust,
Speaker 1: and I'm wondering how many of these sounds are alarm
Speaker 1: and how many of them just signal watch out, something
Speaker 1: might infect you with something.
Speaker 2: Speaking of zombies, Yes, that's a really great point. And
Speaker 2: so there are a lot of sounds where there is
Speaker 2: an inherent disgust element to it. So, particularly that category
Speaker 2: of nose and throat sounds, it makes sense that for
Speaker 2: human survival we would have some of the group would
Speaker 2: be tuned into those sounds. And we've just experienced or
Speaker 2: our experiencing a global pandemic and one the first signs
Speaker 2: that we were told to listen out for was a
Speaker 2: repetitive cough. And I was like, I've got this. I
Speaker 2: have been tuning into repetitive coughing my entire life. I
Speaker 2: will not tune that sound out. And so if you
Speaker 2: think about for group survival, that makes sense that some
Speaker 2: of the group would be more tuned into those potential threats.
Speaker 2: It's not an immediate danger, and particularly with contamination, where
Speaker 2: the threat isn't immediate, the contamination comes later. And that's
Speaker 2: one of the reasons sort of theoretically why disgust doesn't
Speaker 2: really respond very well to exposure therapy because we're supposed
Speaker 2: to stay tuned in for longer, because the contamination doesn't
Speaker 2: happen immediately with things like eating sounds, and especially like
Speaker 2: open mouth, like rude, what we would consider rude eating well,
Speaker 2: I would consider rude eating sounds, And of course there
Speaker 2: are lots of cultural differences in terms of what's considered
Speaker 2: rude or not. So if someone's eating with their mouth open,
Speaker 2: then they're more likely to be having spit flying out
Speaker 2: of their mouth, which then could contain pathogens. But I
Speaker 2: think it's more likely to be a social contamination, so
Speaker 2: you are not following the rules that we've all agreed
Speaker 2: that we eat with our mouth closed. But I think
Speaker 2: there's something really interesting about the idea of manners, because
Speaker 2: I used to think that I was just really uptight
Speaker 2: about manners. And you know, it was a big thing
Speaker 2: in my family that you ate with your mouth closed,
Speaker 2: and it was a time for like sharing and talking,
Speaker 2: and it was sort of like a really respectful space,
Speaker 2: and so if someone was eating loudly, it was really
Speaker 2: obvious to me. And I've been told to eat quietly
Speaker 2: in my whole life, So it made sense that I
Speaker 2: would react more when people didn't do that. But then
Speaker 2: I thought about it more and I realized that when
Speaker 2: there are other things where it's a similar crime, so
Speaker 2: to speak, Like if someone's got their feet on the
Speaker 2: seat on public transport, I think that's as rude as
Speaker 2: eating loudly on public transport. But my reaction to eating
Speaker 2: loudly is really intense and immediate and anger, Whereas with
Speaker 2: someone with their feet on the seats, I'm like, oh,
Speaker 2: come on, like that's annoying, but I can kind of
Speaker 2: ignore it, Like even went directly affects me. So like
Speaker 2: today it was a full subway and someone had their
Speaker 2: they were turned sideways with their feet on the seats,
Speaker 2: so they were taking up two seats, and I was like, Ah,
Speaker 2: that's annoying, but I can deal with it. If that
Speaker 2: person had been eating a bag of chips, I would
Speaker 2: have been enraged. So realized that while the context does matter,
Speaker 2: actually I think my interpretation of how bad the behavior
Speaker 2: is was influenced by how bad it made me feel.
Speaker 2: If I feel really bad, then you must be doing
Speaker 2: something really wrong.
Speaker 1: Right, And that is what your brain is saying when
Speaker 1: you have misophonia. If you do, so, who does and
Speaker 1: what percentage of people have misophonia? In your research, have
Speaker 1: you been able to figure out what the demographics are
Speaker 1: or how many people struggle with this.
Speaker 2: In our research, which is UK based, we did a
Speaker 2: general population sample and it was representative and we found
Speaker 2: that eighteen percent of people fit the category of these
Speaker 2: sounds cause a big problem for me, and if I
Speaker 2: couldn't get away from these sounds, it would cause a
Speaker 2: really strong reaction. It recently got to fined that we
Speaker 2: should consider it a disorder because there are some people
Speaker 2: who suffer so badly from it that they would need
Speaker 2: therapy or accommodations or some kind of support. So we
Speaker 2: should be considering it a disorder where it's causing distress
Speaker 2: and impairment on a sort of day to day basis,
Speaker 2: and that eighteen percent there's no way that eighteen percent
Speaker 2: of the population is severely affected by this every day.
Speaker 2: So these would be people who would if they were
Speaker 2: stuck in a room with it, it would cause a
Speaker 2: really strong reaction. But on a day to day basis,
Speaker 2: maybe they manage their lives in a way that it
Speaker 2: doesn't affect them too badly, and then there's we think
Speaker 2: a much smaller percentage who say yes, it causes a
Speaker 2: significant effect day to day.
Speaker 1: So while Jane notes research showing that eighty five percent
Speaker 1: of people in the UK are grossed out or bothered
Speaker 1: by the sound of loud chewing, roughly eighteen percent of
Speaker 1: people surveyed are bothered by particular sounds it even lower
Speaker 1: volumes enough to be severely affected daily, And then a
Speaker 1: smaller percentage, perhaps five percent, according to some US studies,
Speaker 1: are thought to be on the scale of having a disorder,
Speaker 1: and miss aphonia isn't widely understood by the general population
Speaker 1: or even by many people who have it, which you
Speaker 1: might be listening to this being like there's a name
Speaker 1: for it.
Speaker 3: That's me.
Speaker 2: Like for me, I didn't talk about it for a
Speaker 2: really long time because I thought I was just being
Speaker 2: uptight or a bit of a bitch, and so I
Speaker 2: didn't say anything. I would just remove myself from the
Speaker 2: situation or discreetly like put my fingers in my ears,
Speaker 2: and I didn't want other people to know that I
Speaker 2: was affected by these sounds. And I think that's true
Speaker 2: for a lot of people. And that's another thing that
Speaker 2: came out of our research is that msphonia isn't just
Speaker 2: the reaction to the sounds, but it also includes how
Speaker 2: you feel about yourself because of the way you react
Speaker 2: to sounds, so feeling like you're a bad person, or
Speaker 2: like you must be sort of an angry person inside
Speaker 2: because this anger comes to the surface so quick.
Speaker 1: Like you have auditory bitch disorder.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: So a lot of people get down on themselves because of.
Speaker 2: It, Yeah, absolutely, And therefore don't talk about it, don't
Speaker 2: ask people to change anything because they feel like, this
Speaker 2: is my problem. And then there's people who are sort
Speaker 2: of at the opposite end, where they say, this is
Speaker 2: a you problem. You need to stop making this sound
Speaker 2: to make me more comfortable. And I think there's probably
Speaker 2: a comfortable middle ground in there somewhere.
Speaker 1: Well, what about when you've started to accept that this
Speaker 1: is something that you were experiencing or struggling with, how
Speaker 1: did you take your research in that direction? At what
Speaker 1: point were you able to make a job out of
Speaker 1: something that probably mystified you for a long time.
Speaker 2: That's an excellent question, because I became interested once I
Speaker 2: heard that it had a name that got me. I
Speaker 2: was like, Okay, great, I'm not just crazy, like I
Speaker 2: sort of just sort of started to follow some of
Speaker 2: the support groups and just learn a bit more about
Speaker 2: missophonia in general. And then I joined some of the
Speaker 2: support groups and saw how much some people were suffering
Speaker 2: and realized, like my immense privilege that I had that
Speaker 2: I was able to live and make choices in my
Speaker 2: life about how I lived. That meant that I didn't
Speaker 2: have to encounter the sounds as much as other people.
Speaker 2: So like I could choose where I lived, I could
Speaker 2: work in jobs where it was okay to put earplugs
Speaker 2: in to do my job. And there are lots of
Speaker 2: people who didn't have that option or who people around
Speaker 2: them weren't respectful. So my husband knew that if he
Speaker 2: was going to eat a packet of chips, he would
Speaker 2: go into the other room because he knows that I
Speaker 2: don't want to listen to it. But there are lots
Speaker 2: of people out there who don't have that sort of
Speaker 2: respect from other people around them, and therefore are having
Speaker 2: to face it more regularly and loaded with a lot
Speaker 2: more emotion, because it's not just this sound is a problem,
Speaker 2: but you are doing this to me knowing that it
Speaker 2: upsets me. So I started to think about it more
Speaker 2: from a psychological perspective than just the sort of auditory
Speaker 2: features of it. And at the time, I was working
Speaker 2: as a clinical psychologist in a highly specialized service for
Speaker 2: obsessive compulsive disorder, and I started to think, I wonder
Speaker 2: if there are some similarities there, particularly in terms of
Speaker 2: trying to neutralize things. So in obsessive compulsive disorder, people
Speaker 2: who get violent images, for example, they might then try
Speaker 2: and do something to neutralize that image. And I realized
Speaker 2: that I'd done a version of that, which if I
Speaker 2: was sitting opposite someone making a horrible eating noise, I
Speaker 2: would get an image of myself like leaping across the
Speaker 2: table and stabbing them with their own fork. Like that
Speaker 2: was just one that's stuck in my head. And noticing that,
Speaker 2: my instinct was I have to like suppress that image
Speaker 2: in some way or I might do it Like what's
Speaker 2: wrong with me that I'm thinking that, and therefore I
Speaker 2: might act on it, which is really really similar to
Speaker 2: what people with OCD experience. And so I started thinking
Speaker 2: about it from that kind of perspective, and we now
Speaker 2: know from research that it's a really distinct disorder. It's
Speaker 2: not directly related to OCD, but there are some similarities
Speaker 2: in terms of those mechanisms of what we try to
Speaker 2: do to compensate for our reactions.
Speaker 1: But at the time, as a side quest to her
Speaker 1: regular job at that OCD clinic, Jane partnered with another
Speaker 1: researcher on a questionnaire to capture the complexities of mistophonia.
Speaker 1: And this is called the S five and it includes
Speaker 1: twenty five statements to gauge a person's reactions to various
Speaker 1: sounds and the emotional effect that it has on them.
Speaker 1: Statements you'd rate would be things like if I cannot
Speaker 1: avoid certain sounds, I feel helpless, or my job opportunities
Speaker 1: are limited because of my reaction to certain noises. So
Speaker 1: this S five has explained on her website, sounds like
Speaker 1: mistaphonia dot Com is the world's first valid and reliable
Speaker 1: questionnaire to capture that complexity of the experience, which is
Speaker 1: so exciting.
Speaker 2: And at this stage I wasn't getting paid to do
Speaker 2: any of this, and I was applying for research clients
Speaker 2: and not getting any of them because no one cared
Speaker 2: about this weird phenomenon. But once we'd published the questionnaire
Speaker 2: got a bit more traction then I got a research
Speaker 2: fellowship to Oxford, which is kind of amazing that I
Speaker 2: went from rejection after rejection after rejection to Oxford University,
Speaker 2: like the top universities of the world. It was very,
Speaker 2: very validating for me.
Speaker 1: Jane had mentioned comorbidities and I wondered what role generalized
Speaker 1: anxiety or OCD or ADHD or autism or other neurodivergence
Speaker 1: may play in misophonia. And many neurodivergent folks report differences
Speaker 1: in auditory processing, which can manifest Sometimes there's difficulties figuring
Speaker 1: out the direction that a sound is coming from, or
Speaker 1: understanding language when there's a lot of background noise. My
Speaker 1: house has these subtitles on everything we watch. I get it.
Speaker 1: And also it might be hard to follow long spoken directions,
Speaker 1: so they might prefer quieter rooms or lowered volumes, or
Speaker 1: just clearer speech. And auditory processing disorder is more common
Speaker 1: in neurodivergent people. But what about misophonia rates in those groups?
Speaker 1: A lot of us want to know.
Speaker 2: There is some evidence that it is more common in
Speaker 2: people with neurodevelopmental conditions, specifically ADHD and autism to that
Speaker 2: have been looked at, and there's a study that was
Speaker 2: published recently from mattiam at the University of Sussex who
Speaker 2: theorized that sensory sensitivity so a just sort of general
Speaker 2: over responsivity to sensory information or noticing sensory things that
Speaker 2: other people don't notice, that that could be the common thread.
Speaker 2: Then you're more likely to develop miceophonia, and people with
Speaker 2: autism and ADHD both are more likely to be generally
Speaker 2: sensitive and therefore would be more likely to develop misophonia.
Speaker 2: But you can also experience misophonia in the absence of
Speaker 2: either of those and so it's not a direct link.
Speaker 2: But people with ADHD or assistic people are more likely
Speaker 2: to develop miceophonia, but people with mesophonia aren't more likely
Speaker 2: to have autism or ADHD, that is more likely to
Speaker 2: be generally sensitive to sensory stuff. We've got some unpublished
Speaker 2: data on that as well that one of the master's
Speaker 2: students I was working with has looked at and sort
Speaker 2: of loosely found something similar that the association between missophonia
Speaker 2: and autism, it disappears once you account for general sensory sensitivity.
Speaker 1: Do you find that people's scores on that questionnaire go
Speaker 1: up or down over time, or would you say that
Speaker 1: your response to things has changed gotten more sensitive since
Speaker 1: you've been studying it, or does it fluctuate with stressors
Speaker 1: in your life or is it pretty pretty baseline.
Speaker 2: It definitely fluctuates depending on mood and fatigue and stress
Speaker 2: and things like that, and that could be over a
Speaker 2: period of more stress, I'd probably be more bothered by sounds,
Speaker 2: or even if it's just like I'm stressed in this
Speaker 2: exact moment, than any sounds that I hear are going
Speaker 2: to annoy me. More like from day to day you
Speaker 2: might get variations, but across years it's fairly consistent. We've
Speaker 2: actually found in our big general population studies that it
Speaker 2: gets less severe with age, which was surprising because lots
Speaker 2: of people in the support group say it's gotten worse
Speaker 2: over time. And then what we realized is that if
Speaker 2: you're in a support group and you're older, you're probably
Speaker 2: there because it's continued to be a problem, whereas the
Speaker 2: people who have gotten better over time are less likely
Speaker 2: to be part of those support groups. So we don't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, can I ask you some questions from listeners?
Speaker 2: Please do yes?
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, we have so many good ones. Oh
Speaker 1: I also was going to say we donate to a
Speaker 1: cause of the alogist choosing for every episode. So if
Speaker 1: you have a cause of related cause that you think
Speaker 1: deserves to have you spotlight and some money, then please
Speaker 1: let us know.
Speaker 2: Definitely, I have one ready to go. There's a charity
Speaker 2: called so Quiet and they do amazing things for mistophonia advocacy.
Speaker 2: They've made these little cards that they send out for
Speaker 2: free that says I have misophonia. The sound that you're making.
Speaker 2: It's not your fault, but the sound that you're making
Speaker 2: is causing a fight or flat reaction, and so something
Speaker 2: that you can just hand to people if you're struggling
Speaker 2: in the moment. It's so beautiful and they've got lots
Speaker 2: of information. They're a wonderful charity that are doing amazing
Speaker 2: things to increase awareness and to actually help people with musophonium.
Speaker 1: Oh that's wonderful. More info about them is linked in
Speaker 1: the show notes and that donation was made possible by
Speaker 1: sponsors of the show. Thank you very much. Also, just
Speaker 1: a side note for this week, I'll be doing a
Speaker 1: live stream with our Sorology guest, a lizard scientist, doctor
Speaker 1: Aaron McGhee of Find That Lizard and we're doing it
Speaker 1: on Friday, this coming Friday, August sixteenth, at eleven thirty
Speaker 1: am Pacific time on Instagram. We're at Ologies on Instagram.
Speaker 1: Doctor McKee is at afro Heerper and we'll be raising
Speaker 1: some scholarship money for Aaron's future, Herper's Fund for girls,
Speaker 1: women and gender nonconforming people who want to pursue herpetology,
Speaker 1: with a special focus on those who identify as black
Speaker 1: or as a person of color. So we'll be live
Speaker 1: streaming Friday, August sixteenth, eleven am. Please just come join
Speaker 1: watch hang out and there's a link in our show
Speaker 1: notes to more info on doctor Aaron McGee's World Lizard
Speaker 1: Day happenings. Those are in the show notes. Okay, thank
Speaker 1: you sponsors. All right, let's hear quietly and non moistly
Speaker 1: your questions. Elsie k, first time question asker, wrote in
Speaker 1: all caps, oh my god, I have this and asked
Speaker 1: about why a distant sound can make them writhe and
Speaker 1: cry and along those lines. Okay. Heather Hortonweden asked, I've.
Speaker 4: Noticed that my misophonia strikes when an unexpected sound is
Speaker 4: heard versus something I'm prepared for for example, at a concert,
Speaker 4: I'm expecting loud sounds, but I'm prepared for it, so
Speaker 4: my anxiety is much less. Have there been any observations
Speaker 4: as to the situation surrounding the sounds as much as
Speaker 4: the sounds themselves That triggers people more than others.
Speaker 1: If you're expecting a sound, is it is it less bad?
Speaker 2: That's such a great question, heaber, Oh my goodness, I'm
Speaker 2: so glad you asked it.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much.
Speaker 2: So, firstly, there is increasing evidence that context definitely matters,
Speaker 2: and that can be like, if you think the sound
Speaker 2: is something else that is less offensive, your reaction will
Speaker 2: be less even if the acoustics are the same. So
Speaker 2: there's some really cool studies where they'll use the exact
Speaker 2: same sound of somebody eating, but they'll pair it with
Speaker 2: a video of something else that could create that sound.
Speaker 2: So I think one of the examples was like smacking
Speaker 2: lips from eating, or like splashing in a muddy puddle,
Speaker 2: uh huh, And the reaction when someone thought it was
Speaker 2: smacking lips was more intense than when they thought it
Speaker 2: was someone splashing in a puddle. So we know it's
Speaker 2: not just the sound. We know that context really does
Speaker 2: make a difference. And there's also some research that suggests
Speaker 2: that the reaction intensifies once you've identified what the sound is.
Speaker 2: It's like, oh, that's somebody eating boom the reaction, whereas
Speaker 2: if it's not clear what the sound is it might
Speaker 2: not be as bad, although I will say for some people,
Speaker 2: if they don't know what the sound is, they'll become
Speaker 2: fixated on it until they can figure out what the
Speaker 2: sound is. Ye, And I had a really great example
Speaker 2: of that, someone that there was this tapping sound and
Speaker 2: they couldn't let it go. It's like, I have to
Speaker 2: know what that is. And then they discovered a leak
Speaker 2: and so they actually like they saved their apartment because
Speaker 2: they discovered this leak that they would not have discovered
Speaker 2: if they hadn't been so fixated on finding this sound.
Speaker 2: So that's a really, i mean, sort of questionable idea
Speaker 2: of like superpowers in neurodivergence and things like that. But
Speaker 2: that's a really good example of where it becomes a superpower.
Speaker 1: And if you're wondering how something that you or others
Speaker 1: might consider a disability can be looked at as a
Speaker 1: superpower for better and for very annoyingly worse. We have
Speaker 1: an entire episode on disability sociology that we just put
Speaker 1: up for Disability Pride Month in July, and yes, we
Speaker 1: will link that in the show notes.
Speaker 2: And then the other part of Heather's question was about
Speaker 2: if you're expecting it, does it make a difference, and yes,
Speaker 2: and actually sometimes that makes it really difficult in terms
Speaker 2: of treatment because part of the treatment, if they agree
Speaker 2: to it, we will try and create new associations with
Speaker 2: the sound so that when you hear them in other contexts,
Speaker 2: it'll feel less harmful. It's like showing the brain that
Speaker 2: this is no more harmful than any other annoying sound.
Speaker 2: But sometimes what they say is that if I'm making
Speaker 2: the sound, they know I'm going to make it, they
Speaker 2: know that I don't have bad intentions, they don't get
Speaker 2: the same reaction.
Speaker 1: So in an experimental situation, the brain processes in a
Speaker 1: microsecond that the noise is intentional and it's anticipated, so
Speaker 1: the usual fight or flight reaction isn't as triggered. Also,
Speaker 1: Gene says that the subjects in the experiments are told
Speaker 1: ahead of time they're in great hands, and if they
Speaker 1: just say the word, the experiment will pause or it
Speaker 1: will start, so that research can be tricky because the
Speaker 1: element of something being completely out of your control is
Speaker 1: taken away, which is not the case in real life.
Speaker 2: And then the third part is that context in terms
Speaker 2: of whether the sound belongs there. So at a concert,
Speaker 2: yes you expect loud noise, that sound belongs there. And
Speaker 2: a big one for me at the moment is people
Speaker 2: watching things on speakerphone on public transport, which to me
Speaker 2: doesn't belong there. That's not where we should be having
Speaker 2: video sounds or music sounds, and so it feels out
Speaker 2: of context, even though increasingly it's becoming just a thing
Speaker 2: that people do. So I wonder if that will change
Speaker 2: over time, because it will become more acceptable. But I
Speaker 2: really really hope that it doesn't become more so.
Speaker 1: If you are listening to this episode on a speaker
Speaker 1: phone on a bus or a train, you have a
Speaker 1: right to do whatever you want. But I just want
Speaker 1: to say to all the people overhearing this, Hi, Hi,
Speaker 1: how are you guys? I'm so sorry that you're listening
Speaker 1: to me. If this is triggering misophonia for you, what
Speaker 1: can you do? I asked an expert for you and
Speaker 1: for patrons, Caroa Young Lizzie Carr, Jessica Jareki, and Amy Ford,
Speaker 1: who wanted to know is there exposure therapy or ERP,
Speaker 1: which is exposure and response prevention therapy? Amy asks, is
Speaker 1: there a way to desensitize myself? A lot of people
Speaker 1: want to know about treatment. Liz asked if ERP is
Speaker 1: used in treatment for this is an exposure helpful? Is
Speaker 1: it controlled exposure helpful?
Speaker 2: So it is used, but I would say unwisely, Okay,
Speaker 2: So it's really important to distinguish, like what exposure therapy
Speaker 2: is and in OCD exposure and response prevention. So that's EP.
Speaker 2: The general principle is that your anxiety will hapituate. If
Speaker 2: you're in a situation and nothing dangerous actually happens, your
Speaker 2: anxiety will come down eventually, and then over time you'll
Speaker 2: react less and less and less until you no longer
Speaker 2: experience anxiety in that situation.
Speaker 1: However, mistophonia is not OCDY.
Speaker 2: But because msophonia is about a potential threat, it's not
Speaker 2: necessarily an immediate threat. It's like this person is doing
Speaker 2: this thing wrong, and therefore I don't know if they're
Speaker 2: going to break other rules and do something else, So
Speaker 2: it's not necessarily an anxiety response. So if you just
Speaker 2: force somebody to keep listening to the sound, what often happens.
Speaker 2: Instead of desensitization, you get sensitization where it just gets
Speaker 2: worse and worse and worse, especially when anger is involved.
Speaker 2: And it's really established in research that anger sensitizes over time.
Speaker 2: If you keep a person in a situation that makes
Speaker 2: them angry, they will just get more and more angry.
Speaker 2: It doesn't come down oh wow. So often people have
Speaker 2: had exposure based on that premise that it's like a
Speaker 2: phobia that for a lot of people that just doesn't work.
Speaker 2: And there's also this sensory processing aspect of it that
Speaker 2: we don't really understand yet. But for me, that is
Speaker 2: that I just can't really ignore the sound once I've
Speaker 2: noticed it, and that doesn't really go away. And I've
Speaker 2: done a lot of therapy on myself to try and
Speaker 2: work through this, and that part of it is still there.
Speaker 2: So I no longer get this really intense reaction, but
Speaker 2: I still can't concentrate. If I can hear a clock ticking,
Speaker 2: I still will feel unsettled if someone is eating loudly
Speaker 2: near me. I don't get really angry anymore. I don't
Speaker 2: feel anxious anymore, but I don't like it, and I
Speaker 2: don't think that that's ever going to change. I think
Speaker 2: that if it was going to change, it would have
Speaker 2: by now, because I have done a lot of work
Speaker 2: on this.
Speaker 1: Okay, So exposure therapy doesn't really work on miceophonia. So
Speaker 1: what does? Asked patrons Nathan Marion twenty three, Skadoo, Maya Silver,
Speaker 1: Camellia v Evan Davis, Salmon like the Fish King, Donna,
Speaker 1: Ana Dylan, Sidoni s Katherine Bie, Brianna l Rebecca fits Giving,
Speaker 1: Kim Really Cobalt, Finch Making Gruber, Shara Harrison, Lizzie Martinez
Speaker 1: and first timers Lynda Thomas, Angelie.
Speaker 2: So what we do in therapy at our clinic in
Speaker 2: Oxford is we try and create new experiences with the
Speaker 2: sounds so that the brain can learn that this sound
Speaker 2: is annoying, but it's not harmful. So it's about trying
Speaker 2: to create new associations with the sound. We do it
Speaker 2: in short bursts where you create a new experience with
Speaker 2: the sound, and then over time, if you do that enough,
Speaker 2: your brain starts to learn, oh, okay, this sound isn't harmful.
Speaker 2: It's annoying, but it's no more harmful than any other
Speaker 2: annoying sound. And I think most people can relate to
Speaker 2: the idea that there are other sounds that they don't
Speaker 2: like or that are distracting, but don't cause that sort
Speaker 2: of intense reaction. So it's the intensity that we're trying
Speaker 2: to bring down. And so the way we do that
Speaker 2: is to create any It ended that the options are limitless,
Speaker 2: so we could just create any new experience with the sound.
Speaker 2: So some of the examples that I've done for myself
Speaker 2: was the sound of somebody really loudly yawning used to
Speaker 2: really bother me.
Speaker 1: Uh huh.
Speaker 2: So what I started to do is that whenever someone
Speaker 2: was doing that repeatedly, I would imagine that it was
Speaker 2: Chewbacca from Star Wars trying to communicate with me and
Speaker 2: getting more and more frustrated and yawning more and more
Speaker 2: aggressively because they weren't being understood because I don't speak Wookie.
Speaker 2: And so once I started to create that association, it
Speaker 2: took the sting out of what was happening. And it's like,
Speaker 2: I still think no one needs to yawn that loudly.
Speaker 2: That theatrically it's like, we get it, you're tired, okay,
Speaker 2: but it doesn't cause that same sort of intense, anxious,
Speaker 2: angry response that it used to create, Because now I've
Speaker 2: got this image in my mind that all this poor
Speaker 2: wookie is trying to communicate and no one's listening.
Speaker 1: Huh, that's the sweetest. That's such a good reframe. And well,
Speaker 1: tons of you are probably stoked to hear that there's
Speaker 1: someone who gets it and they're really hard at work
Speaker 1: figuring out therapy. Other folks had questions on how that
Speaker 1: research happens, such as cad and Grace personal question asker,
Speaker 1: longtime listener who is excited about doctor Gregory's research, and
Speaker 1: Rachel Guthrie first time question asker wanted to know how
Speaker 1: would you ethically perform research on this topic. I imagine that
Speaker 1: it would be hard for volunteers with musophonia to participate,
Speaker 1: So how would the researcher get reliable data without causing discomfort?
Speaker 1: But is part of the research also you may get
Speaker 1: some clinical tips on how to deal with it.
Speaker 2: That's a great question. And so far all of my
Speaker 2: research has been survey based, so it hasn't involved listening
Speaker 2: to sounds. But I'm about to start doing a couple
Speaker 2: of different experimental studies where it will involve listening to sounds.
Speaker 2: And the way to do that ethically is to involve
Speaker 2: people with misophonia in the design of the study and
Speaker 2: actually ask them what would you be willing to do,
Speaker 2: what would you need for this to feel like it's
Speaker 2: a useful thing to be taking part in. How would
Speaker 2: you need to be compensated to be able to take
Speaker 2: part in this, and what would make you feel looked
Speaker 2: after if you were taking part in this research study.
Speaker 2: And amazingly, like people with misceophonia are really really generous
Speaker 2: with their time and information because they're so grateful that
Speaker 2: the research is being done.
Speaker 1: It must be exciting having dealt with this condition also
Speaker 1: as someone who loves the psychology of it and wants
Speaker 1: to find sources. And I think that's just great that
Speaker 1: it's so close to you as well.
Speaker 2: You know, it's so exciting the personal game that I
Speaker 2: get from it, Like if I want to know something,
Speaker 2: I was like, I can just design a research study
Speaker 2: to find that out. But also all of the questions
Speaker 2: are still to be answered. It's really rare that you
Speaker 2: get to take part in research that is brand new.
Speaker 2: When I started this, there were maybe thirty papers published
Speaker 2: on misophonia, and there's been probably triple that more, I
Speaker 2: would say, published since then. Most of the research in
Speaker 2: Missiphonia has been in the last two years, and so
Speaker 2: everything is still to be discovered, which is also really
Speaker 2: really exciting, especially for someone who likes new things. I
Speaker 2: just get so excited, and I've just got all these
Speaker 2: questions that i want to answer, and actually finishing my
Speaker 2: work is the bigger problem. That's why I'm locked in
Speaker 2: an apartment during the day trying to finish my research paper.
Speaker 1: I feel this very hard. If I weren't supposed to
Speaker 1: publish an episode every Tuesday, I would never publish an episode.
Speaker 1: I'd still be tinkering around on episode number one ful
Speaker 1: Knology from seven years ago, just working on it, just
Speaker 1: trying to get it right. I'm perfect, so no one
Speaker 1: on planet or this mat at me or bored doing
Speaker 1: my best until I cry blood. Ha. But Tuesdays are
Speaker 1: go time. So here we are now speaking of hearing.
Speaker 1: Some people wanted to ask about doing less of it,
Speaker 1: specifically about headphones or ear plugs, and there are a
Speaker 1: few options out kind of recently for people with auditory
Speaker 1: processing issues. Like there're Loop earbuds that have a few
Speaker 1: different models to take decibel levels down a notch. They're
Speaker 1: just kind of like earplugs that have a little loop
Speaker 1: that you can pop them in and out of, but
Speaker 1: they still allow enough sound to come through where you
Speaker 1: can hold a conversation and be present in your surroundings.
Speaker 1: And I was looking at reviews for Loop and one
Speaker 1: user wrote these were invented by the patron god of
Speaker 1: autistic people and said, I cannot praise these enough. I'm
Speaker 1: autistic and these have made a huge difference. I'm really
Speaker 1: easily overstimulated by noise, and I can't go to parades, parties, concerts, ballgames, fireworks, displays,
Speaker 1: or any other loud event without having a panic attack.
Speaker 1: Today I put these in and walked in a Pride
Speaker 1: parade without a hint of panic. Now, other people have
Speaker 1: found success with a product called Flair, which is smaller
Speaker 1: but allows in more sound, and I understand that they're
Speaker 1: good for working environments that have a lot of chatter.
Speaker 1: And one user of Flair said that these little ear
Speaker 1: inserts may be saving marriages. Now, what about headphones and
Speaker 1: earbuds and ear plugs, etc. For mesophonia, asked Liz Pluffy,
Speaker 1: Jenna Congdon, Beverly sub woman, doctor Whitter, who writes that
Speaker 1: they need to leave the room while their dog is
Speaker 1: working on a kong because of the wet, licking and
Speaker 1: sucking sounds. Cynthia Munja, Kit Lintondale and Maurice Growl Tree,
Speaker 1: Rogerio and Katie Bauer, who says that they've been trying
Speaker 1: loop and flare ear plugs for mesophonia but haven't noticed
Speaker 1: a convincing improvement. Same with mony ws Alice Rubin and
Speaker 1: Betsy Hoffmeister wanted to know if there are some sound
Speaker 1: dampening ear plugs or earbuds that are effective.
Speaker 2: This is something that is a really individual choice and
Speaker 2: takes experimentation. Audiologists recommend not having something blocking sounds all
Speaker 2: day at night because that can actually increase your ear's
Speaker 2: sensitivity that once you take them out, your ears think
Speaker 2: you haven't been able to detect sound, and therefore you
Speaker 2: bring over compensates and can make you more sensitive to sounds.
Speaker 2: So the general recommendation is not to use it all
Speaker 2: the time. My personal clinical recommendation is that if it
Speaker 2: helps you to get things done, then absolutely use what works,
Speaker 2: but try and find some space and somewhere in your
Speaker 2: life where you can go where you're not bothered by sound,
Speaker 2: so that you don't have to use these things all
Speaker 2: the time. And in terms of which individual devices work,
Speaker 2: it's really down to the individual. So some people can
Speaker 2: concentrate with music playing and so they can easily use
Speaker 2: headphones and that will allow them to get things done
Speaker 2: that can be disconnecting. If you're in a social situation,
Speaker 2: you need to be able to hear the conversation, or
Speaker 2: at least be able to know when somebody wants your attention,
Speaker 2: and that's where something like the Flair audio or loops
Speaker 2: can be helpful because they let some sounds in and
Speaker 2: sort of soften or mute other sounds. But some people
Speaker 2: find that the types of sounds that come through might
Speaker 2: also be a trigger, so it depends on your individual
Speaker 2: sort of sound profile.
Speaker 1: Jane held up the squishy standard ear plugs, the ones
Speaker 1: that expand in your ear, not fancy or new technology,
Speaker 1: just the old standby.
Speaker 2: I've got a pair right here. I really love my
Speaker 2: classic orange foam gear plugs. I keep them under my
Speaker 2: pillows so that if I wake up to a sound.
Speaker 2: I don't put them in before I go to sleep,
Speaker 2: but if I wake up to a sound, I'll just
Speaker 2: pop them in so that I can go back to
Speaker 2: sleep really quickly. And I carry them with me on
Speaker 2: public transport because if somebody's eating, I can just put
Speaker 2: that in and then I have to listen to it anymore.
Speaker 2: There's sort of a thing in Conia baby therapy that
Speaker 2: if you're doing something to prevent disaster that is never
Speaker 2: going to happen, then using that thing can actually make
Speaker 2: you fear more and more that that bad thing is
Speaker 2: going to happen. So if you're using ear plugs because
Speaker 2: you think I'm going to snap and create havoc on
Speaker 2: the train, and actually generally you're pretty good with your
Speaker 2: emotions and you have never been aggressive or acted out,
Speaker 2: then continually using earplugs might reinforce that I that, like,
Speaker 2: deep down, you're this angry person who could lose control
Speaker 2: at any time. And so if that's the case, we'd
Speaker 2: sort of in therapy would suggest gently just testing out
Speaker 2: that theory, and then once you get to the stage
Speaker 2: where it's like I'm not doing it to prevent disaster,
Speaker 2: I'm just doing it because it's more comfortable, and I'd
Speaker 2: rather just read my book than have to listen to
Speaker 2: this guy eating a breeder on the train.
Speaker 1: But my backfire, she says.
Speaker 2: The other thing with the ear plugs and that sort
Speaker 2: of block sounds is that sometimes if you put them
Speaker 2: in and you can still hear the sound, that can
Speaker 2: actually make you more angry than if you were just
Speaker 2: listening to it without. And this is an experiment that
Speaker 2: I did with a patient where they put their ear
Speaker 2: plugs in and notice that the anger increased because they
Speaker 2: could still hear it, and they shouldn't be able to
Speaker 2: still hear it, So the earplugs aren't working, and this
Speaker 2: means I'll never be able to escape the sound. And
Speaker 2: so then we tried a different way of dealing with that,
Speaker 2: and this was like sound through the walls, and I
Speaker 2: think we had some assistant psychologists banging on the wall
Speaker 2: from the other side to mimic of neighbour noise. And
Speaker 2: so what I got them to do instead was to
Speaker 2: stand up, put their ear to the wall, put their
Speaker 2: hands and feel the vibrations of the sound, and actually
Speaker 2: engage with the sound a little bit. And what that
Speaker 2: did was it showed their brain that even though they
Speaker 2: were interacting with the sound, it didn't get any worse.
Speaker 2: But when they were trying to block the sound out
Speaker 2: it made them more angry. It's completely down to the individual,
Speaker 2: so that someone else might do the exact same experiment
Speaker 2: and come up with completely different results. So we know
Speaker 2: in social anxiety, for example, we know that when people
Speaker 2: are using strategies to try and hide how nervous they are,
Speaker 2: they often appear more nervous. Now they don't try and
Speaker 2: hide it. We get fairly consistent results with that experiment.
Speaker 2: But with mesophonia, we could do the exact same thing.
Speaker 2: So someone might think I look completely repulsed and I'm
Speaker 2: going to offend people with how disgusted I am, and
Speaker 2: one person it might be completely true. They do look
Speaker 2: repulsed and they do need to do something to hide
Speaker 2: the reaction. To someone else, it could be the exact opposite,
Speaker 2: and actually, when they try and hide their reaction, their
Speaker 2: face tenses up and they look angry, whereas when they
Speaker 2: just let the emotions be there, their face looks at a
Speaker 2: lot calmer and you can't even notice that they're bothered
Speaker 2: by something.
Speaker 1: Wow, what about other therapies like emdr This is eye movement,
Speaker 1: desensitization and reprocessing. So EMDR has been around for a
Speaker 1: few decades and according to emdr dot com, it involves
Speaker 1: retelling or re experiencing these emotionally charged or traumatic events
Speaker 1: while also following your therapist directing your back and forth
Speaker 1: eye movements or other stimuli which can be like hand
Speaker 1: tapping or audio stimulation or buzzers in two different hands.
Speaker 1: And the hypothesis is that the bilateral stimulation helps access
Speaker 1: a traumatic memory network and the client can reprocess those
Speaker 1: memories and experiences so that they don't trigger heightened emotional
Speaker 1: responses the next time you think about them. This modality
Speaker 1: help with the biochemical rage and revulsion next time your
Speaker 1: aunt smacks scalloped potatoes near you. A lot of people
Speaker 1: asked about some different types of therapies. Like Christine Wenzel
Speaker 1: wanted to know are there any ideas on why EMDR,
Speaker 1: a trauma focused therapy might improve misophonia? Have there been
Speaker 1: any studies on it? Naja Jackson asked about vestibular physical
Speaker 1: therapy or somatic experiencing therapy. Grace Roboshow wanted to know
Speaker 1: about specific therapies that assist with decreasing that emotional dysregulation.
Speaker 1: Have there been anything kind of somatic or using other
Speaker 1: senses that have helped.
Speaker 2: So I'll start with the AMDR question, and actually all
Speaker 2: of those therapies. The sort of joint thing there is
Speaker 2: that we sort of store these memories in our body
Speaker 2: and they come to the surface as emotions when something
Speaker 2: reminds us of them. And so all of those therapies
Speaker 2: that you've just described to all related to that general concept.
Speaker 2: It's stored in the body and reminders of it will
Speaker 2: bring that to the surface, and we might not even
Speaker 2: know the direct connection. And so working at a really
Speaker 2: physical level and bringing those things back to the surface
Speaker 2: and reprocessing them can help us to not get that
Speaker 2: same reaction when we're reminded of them. So the example
Speaker 2: for that that I use in missophonia is if, for example,
Speaker 2: you've got a kid who and I say a kid,
Speaker 2: I mean me. If you've got me generally is a
Speaker 2: bit sort of overwhelmed by sounds and more tune into sounds,
Speaker 2: but maybe doesn't have these intense reactions. And then you've
Speaker 2: got a day, one day in particularly you've had a
Speaker 2: really stressful day for other reasons, it's just been really
Speaker 2: overwhelming and all you need is for things to be
Speaker 2: quiet so that you can reset your nervous system. And
Speaker 2: you come home and you have to sit at the
Speaker 2: table where your brother is chewing really, really loudly next
Speaker 2: to you. Your needs aren't being met in that moment
Speaker 2: because you needed things to be calm and quiet so
Speaker 2: that you could reset, and instead you're getting more stimulation
Speaker 2: and you're getting more agitated. So then you get really angry.
Speaker 2: And so now the sound of your brother eating, which
Speaker 2: may have previously been a bit annoying, now your brain
Speaker 2: has associated that with not having your needs met, with
Speaker 2: being overwhelmed, with getting angry. If you then add to
Speaker 2: that a parent saying what's wrong with you for getting
Speaker 2: angry at your brother? All he's doing is eating. He's
Speaker 2: not doing anything wrong, what's wrong with you? Then that
Speaker 2: sound gets paired with anger, overwhelm and shame and embarrassment
Speaker 2: and being told off. And so that's another need that's
Speaker 2: not being met because your feelings aren't being heard and
Speaker 2: attended to by the people who are supposed to hear
Speaker 2: and attend to your emotions. So if that then gets
Speaker 2: stuck in the body, then when you hear the sound
Speaker 2: of eating again, in the future, all of that comes
Speaker 2: back to the surface, might not even realize why. And
Speaker 2: because you don't realize why, then it adds another layer,
Speaker 2: which is what's wrong with me that I react this way?
Speaker 2: So it's really loaded, and so EMDR helps to go
Speaker 2: direct to those sources of what made the reaction so
Speaker 2: intense in the first place. And we do something really
Speaker 2: similar in our clinic in Oxford where we basically get
Speaker 2: the person to bring a recent experience to the surface,
Speaker 2: remember it in really clear detail until they get some
Speaker 2: of the feelings again, and then we ask them to
Speaker 2: just float their mind back and think about when was
Speaker 2: the earliest time they can remember feeling that way, And
Speaker 2: it almost always takes them to a specific memory or
Speaker 2: a specific time in their life where there was either
Speaker 2: a situation like that that I just described, where they
Speaker 2: really clearly remember the first time they were really bothered
Speaker 2: by something, and maybe the people around them didn't know
Speaker 2: what was going on or didn't react very well, or
Speaker 2: maybe they kept it to themselves and didn't tell anyone
Speaker 2: and sort of got stuck there. Or it could be
Speaker 2: there was other conflict going on and that conflict for
Speaker 2: some reason got associated with the sound so it could
Speaker 2: be that there was tension at the dinner table because
Speaker 2: there was lots of fighting in the family, and so
Speaker 2: the sound of eating is now associated with tension and conflict.
Speaker 1: Oh wow.
Speaker 2: So we do that as a pretty routine part of therapy,
Speaker 2: particularly in adults have had this experience for a really
Speaker 2: long time, and it often takes them back to a
Speaker 2: childhood experience and it's not always obvious, like they probably
Speaker 2: wouldn't have thought of that memory if I hadn't traveled
Speaker 2: there through the emotion. So that's the idea of like
Speaker 2: traveling there through the experience that you're having in your body.
Speaker 2: And so then what you do is you bring that emotion,
Speaker 2: that memory to the surface and you think about, Okay,
Speaker 2: what was missing at the time, that inner child that
Speaker 2: is still reacting that way, What did they need at
Speaker 2: the time that wasn't met, And then you imagine those
Speaker 2: needs being met, so that it sort of reconsolidates that
Speaker 2: memory and puts it back it stored in a way
Speaker 2: that isn't going to come to the surface quite as intensely.
Speaker 2: And then in a current miness of any situation, you
Speaker 2: might be able to remind yourself okay, well, it's different
Speaker 2: now my partner does understand and my needs are being met,
Speaker 2: and so that's an old feeling and I can let
Speaker 2: go of that old feeling, which again can just bring
Speaker 2: down the intensity of the reaction, or you could find
Speaker 2: that that need is still not being met. So if
Speaker 2: you've got a family member, for example, who is making
Speaker 2: these sounds deliberately, or a coworker who does it deliberately
Speaker 2: to annoy you, oh well, that's why that feels so awful,
Speaker 2: because that same thing happened to me when I was
Speaker 2: a child and helpless and didn't have any say over
Speaker 2: how I live my life. The difference now is I
Speaker 2: can walk away from that person, I can set limits,
Speaker 2: and if they don't do something different, then I can
Speaker 2: leave the situation in a way that I wasn't able
Speaker 2: to when I was a child. So sort of just
Speaker 2: repairing that experience that you had as a child and
Speaker 2: meeting the needs that that inner child of yours had
Speaker 2: so emdr is basically that process as well. It's sort
Speaker 2: of going back to memories stored in the body and
Speaker 2: updating them and then helping them to be stored in
Speaker 2: a way that isn't so immediately reactive.
Speaker 1: This upcoming question was a great one. Who was so
Speaker 1: good I wouldn't have even known to ask it? And
Speaker 1: it was asked by Patron's Beverly Soulb Woman triologist, Ali Brown,
Speaker 1: Susan Gottlieb, Sarah Boylan Hope, Madeline, Sarah and Montana, Ana
Speaker 1: Dela and Jessica Rudolph, and first time question askers Paige
Speaker 1: Morth and Amy Ford's friend. You know, this was a
Speaker 1: question that surprised me that so many listeners had and
Speaker 1: it definitely dovetails from your story about EMDR and about
Speaker 1: some stored trauma. And Alison Lance asked why do sounds
Speaker 1: made by loved ones seem to be so much more
Speaker 1: triggering than sounds made by strangers? And Hope Madeleine says
Speaker 1: that they have a friend with it and they can
Speaker 1: only see her for a few minutes at a time.
Speaker 1: Amy Allen says, I've suffered my whole life and it
Speaker 1: has literally ruined relationships. And a lot of people say
Speaker 1: that the noises from some people trigger them more than
Speaker 1: the noises from other people. Dave Cannon said, how did
Speaker 1: my wife give me mistophonia? And Harek gets it saying
Speaker 1: why does my wife to so goddamn loudly. Aaron Gill says,
Speaker 1: the reaction is specific to only my husband eating. Is
Speaker 1: it mistiphonia or just marriage? So do those sounds made
Speaker 1: by people that we love, do they trigger us faster
Speaker 1: because of that emotional element?
Speaker 2: Again, it really really comes down to the individual. There
Speaker 2: are lots of different theories on this and it hasn't
Speaker 2: been explored in the research in any kind of systematic way,
Speaker 2: So this is all theoretical. But one of the theories
Speaker 2: is that those people are just just around them more often.
Speaker 2: So this idea is that it gets worse because of
Speaker 2: the accumulation of memories of the sound. Then you'll be
Speaker 2: more likely to be bothered by the sounds of the
Speaker 2: people who you see the most often. So it could
Speaker 2: be a frequency and memory thing. It could also be
Speaker 2: in the same way that if your partner repeatedly he
Speaker 2: puts an empty milk carton back in the fridge, once
Speaker 2: you've noticed that they do that, you're just going to
Speaker 2: get more and more angry every time they do that.
Speaker 2: But if you had someone coming to stay that was visiting,
Speaker 2: for example, and they put an empty milk catton back
Speaker 2: in the fridge, do we even have milk cattons anymore,
Speaker 2: milk bottled.
Speaker 1: We have coffee creamer. I've I've put a sip of
Speaker 1: coffee creamer back in because maybe he'll want that, someone.
Speaker 2: Might use it. Yep. And so those little niggerly things
Speaker 2: can just be like, please, I've asked you not to
Speaker 2: do this, and you're still doing it, and so it
Speaker 2: sort of almost feels like a refusal to do something
Speaker 2: that you want. So it feels like more of a
Speaker 2: personal attack. Another one, and one of the reasons why
Speaker 2: for kids with miscephonia, potentially parents are more likely to
Speaker 2: be the source of the trigger. And this one I
Speaker 2: find really really interesting, So it could also be for
Speaker 2: those other two reasons. But also when you get to
Speaker 2: a certain age in adolescence, you are meant to find
Speaker 2: the sounds your parents make more annoying and the sounds
Speaker 2: that your peers make more appealing. And that's a developmental
Speaker 2: stage that we all go through so that we will
Speaker 2: detach a little bit from the immediate family unit join
Speaker 2: more closely with peers so that we can slowly start
Speaker 2: independent life and rely on other people other than our family.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: So that's a really normal developmental phase. To find your
Speaker 2: parents voice grating, or to find the little noises that
Speaker 2: they make annoying. If you also have misophonia, then that's
Speaker 2: going to be compounded. And then, because it's the person
Speaker 2: that you care about the most, because it's the person
Speaker 2: that you depend on the most, it's the person that
Speaker 2: you most need to not trigger you, it makes it
Speaker 2: even worse. In that same way of like, if you
Speaker 2: try not to think about a colorful snail your brains,
Speaker 2: what does a colorful snail look like? So if you're saying,
Speaker 2: don't get annoyed by the people that you need to
Speaker 2: be around, you might be more likely to tune into
Speaker 2: it because of that paradox in our brain that when
Speaker 2: you try to suppress something, it actually intensifies it. There
Speaker 2: are more reasons. I could probably keep talking about that forever,
Speaker 2: but there's a sum of the fairies.
Speaker 1: The next question was also asked by Lindsay Mayor and Storm,
Speaker 1: who wrote, is there a way to make sure I'm
Speaker 1: not making the noises that trigger other people? For example
Speaker 1: eating loudly, which apparently I do, but I can't hear it?
Speaker 1: Storm wrote, And you know on that note, many people
Speaker 1: first time question askers Sam Bergen, Marianna Alvarez, Danny Green,
Speaker 1: Cynthia Meenja. A few folks wanted to know how they
Speaker 1: can support a loved one. Sam Bergen asked, how can
Speaker 1: I support a partner who has musophonia other than not
Speaker 1: making the noise that trigger them, since I'm rather fond
Speaker 1: of things like breathing and eating. Or Marianna said that
Speaker 1: they have a loved one who hates the sound of
Speaker 1: the dogs chewing, and there's not a lot you can
Speaker 1: communicate to the dogs to ask them not to do it.
Speaker 1: But essentially, like Ellen asked, how do I help my
Speaker 1: lovely friend with misceophonia, I feel more comfortable.
Speaker 2: First of all, even asking that question, you're already doing
Speaker 2: much better than most loved ones with misophonia because you
Speaker 2: actually care about doing something to help make their experience
Speaker 2: more comfortable. Yeah, like my husband and I joke that
Speaker 2: missiphonia loosely translates to I hate the sound of you
Speaker 2: keeping yourself alive because it's eating and breathing, which you
Speaker 2: literally need to do to survive.
Speaker 1: Those are my two favorite things. Oh, it's so hard
Speaker 1: for everyone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so hard, And there are a couple of
Speaker 2: things so The first thing I would say is to
Speaker 2: have a conversation about it when the person isn't being
Speaker 2: triggered by a sound. So plan in a time, in
Speaker 2: an environment where they're less likely to be bothered by sounds,
Speaker 2: to have a conversation about it, learn about it. Are
Speaker 2: there particular sounds, Are there particular contexts where it's a problem?
Speaker 2: Is there anything small that you could do that would
Speaker 2: make a huge difference. So that's the big thing is
Speaker 2: if there's something small, even if you don't understand it,
Speaker 2: and it's easy for you to put into place, just
Speaker 2: do it even if you don't get it. And so
Speaker 2: that could just be as simple as like we just
Speaker 2: put music on when we're having a meal together. It's
Speaker 2: a really easy thing to do. But the problem is
Speaker 2: when what the person with misophonia needs to feel comfortable
Speaker 2: imposes on somebody else's needs, And you could also say
Speaker 2: imposes on someone else's rights. So everyone has the right
Speaker 2: to their own autonomy over their own body, and they
Speaker 2: have the right to breathe, and they have the right
Speaker 2: to eat how they want. But if you can make
Speaker 2: a small change that makes a big difference to a
Speaker 2: person with misophonia, then do it, But for the people
Speaker 2: with misophonia, I also remind them that it's really really
Speaker 2: hard to change habits, especially things that you've just done
Speaker 2: the way you've always done them. To suddenly have to
Speaker 2: think to do them is really really hard work. So
Speaker 2: if you've asked somebody wants to do something and they
Speaker 2: keep doing it, it might not be because they don't
Speaker 2: care and they don't want to change. It could just
Speaker 2: be that it's really really hard to change the way
Speaker 2: you eat, for example, or it could just be about like,
Speaker 2: you don't have to change what you're doing. But sometimes
Speaker 2: I might just leave the room because it's going to
Speaker 2: be hard for me and it's not about you, it's
Speaker 2: about me, and I'm just going to need to do that.
Speaker 2: Sometimes you're going to need to take little breaks.
Speaker 1: But trying to ask what support someone needs is a
Speaker 1: good gesture to start.
Speaker 2: Yeah, asking what sort of support, believing what they tell you. Like,
Speaker 2: That's the other thing is that often people don't believe
Speaker 2: that it's really a problem, or they see you not
Speaker 2: bothered by it in one situation and bothered by it
Speaker 2: in the different situations. Oh, you're just choosing when you
Speaker 2: get annoyed by it. So actually just understanding that it
Speaker 2: might not make sense to see from the outside, but
Speaker 2: if the person is telling you that they're distressed by it,
Speaker 2: then just believe them, which I think is a good
Speaker 2: rule in general that if someone is telling you they're distressed,
Speaker 2: the harm that can be caused by not believing people
Speaker 2: when they say they're distressed is much greater than the
Speaker 2: harm that can be by letting people get away with
Speaker 2: pretending to be distressed.
Speaker 1: Nuh huh. That's a great way to put it, and
Speaker 1: I really, really, sincerely hope this episode has helped people
Speaker 1: on both sides of the noises to understand each other
Speaker 1: more and how it happens and why, because maybe if
Speaker 1: you thought it was just an exaggeration or pickiness, there's
Speaker 1: a little bit more empathy there because a lot of
Speaker 1: people who have this want to know if they can
Speaker 1: stop it, if they can never get over it, will
Speaker 1: it ever go away? Is there a cure for it?
Speaker 1: Red Tongue, Heather Dyke's Renee Vanden Hoven, Eric Masterson, Heather Dingle, Hope,
Speaker 1: Madeline want to know is there a cure? What kind
Speaker 1: of hope might someone have because I'm assuming absolutely no
Speaker 1: one wants to have musophonia, like, probably not, But in
Speaker 1: terms of treatment, what is sort of like the hope,
Speaker 1: what kind of quality of life can people have in
Speaker 1: terms of getting some relief from it?
Speaker 2: I think it's a combination of things. If we think
Speaker 2: about the sensory, the sort of over responsive brain to sounds,
Speaker 2: and then we think about the intense emotional reaction to sounds.
Speaker 2: The second part is the part that I think we
Speaker 2: can change, and I think what a lot of people
Speaker 2: will be left with is like, oh, I can't ignore
Speaker 2: certain sounds and they bother me more than other people.
Speaker 2: But where we want to get to is it doesn't
Speaker 2: cause this fight or flight reaction. It doesn't make me
Speaker 2: feel like I'm in danger or like I'm being harmed anymore.
Speaker 2: It just feels like that's annoying and maybe I can't concentrate.
Speaker 2: And then the third part is then what can you
Speaker 2: do with what's left over? And how can you make
Speaker 2: adjustments in your life so that it doesn't bother you
Speaker 2: so much? And so that would be then when do
Speaker 2: I use aer plugs? When do I ask people to
Speaker 2: change what they're doing around me? Where do I live
Speaker 2: that makes me feel more relaxed and comfortable and choosing
Speaker 2: those based on what helps you to participate most in life,
Speaker 2: what helps you to feel most connected to other people,
Speaker 2: rather than basing them entirely on what makes me feel
Speaker 2: less upset, because actually we need to be connected, We
Speaker 2: need to participate in life to feel well overall. So
Speaker 2: even if sometimes that means we might encounter situations that
Speaker 2: are more stressful, if in general, on balance, it means
Speaker 2: that we're participating more and we're feeling more connected than
Speaker 2: the net effect of that is going to be positive.
Speaker 2: So I don't think there's a complete cure. And everything
Speaker 2: that I do with patients, everything that is in my book,
Speaker 2: I have tried on myself. Some of them I will
Speaker 2: never do again. Some of them I use on a
Speaker 2: really routine basis, and I am now at the stage
Speaker 2: where if I'm really stressed or tired, I can still
Speaker 2: get really upset by things. And that's from deliberately doing
Speaker 2: lots of practice in those sorts of exercises where I
Speaker 2: sort of create new experiences with sound. I try and
Speaker 2: do different things when I'm listening to these sounds. So
Speaker 2: that has really changed for me, and that's what we
Speaker 2: aim to do with our patients in therapy, and what
Speaker 2: I hope what people will get from the book as
Speaker 2: well is that you can do things that change your
Speaker 2: relationship with the sounds. But ultimately there's probably still for
Speaker 2: most people a sensory processing difference That means that you
Speaker 2: might need to carry your plugs with you so that
Speaker 2: you can concentrate when you need to or relax when
Speaker 2: you need to. But what we want is that it
Speaker 2: doesn't cause that intense distress sort of reaction anymore.
Speaker 1: You mentioned that some things you would never do again,
Speaker 1: and I was going to ask you, what's the worst
Speaker 1: thing about your job? And I'm imagining trying some of
Speaker 1: these things that do not work for you particularly. Do
Speaker 1: you want to share what that was, or do you
Speaker 1: want to tell me what you're the worst part of
Speaker 1: studying something that is a condition that you were intimately
Speaker 1: familiar with.
Speaker 2: There are two that jumped mind. So one is something
Speaker 2: we call leaning in. So sometimes if your brain is
Speaker 2: telling me that something is dangerous, if you literally move
Speaker 2: closer to it and nothing bad happens, then sometimes your
Speaker 2: brain just catches up and goes, oh, okay, it's not dangerous.
Speaker 2: But for me, it was like I just leaned in
Speaker 2: the sound became blad. I was like, oh nope, that
Speaker 2: doesn't work. Oh no, And I tried it a few
Speaker 2: different ways. The only way I could make it work
Speaker 2: is if I leaned in and did the opposite of
Speaker 2: what I wanted to do, So if my instinct was
Speaker 2: to glare at the person. Unfortunately, my poor husband has
Speaker 2: been subjected to being part of all of my most
Speaker 2: of my experiments, so instead of glaring at him, I
Speaker 2: gazed adoringly at him and leaned in. And so when
Speaker 2: I changed what I was doing, that was the only
Speaker 2: thing that actually showed my brain that this is not harmful.
Speaker 2: It's like, if I'm acting like he's not trying to
Speaker 2: hurt me, then I will believe that he's not trying
Speaker 2: to hurt me, and that then reduced the intensity of
Speaker 2: the reaction. But just leaning in did not work for me.
Speaker 2: But I have worked with patients who said that that
Speaker 2: really made a huge difference to them that as soon
Speaker 2: as they started leaning into the sound, turning the volume
Speaker 2: up on the sound, it actually did change the way
Speaker 2: they experienced the sound. So for some people it does work.
Speaker 2: So I still put it out there as a possible strategy.
Speaker 2: For me, it didn't work.
Speaker 1: Okay, so that was not effective. But another fix for
Speaker 1: her there was also not a fix.
Speaker 2: The other one was a type of ear plug that
Speaker 2: has a hole in it that's meant to sort of
Speaker 2: change the way sounds go through the ear canal. And
Speaker 2: so I got my kids to eat some corn chips
Speaker 2: while I was wearing these ear plugs, and it did
Speaker 2: indeed change the way the sound went into my ear canals,
Speaker 2: but it just made it nice and clear. And Chris
Speaker 2: every single bite of these corn gims. Oh no, so
Speaker 2: those definitely did not work.
Speaker 1: Oh god, oh no, Is that the hardest thing about
Speaker 1: your job?
Speaker 3: Do you think?
Speaker 2: I wouldn't say it's the hardest thing, because actually doing
Speaker 2: that helps me to I feel more connected to what
Speaker 2: I'm doing. I'm always interested in the results, even if
Speaker 2: I don't like what it does, I'm always interested in
Speaker 2: what it does to me. I think the hardest part
Speaker 2: for me is because we don't know enough about it
Speaker 2: to know that these things are really likely to make
Speaker 2: a difference. It's really really experimental, and so for people
Speaker 2: where we're trying lots of different things and it takes
Speaker 2: a long time for it to make a difference. That
Speaker 2: is really difficult, especially if the person has people in
Speaker 2: their life that don't want to help or support that
Speaker 2: process and are deliberately antagonizing the other person, And so
Speaker 2: having to help people where it's like it's heartbreaking to
Speaker 2: hear how they've been treated sometimes or are continuing to
Speaker 2: be treated, and not being able to do anything about
Speaker 2: it because you just can't control what the other person does. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and you can sort of empower people with problem solving
Speaker 2: and boundary setting and communication, but the reality some people
Speaker 2: just have horrible people in their life or people who
Speaker 2: don't understand and therefore do horrible things, even if they're
Speaker 2: not ordinarily a horrible person. So that for me is
Speaker 2: the hardest part, just not being able to have any
Speaker 2: answers to that problem and not knowing enough yet as
Speaker 2: a whole about misophonia to be able to get quickly
Speaker 2: to the solution.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting because you said that there's been more
Speaker 1: research the last three years, and I feel like it
Speaker 1: is an art a coincidence that with your book and
Speaker 1: with your research and a lot of the outreach you've done,
Speaker 1: that more people are able to put a name to
Speaker 1: this and understand that there are different types or explain
Speaker 1: that they're not just afflicted with auditory bitch disorder. It's
Speaker 1: actually you're not a bitch. You're actually just sensitive to
Speaker 1: a certain sound. And you know, I imagine that's going
Speaker 1: to be so gratifying. But in terms of all of
Speaker 1: the work you get to do between clinical and crunching
Speaker 1: the numbers and writing and getting letters from people, like,
Speaker 1: what's your favorite part of the job.
Speaker 2: Okay, this is a little embarrassing, but no.
Speaker 1: There's no embarrassment here.
Speaker 2: So one of my favorite things is So, my husband
Speaker 2: is a start up comedian that's like professional comedian. So
Speaker 2: he has started talking about misophonia in his act and
Speaker 2: he now gets people who come up to him afterwards
Speaker 2: and says, is your wife Jane Gregory because they've heard
Speaker 2: me on a podcast or on the radio, or they've
Speaker 2: read my book. He did a gig with someone and
Speaker 2: another comedian on the bill was in the middle of
Speaker 2: reading my book. No, So to me, that is the
Speaker 2: most exciting thing. And now that I'm like trying to
Speaker 2: trump my husband's success in comedy that he has to
Speaker 2: deal with fans of me coming up to him after.
Speaker 2: But when he first started talking about it public, he
Speaker 2: had to really explain what it was. Now he gets
Speaker 2: people who already know what it is and know who
Speaker 2: I am because of the work that I've done to
Speaker 2: try and spreading for nation and spread awareness about musophonia.
Speaker 2: So that's like, yeah, I feel.
Speaker 1: Like every meal, every bag of chips, that all should
Speaker 1: be a write off.
Speaker 2: All should be a write off because you're still research, absolutely.
Speaker 1: Research, And just like last week's episode on the Science
Speaker 1: of Fun, when you make something your life, you should
Speaker 1: at least be able to expense some of it. I
Speaker 1: think it's legit, but I'm not your accountant. But speaking
Speaker 1: of making my job my life, I mentioned to Jane
Speaker 1: that I read all the reviews and that's how years
Speaker 1: ago I found out about miss aphonia. I remember we
Speaker 1: had to quickly edit and then re upload an episode
Speaker 1: that involved a honey tasting on Mike. Some listeners did
Speaker 1: not enjoy that. I would never do that again. But
Speaker 1: also every episode we put up behind the scenes, Jake
Speaker 1: and Mercedes and Jarrett are working to cut any mouth
Speaker 1: noises or clicks or breathing or anything to make every
Speaker 1: ologies episode as easy of a listen as we can.
Speaker 1: So we have QC going on through several people's ears
Speaker 1: to make sure that these are just smooth listening. We
Speaker 1: do our best. Jane likewise shared an entertainment nightmare.
Speaker 2: I was watching a stand up show the other night
Speaker 2: and the comedian into the microphone was chewing gum, and
Speaker 2: I was, I just I can't enjoy what you're saying
Speaker 2: because all I can hear is this chewing noise. So
Speaker 2: thank you for taking the care to do that.
Speaker 1: Doing our best. Do you ever accidentally scroll past ASMR
Speaker 1: videos and want to throw your phone? And ever?
Speaker 2: I do get as my videos on my feed because
Speaker 2: I often use ASMR videos as part of the process
Speaker 2: of like, how can we interact with this sound in
Speaker 2: a different way. Often it's a smart videos that produce
Speaker 2: the sounds that we need, And so now, yes, they
Speaker 2: do shop on my feed. But I also always just
Speaker 2: have my phone on silent, so if I'm scroll if
Speaker 2: I want to watch a video, I will turn the
Speaker 2: sound on to listen to it, But by default all
Speaker 2: the sound is off.
Speaker 1: You're on an opt in basis when it comes.
Speaker 2: To which I think, personally, I think should be the
Speaker 2: default position of all fun the faults that you opt
Speaker 2: in to listen to the sound when you want to,
Speaker 2: and then you turn it off again when you're done,
Speaker 2: especially in public.
Speaker 1: I feel like this episode will make a lot of
Speaker 1: people chew with their mouth closed.
Speaker 2: If I contribute nothing else to this, to the world,
Speaker 2: more people chew with their mouth closed.
Speaker 1: This has been so fun. I was as I'm clearing
Speaker 1: my throat.
Speaker 2: See five years ago that would have caused an intense
Speaker 2: reaction and look at me. Come. This is what I
Speaker 2: call my resting listening faces.
Speaker 1: So ask quite brilliant people quiet questions about important topics,
Speaker 1: because as you can see, it's pretty good to hear
Speaker 1: those answers. And you can find doctor Jane Gregory's book
Speaker 1: sounds like Missophonia, how to Stop Small Noises from Causing
Speaker 1: Extreme Reactions wherever books are sold. We linked them in
Speaker 1: the show notes. Her website is sounds like Missiphonia dot com,
Speaker 1: and her social media links are also in the show notes.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Jane for coming on. That was
Speaker 1: such a fun talk. And we are at ologies on
Speaker 1: x and Instagram. I'm at ali Ward on both we
Speaker 1: also have asmologies. Those are shorter, classroom friendly episodes, their
Speaker 1: kids Safe, and as of a few months ago, they
Speaker 1: have their own show feed, so you can find Smologies
Speaker 1: wherever you get podcasts. The new logo is green with
Speaker 1: some new drawings on it, and the link to subscribe
Speaker 1: to Smologies is in the show notes as well. Ologi's
Speaker 1: Merch is available at ologiesmerch dot com, and to become
Speaker 1: a patron of the show you can sign up for
Speaker 1: about a dollar a month at patreon dot com slash Ologies.
Speaker 1: Aaron Talbert admins the Ologies podcast Facebook group. Aveline Malik
Speaker 1: makes our professional transcripts. Kelly ar Dwyer does the website scheduling.
Speaker 1: Producer is Noel Dilworth. Jake Chafy edits out, smacks and
Speaker 1: ums so wonderfully. Susan Hale is our managing director of
Speaker 1: Everything and lead editor of Things both Oral and Oral
Speaker 1: is Mercedes Maitland of Maitland Audio. Nick Thorburn made the
Speaker 1: theme music. And if you stick around till the end
Speaker 1: of the episode, I tell you a secret, and this
Speaker 1: week's it's that I have a walking pad under my
Speaker 1: desk and I try to walk when I work when
Speaker 1: I can, because it's good for my brain. I find
Speaker 1: that I'm happier when I do that, even though it
Speaker 1: doesn't seem like it would make you happy in the
Speaker 1: short term. Chemically, I'm like, yes, this does work. And
Speaker 1: I was really annoyed because I have a ring that
Speaker 1: tracks my fitness. I have an or ring I've had
Speaker 1: for years, which I really love, but anytime I tried
Speaker 1: to use my walking desk, it wouldn't record any of
Speaker 1: the steps because my arm wasn't swinging. Same thing with
Speaker 1: like a fitbit. Then I decided to wait one second,
Speaker 1: and I got a strap for my fitbit and I
Speaker 1: put it on my ankle and now I wear it there.
Speaker 1: It catches all my steps, which has made me want
Speaker 1: to gamify and use my walking pad more so. In
Speaker 1: the month since I put this Fitbit on my ankle,
Speaker 1: I've been running and I've been walking a lot more.
Speaker 1: Absolutely ten out of ten. The only drawback is that
Speaker 1: I've been asked twice now if it's a house arrest
Speaker 1: anklet you know, it's summer. I'm not out there wearing
Speaker 1: socks every day. That means that for a couple people
Speaker 1: that have asked me that, there's hundreds probably that have
Speaker 1: thought that. And so I'm not on house arrest, not
Speaker 1: that there's anything wrong with that. I had a roommate
Speaker 1: who was on house arrest once and he was always
Speaker 1: there to get packages and do the dishes and that
Speaker 1: was helpful. But yeah, you got to walk in desk,
Speaker 1: you got to slap that thing on a foot or something.
Speaker 1: Good luck with that. I hope you like this.
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening for Bye Pacadermatology, homeology, crypto zoology, lithology, Yeah, technology, meteorology,
Speaker 3: at paratology, anthology, ceriology, selenology.
Speaker 1: I apologize if you heard chewing