333: How to sleep better with Lorna MacDonald

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1:14Hello, scumbags. This is the Scummy Mummy's podcast. with your hosts, Ellie Gibson and Helen Thorne.

1:28Hello and welcome to the Scummy Mummies podcast. It's me, Ellie Gibson. And it's me, Helen Thorne. Yes, it is. Where are we, Ellie? We're in Scotland. Shut up. I knew it felt different. It doesn't look like your house. It doesn't actually look like Scotland because the sun is shining. But we are here in Edinburgh. We had a lovely show last night, didn't we? Oh, sensational. We were at the Monkey Barrel. and it was like being in a barrel. We were in a tiny little room, but the laughs were big. The love was there. Lorna, you were there. We haven't even introduced her yet. No. Sorry. As usual, we're just talking about ourselves.

2:03Exactly. And not our wonderful guest. Lorna MacDonald, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much. It's amazing to be here. Oh, we're very pleased to have you, aren't we, Helen? Absolutely. In your house. Indeed. With the sun shining. Oh, wow. Beautiful. I mean, you couldn't pick a more beautiful day. So thank you for organising that, Lorna. Much appreciated. Really, it's sunshine on Leith. Are we in Leith? No, we're the other side of town. We're the opposite of Leith. But it's sunshine on Scotland. It's basically the same thing. Yes, exactly. Yes, lovely to see you, Lorna. So you and I met quite recently, Lorna, on the internet.

2:37Not like that, Helen. Don't make that face. Don't make that face. We've all been down that rabbit hole before. Anyway, you've met on the internet. How did this come about? Well, we're members of a Facebook group, a sort of women's Facebook group where women ask each other, you know, all sorts of things. What shoes to buy, how life insurance works, what they think about Palestine, everything, really, everything and anything. Just like chats. Just like chats. Women's stuff. And I saw Lorna had commented on a post about sleep. I can't remember what the post was about. Was it just someone moaning about it?

3:07Yeah, somebody was really struggling with sleep. Yeah. Yes. And we've noticed, haven't we, Helen? I mean, you and I both struggle with sleep. That seems to be a common theme in contemporary womanhood. Yes, yeah. And recently I did just like a random shout out on our Instagram page going, hey, perimenopausal women, how do you get to sleep? And we've had hundreds and hundreds of women commenting going, I'm doing this or, you know, you've got to have progesterone before bed or magnesium or I've done this, that and the other. Some people just said just have a drink, have some wine, that'll get you off.

3:42Hit yourself in the head with a hammer. But it is, especially, it's interesting because it's this next phase because when a lot of us had children in our 30s, we didn't sleep because our children kept us awake. And now it's our own fucking brains that just won't rest. And, yeah, when you don't, as we all know, when you don't have a good night's sleep, everything can kind of fall apart. Yeah. Everything's harder. Yeah, so help us, Lorna. Yes, yes. I'll try, I'll try. No pressure. Bringing it back to you, Lorna. So you are a solution-focused hypnotherapist. Yes. So what is that exactly? What is solution-focused hypnotherapy?

4:20Yeah, so it is a bit of a mouthful, but really we can boil it down to three parts. So it's amazingly helpful, I guess, first of all, for things like anxiety, sleep issues, any kind of fears that we might have, and also just general stress management, that every day, day-to-day stress that is in all of our lives. so in terms of those three parts the first thing that we do is we lift the lid on the brain so not in a lobotomy type of way but in uh what is going on when we've got anxiety and stress or low mood and anger issues which i think we all know especially as we're going through a perimenopause definitely surface a little bit more um so we really deep dive into the brain to understand what's going on and the second part is we do a bit of talking around things and we're kind of looking at some goal setting so it's really forward looking this therapy so we don't need to dig into stuff from the past and what we are doing is getting you to imagine what your life would be like if things were just a bit better so we really start to use that imagination and often people haven't actually really thought in that way at all so I'll be asking you you know if things were just a little bit different, a little bit better, what would you be doing?

5:40How would you be acting? And that really gets you into the part of your brain, which is really helpful about what do I want to change here? And we set really small goals because big goals really overwhelm the brain. So we go in really small steps, which means your brain learns to do that in a way that feels safe. And then the last part is the hypnosis. So there is obviously hypnosis involved and that is actually really just a state of deep relaxation and deep focus which kind of locks those goals in so in that really relaxed state your brain sort of lets go of its defensiveness you know often our conscious brain's getting in the way with all these worries and thoughts so when we're in that deeply relaxed state it allows us to really focus on where we do want to go and actually find some of those solutions and those ways forward as well as really just soothing that nervous system and that of course plays a huge part as well so it's kind of multi-pronged approach and it just works brilliantly it does take a bit of time because we are doing some rewiring of the neural pathways so that they're working for you um but yeah it's amazing i love it it is amazing it is amazing so you and i've been working together for a few a few weeks now a couple of months and i have loved it yeah so we just we have a little online chat don't we and then and nor has these mp3s helen oh my god now you've heard the accent you've heard the beautiful lilt of the voice and these hypnotherapy mp and it's just like i put it on and it's like putting a cashmere blanket over your ears you're just like oh gosh and it's great and i say yes and it has been it's been up and down it's not linear it's not like you listen to this mp3 three times and you're magically cured um but definitely i think the graph is is going up for me um and i i've been really interested in so my sleep problem was um i can get sleep really easily um but i can't stay asleep longer than i think it was like five hours when i met you like waking up at 3 a.m and and not i didn't think i was feeling particularly anxious but my brain was because i wasn't worrying about stuff but my brain was definitely going oh you've got to send that email and um don't forget to ask karen about that thing and um where did you leave your nectar card and all that sort of thing um and that does as i say that seems really common in a lot of women our age why why is it happening at this point in our lives do we know so it's all to do with our hormones and as our progesterone and our estrogen drops or to start with it fluctuates so actually it's very sort of rollercoastery to start with and those fluctuations and eventual dropping really means that we are less able to stay in the helpful part of our brain which is what we refer to as the intellectual part that's your left prefrontal cortex so we're much more likely to be spending more time in our primitive brain and that's where our anxiety and our low mood and our anger live because they're all effectively threat responses they're all sort of primitive responses designed to protect us but it's interesting you were saying ellie in terms of those small stresses you know i don't feel particularly anxious but if you think about the different types of stress that we have so we've got challenge stress so that actually works really well for us so that's the stress that you two would have had last night before going on stage it gives you that adrenaline and cortisol that you need to go and do what you do so brilliantly or if you've got an exam coming up or a presentation and that sort of allows you to come out of procrastination do the shit that needs to be done so that's actually useful and then we've got threat stress so that's if there's a bloody wild animal right in front of me and I need to escape immediately and get out so that's also useful in that situation but actually what loads of us have got in 2026 is that kind of just underlying constant buzz of stress because lives are so busy and I've got to go from this task to that and I've got to kick pick kids up from school and I've got to think about everything in the house and I've got to send 20 emails.

9:44So that underlying buzz really builds over time and it just means that there's a lot in your stress bucket. And we talk about the stress bucket. I bloody love the stress bucket, mate. Tell me about the stress bucket. I don't know about this. Tell the listener about the stress bucket because as soon as you said that, I was like, oh, my bucket's big. I've got a bucket. I have a cauldron. I think I've got several buckets. Held them on, held them on, yeah. So we all have a stress bucket. It's obviously not an actual bucket in our brain, just to make sure, for clarity. And everybody can cope with stress in different ways.

10:24So some people, you know, can cope with more stress than others. And actually what we find is that there are genetics involved in terms of how much stress we can cope with. There's also neurodivergence involved. So if we have a neurodivergent brain, we're actually more likely to have more stress in that bucket because we produce more negative loops we're spending more time in our primitive brain and it's harder to get back up to that intellectual brain which is where we want to be so that's where we're feeling positive that's where we're feeling like we can cope with all the challenges make good decisions so if you can imagine those micro stressors are like an army so one of them alone is not going to do much harm but actually all of them together can take anyone down bastards exactly and of course sometimes particular things happen in life for example if we are going through a divorce where we get a bloody grenade thrown in that stress bucket and it's just all of a sudden incredibly hard to cope with so a lot of what contributes to that stress bucket if we can think about it in two ways we've got a real stress which is all the organizing of everyday life and everything that needs done but we've also got our imagined stress and that is our negative forecasting that's how we're thinking about things so that's all those worries and thoughts about what that happens and if that happens that's a disaster and that'll be terrible and each of these thoughts and worries is a deposit into our stress bucket so it's how we're thinking about things that plays such an important part and if you think about somebody who for example is in a very stressful job but actually they enjoy it so it's actually likely that that person is thinking about that job in terms of I get to do this you know and actually I enjoy this and immediately if you're starting to think about something that you get to do then it changes how your brain is interpreting it and it's giving you feel good chemicals which means there's less stress so it's a mix of things going into that stress bucket but a lot of it is caused by that negative thinking and those that all that negative forecasting which in particular around sleep happens so we can get really obsessional and we start to think you know if I don't sleep well tonight that's going to be a disaster and then we get into that really negative loop which in itself fills the stress bucket means we're spending more time in that primitive mind which is a really negative mind and it's harder to get back off to the intellectual mind.

12:48So are we saying the goal is not to necessarily empty the stress bucket because that is an impossible or at least rare achievement? Well it is thinking really carefully about what's going into that stress bucket so what am i saying yes to what am i saying no to so we don't we do want to think actually how can i start to empty it there's always going to be a degree of stress in there and there's going to be some stuff that just does need to be in there but quite often especially when we get to a certain age there's stuff that you start to think well actually is that in my bucket of shit or should that be in somebody else's bucket so we can start to think really carefully about what's going into that bucket so that's one thing that we can do and the other thing that we need to do is think about the antidote to our stress hormones which is filling that bucket so when we're going through stressy times or even all those micro stressors then our body is giving us more cortisol and more adrenaline and then when we've got that low buzz that cortisol tap is just always on so that low buzz of stress means that there's just that tap always staying on and we were only ever meant to be in that state for a short period of time to allow you to escape from the wild animal in front of you if we're thinking back to our caveman era yeah yeah so nowadays we're just spending far too long often in that low-level cortisol state so the way that we get out of that is we have to think about how do we provide an antidote to those stress hormones and we do that by thinking about our positive neurotransmitters so that's our feel good chemicals so this is the dopamine and serotonin which we've all we've all seen on instagram helen oh we're always talking about dopamine hits dopamine hits what's that dopamine dressing all those sort of things like i think this is it like you know when i as a as a person in the mid-40s you feel like you have um if you've got children teenagers and then you've got aging parents you've got your midlife things are falling off your house you've got your career you've got not just your house you've got financial worries and then you know different to our parents we have the internet and we've got the phones and we've got the whole world coming at us and it's hard to switch all that off you think oh i should be worried about what's happening on the other side of the world or i should be and then you know and then i can't get to the bottom of my laundry basket you know all those sort of all those sort of things you're sort of spinning all the plates yeah aren't you and it's hard when you go to bed you're like oh i'll just turn that off no that's when everything sort of comes alive and you you finally stopped and then you're like all right now i'll i'll just stay awake and think about everything everything yeah and 2026 there's a lot isn't it i mean you turn the news on and it's a shit show the world is a shit show and we've all just got a lot on so actually it's kind of a wonder that most of us have that underlying buzz there is a lot happening so we have to really deliberately think about how are we providing that antidote how are we getting that really good stuff into our lives that then pours good into the stress bucket so even when we've got deposits in there we are pouring more and more good in to help us cope with it and manage it and uh we've talked about haven't we there's what i love this there's different kinds of dopamine did you know this helen no there's classy dopamine and there's slutty dopamine tell me about cheap dopamine and expensive, like fancy dopamine.

16:25Well, so what? Kind of, kind of. We're going like Aldi and then Waitrose. Yeah, exactly. Well, you can sometimes feel good after Aldi as well, right? Yeah. Oh, fucking yes, I do love an Aldi. Oh, I know. Don't you speak ill of Aldi on this podcast. Well, who do you think you are, Lady Muck? Chicken of the French. Oh, yeah. Not paying more than a pound for taramasalata. You're insane. All right, let's go with slop. Right, okay. let's start with slutty dopamine so dopamine is our reward chemical right so we get a good hit of dopamine when we achieve a task when we finish something that's been in our bloody bucket for ages yeah how good does that feel when it's out the bucket they're classy dopamine okay okay but slutty dopamine is basically where we're having a good time we feel a bit grubby the next day So we kind of know that it's coming with a downside.

17:20So this is your alcohol, your doom scrolling. You know, we can't stop doing it, but we just feel shit when we've done it for too long. Yeah. So slutty dopamine, the things that give us that grubby feeling after that we inside know that we really shouldn't be spending too much time doing. Classy dopamine is what we want to be doing. So classy dopamine is just our great feel good. Yes, I did that. That feels amazing. and there's no grubby downside and the other thing i think when we're talking about dopamine is just being aware again if we're talking about neurodivergence so if you're somebody with adhd then people with adhd utilize dopamine in a different way so they can't use it in the same way that a neurotypical person would so we often see those people or that kind of brain searching for more and more dopamine so that's where you can often see risk-taking behaviors come out yeah because that's what's going on there so what are some good sources of classy dopamine you mentioned obviously doing something on the to-do list what if you're too lazy to do something today on your to-do list which happens to me most days well how about some self-care instead Ellie oh I love a bit of self-care we all know what we're talking about any type of self-care works yeah self-care is brilliant just kind of anything achieving really everything where you just think yeah that's that i've done something here that feels good exercise is another one exercise sort of carries across so many of our feel-good chemicals so that is just a brilliant one i think most of us know now that exercise in itself is a wonder drug it works as well as antidepressants and so as much exercise you can get in in a way that works for you is brilliant so another sort of classy dopamine in that as well as your endorphins and you know often a bit of serotonin as well yeah yeah and just getting outside i think sometimes it's sort of it's having those circuit breakers because sometimes you think oh i've got to you know you can think oh i've got to do everything on my list and if i haven't done the thing on my list and i'm trying to be organized but that can cause you more stress and sometimes just having the circuit break go i'm just going to walk around the block for 20 minutes and then bring your you know stress levels down a bit and then you're like I can make a good decision now and then often if you are stressed about all the things you need to do you can let that go it's like it's all right I can only can do what I can do yeah you know I think we uh one of the things I find tricky is comparing myself to other people yeah and not feeling good enough like in terms of like well I'm here and I'm just you know um I guess it's feeling a sense of worth or contentment where you are you know because you think oh that friend's achieving this or I've seen someone on the internet doing that that and that and I yeah I I'm I'm not that person so I shouldn't feel that level of happiness I guess you know I think that can overwhelm you and um you know I you know think about my mum being a parent we didn't they didn't really compare themselves they didn't have this bigger pool and I think parenting and and being a bit sort of stressed out in this era can be a bit more overwhelming because you're like oh i should be here or i should be that or whatever so that can be a bit overwhelming and then you're like oh fuck it actually that's a great thing to say to your brain fuck it it does actually release something you know yeah but what you were talking about there i mean that's exactly where so many of these micro stressors come from from the comparison the social media you know if you look at our young people there really is a mental health crisis among a lot of our young people but so all of those thoughts are deposits into our stress buckets all of those comparison thoughts into the stress bucket yeah so yeah and I you know I I'm drinking a lot less these days and I was especially when I went through um divorce wine and alcohol and other dopamine hits like you know online dating and all that sort of stuff were ways I thought I was coping or that I was somehow like going, oh, well, I'll just have a glass of wine and it's going to be fine.

21:34But it was a way of sort of pushing away the stresses rather than dealing with them. It was like that numbing sort of thing. And I'd be like, oh, but that gets me to sleep and I feel better and I'm having fun with friends. But now I'm sort of raw dogging it a bit more, like going, right, no, I'm not going to have the wine to deal with it. I'll just sit with those feelings, which sometimes feels more overwhelming but I know like you were saying like the next day I won't feel like you won't have the side effects of the anxiety as well yeah you know all that so being little age is amazing and actually I've held quite a few people with alcohol in terms of people want to change their relationship with alcohol at this stage and age and this therapy people works brilliantly for that because effectively what we are doing is we're going to the mind gym so if we think about the two different parts of our brain that intellectual part where all the good stuff happens you know we're feeling we can make good decisions we can cope with the challenges we're feeling optimistic we are building that muscle so we're building a six-pack around that so that does take a bit of time you know if you're going to the gym or if you're training for a marathon you we all know that we don't just run the marathon the second and do we start training we have to build really slowly but once you've built that resilience muscle you can recover more quickly from you know when you've gone into that primitive mind and then you're more able to make those choices around do you know what i could have that glass of wine but it's going to make me feel shit tomorrow and also it's going to make my sleep dreadful so i'm going to choose a classy dopamine tonight yes so yeah that that's what we want I like a mix sometimes I'm feeling classy sometimes I'm feeling slutty last night I felt a bit slutty Lorna went and had two pints after the show Lace all about the balance exactly let's talk about the brain a bit because that's what I like about this as well because as Helen knows I like a bit of science she fucking loves science not so much with the woo woo give me your fucking facts give me your science give me someone in a white coat telling me how my fucking brain works that's what I'm here for I want a very detailed study I want stats all the things I want diagrams.

23:43I want PowerPoint presentation. I want an independently funded research paper. Yes, you want clipboards, professors, the whole shaboo. Yes. But also like a metaphor. Now, let's go down that street. Let's go up that road, Helen. Oh, up that road. One of Lorna's, one of my favourite metaphors that Lorna has is the coastal road with the coastal path. And I can't even remember it. This is why she does her job. Bring it a mortar. Sorry, no, no. Tell us about the coastal path, Lorna, and how we get on it and stay on it. Yeah. So if we think about that intellectual brain, so that's our left prefrontal cortex.

24:24So that's the part of the brain that we're using to have this conversation just now. So that's the part that we really want to build the muscle in because that's where the good stuff happens. And we've talked a bit about the primitive brain. So when we are in the primitive brain, that's when we're in our threat response. so our body's kind of preparing for as if that wild animal might be there but actually what we're facing in terms of stressors are different today but our body reaction is actually the same so when we're thinking about going into that primitive brain we get there in absolute microseconds it's like a motorway which we have to be in case you know you did leave here today walk down the canal path and see a polar bear for example yeah so we need that very very quick reaction that's for our self-preservation but we want to think about being able to take the coastal path back up to that intellectual brain so what we're thinking about is even that first reaction going into the primitive brain down the motorway boom and we're there that's quite normal but it's about how can i pull myself back up so that i'm in that intellectual part where i can think about things in perspective I can just see things a bit more for what they are I can control my emotions and my reactivity much better so all this work is kind of leading towards are you thinking about how can I get back up to that coastal path so how how do we do that how do we get back up there it's about again a multi-pronged approach so we are working to empty that stress bucket because when the stress bucket is full and overflowing you're going to be in that primitive brain so it's harder to get up the coastal path so as we empty that stress bucket we can pull ourselves back up more easily and it's about putting those feel-good chemicals in and really thinking about those chemicals what are the things we're doing to get feel-good chemicals and then again we're eased much more easily to go up and the last thing is that hypnosis really really helps as well because when our nervous system is soothed and calmed then we're much more able to take that coastal path up so it's kind of multi-crowned approach in that way yeah yeah yeah um so let's let's do like a scenario so you've had a you've had a stressful day you've had a stressful day at work you know uh the kids have gone oh my god you need to wash my pee at 10 o 'clock at night um you know you've probably had six coffees for example maybe and 18 diet cokes and 18 diet cokes um and you're you know you're thinking about oh god i've got all these bills to pay so that's the state you're in at 10 30 at night how do we start you know and then you go oh well i'm not going to sleep so you're in this nice have you got some tips for just that's just an example of a lady i've made up obviously now based on nobody at all total fiction who she is yeah so one of the key things in that type of situation is helping the brain unpick the scramble because when we've got a million things on our to-do list the brain is just going into scramble and it's going you know help and the amygdala which is our fight or flight or freeze response is going everybody out everybody out you know there's a fire we need to react immediately run so you're never going to be in the best place to work everything out when you're in that primitive brain so the first thing we do is we can say what is most important right now what matters most right now in this next hour before i'm going to bed and that in itself gives the brain a job to do and once the brain has a job to do you're back up in that intellectual mind and you're thinking okay i've got a lot of other stuff but right now this is what i'm going to do and that's going to be enough for now so that just slows the brain down gives it a job and just means that you're not in that scrambled place so that will really help so the other thing that we do is if you imagine again you're walking down the canal path and you see that polar bear what happens is your tunnel vision comes right in and your blinkers go up now that's what we want in that situation because all you're seeing is threat and danger so you're not going to see the beautiful flowers along the canal you're not going to see the gorgeous swans or the cygnets or anything else and if there's a polar bear there that's great because you're just scanning for danger but again what happens often nowadays is that we're in that state we've got that tunnel vision up and we're only seeing the bad stuff so when we're in that situation with our tunnel vision we're discarding all the little things that might actually be good so one of the key parts of this work as well is asking yourself what's been good at the end of every day and obviously a lot of people do gratitude journals and things like that but there is actual science behind this because the moment you ask your brain what's been good about today or about that situation what am I proud of what have I managed what have I achieved immediately you're getting some nice serotonin you're getting feel-good chemicals which just immediately makes you feel better and that takes you up that coastal path to that intellectual part of your brain so rather than being in a place where we're beating ourselves up and we're saying oh well here's all the things that i didn't do if you're saying well here's what i did do and actually that was all that needed done for today and i'm going to be okay with that as i go to bed so that what's been good exercise is absolutely brilliant and you'll know ellie we do that every night as part of this work and that in itself is really building that intellectual muscle so that you can take that coastal path much more easily yeah i think and And especially if you're a person who has a bit of self-esteem things, when you've got that constant thing like you're not good enough, you haven't done this, everything's a mess, da-da-da.

30:12Having, because I started, it's interesting, I started at Gratitude Journal on the 1st of January. I just thought, oh, apparently this is meant to be a good thing. Apparently. And I thought, actually, some days you feel like you've done nothing, like everything's still a mess. but actually when you do a little list you go oh no I'm doing okay and it's that sort of in an absence of other external things actually just self-soothing or self-saying no you it's all right you've done enough and if you think about it our brain is like an algorithm it's like a you know computer operating system yeah so if you think about your tech talk algorithm or instagram or whatever your brain works on the same principle so if you're feeding it crappy stuff all the time your brain's going oh yeah okay this is what we'll give her more of that yeah so actually if you're interrupting that even if it feels a bit gruesome to start with in terms of some of the self-love talk that we should be giving ourselves yeah your brain gets used to it your brain then learns okay we're talking more nicely to ourselves and it gives you more of that yeah so your brain is listening to you and it's really being mindful of that when you're giving it shit because it matters how we're talking to ourselves yeah so yeah the what's been good and it's a bit wider what we do takes just it takes this a bit wider than a gratitude journal so it's kind of you know not just what i'm grateful for but it's what have i managed like actually even if it's tiny things what did i enjoy today a cup of tea in the sun that was amazing like we really want to start noticing those small small things and then our algorithm starts to change in our brain to see more small things that are good and then bigger things that are good as well and then smaller, and then it takes it all in.

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33:43Can we talk about burnout, Lorna? because am I right in thinking you got into this into this hypnotherapy lark because you yourself experienced burnout is that right yeah yeah I did so I worked in HR for 20 years and then the last 10 years I was in tech startups and started to realize as I was approaching 50 that the CEOs were literally half my age so they're getting younger and I'm obviously getting older and I have spent most of my pension money on clothes over the years so also starting to think okay I'm going to be working till I'm 70 so it better be something that I'm enjoying. So started to sort of think about how much I was enjoying my work and thinking is this a job thing is it a career thing is it a me thing and I was really trying to unpick that and found a course for solution focused hypnotherapy and I've always been really interested in holistic therapies and had hypnotherapy in the past for anxiety and sleep myself and found it really useful.

34:47So I signed up to this course, thought brilliant and it absolutely blew me away. It was just so much more than I was expecting when I signed up for it. So I absolutely loved it and at the same time I got offered a job for a big tech company in America. So I did an interview process, six-stage interview process for DuckDuckGo and managed to score really highly in that, got offered the job, all amazing, nice big salary, whoop, and got there and my brain stopped working. Wow. Which I think as we see in the UK was not ideal. So when you say it stopped working, you weren't able to sort of function at work or just sort of in your life?

35:29How did that manifest? Yeah, so I just started to realise that at work I was really struggling to access the parts of my brain that I had been able to before really struggling to bring sort of information and the same way retain information so I was really seeing my memory sort of go and my teammates were this kind of wonderful team of super super smart super articulate it was and I'm gonna sit there going I can't hardly remember my name now so that was really scary and there was a lot going on at the time we were building a house teenager in the house so looking back I didn't realize quite what was happening and now you know I can recognize that actually I was going into those burnout stages so there are actually 12 recognized stages of burnout at the same time it became clear that my daughter was also going through a burnout so that was quite a serious burnout for her which ended up with lots of professionals involved so everything could have collided at once in a kind of terrible and potent way um in hindsight though actually I think because I was studying the solution focused hypnotherapy that really gave me the tools to get through it actually so I was able to get through it I really decided that the job at DuckDuckGo was not going to work so resigned from there passed with flying colors for my course and thought my god this is it this is the next step so set up my business and just absolutely bloody love it it's just the most rewarding work I've ever done so it's amazing so it was all in the end for the good but in terms of burnout specifically what's actually happening is often with all those micro stressors for such a long time again that cortisol tap is just on all the time and eventually your brain and body just says you've been in survival mode for too long i'm helping you stop so the intellectual mind starts to go offline and burnout so we start to realize that decisions are much harder to make we kind of go into analysis paralysis everything just becomes much harder to access that part of our brain where things are easier and that's one of your first signs and then the body effectively goes into that freeze response so we go into what we call the dorsal vagal which is um forcing you to rest and recover so sometimes if we don't pay attention and quite often i think about it you know you're driving a car and you've got your fuel tank you've got all your lights and you're kind of looking at everything and if that warning light comes on in the car and you're actually not paying attention you know you can well end up getting towed from the motorway and once you're in this the um garage you know you can be there for quite a while so true burnout is actually quite a serious condition and we often sort of say oh i'm burnt out but actually what we mean is i'm feeling stressed but real burnout you do want to avoid because it's yeah it's quite a hard thing to go through so what are the warning signs i think someone listening to this going well maybe am i going through burnout what are some of those flashing lights on the dashboard what do they look like so one of them is when you start to enjoy things that you've always enjoyed less so you start saying like your husband or no that's definitely that all right so that happens to everyone else here that's a them problem yeah that's not a nice problem sorry carry on yeah um so something that you've always enjoyed say you know exercise for example you know you've always enjoyed going for a walk with a pal or running and all of a sudden you're starting to think i just really cannot do that at the moment really not enjoying it um and like i said just finding you know you can't make decisions at any level just really struggling with that kind of thing so these are some of the warning signs early on and it's just kind of paying attention to those So when that warning light comes on, just thinking, OK, what is in my stress bucket right now and what am I doing to actually manage that?

39:38And what are the various tools I'm looking at to help me cope? If there's stress in that can't be taken out, how am I making sure I can cope as well as I can? Feel good chemicals. So, yes. And I guess that might be if you can, like resting or giving jobs, delegating stuff to other people. but we can't all do that and we can't all do that all the time so then does it become about looking at what the things you can control so maybe it is cutting out alcohol or maybe it is yeah stuff like that i guess yeah and the other thing that we talk about in this work is the four p's so you'll remember a bit of this ellie playstation um pepperamis yeah don't go there i don't know we're next for the fourth b yeah yeah yes absolutely more pilates we all need more pilates and peter my husband yes that's what he was saying sorry no tell us tell us what the four p's actually are yeah so this is another way that we provide that antidote to the stress hormones so the first one is positive interactions so if you think about it in 2026 most of us are getting quite a good deal of our interactions from our bloody phones in terms of looking at reels and what does that do we're comparing ourselves like you were saying helen actually that's more cortisol that's like you know makes us feel shitty so it's not making us feel good so what we want is actual real human interactions what is even that yeah so you know us talking here today or how are we seeking those out so people that we like how are we making sure we get enough of that and obviously everyone's different some people need more so somebody might be listening to this thinking I actually bloody hate people who want to see anyone um but we all need that to a degree so thinking about that and then we've got our positive actions so what am I doing every day what choices am I making that are moving me towards where I want to be going or away from and that feeds into our kind of dopamine and you know our exercise and making those decisions that are actually good for us and also getting some of the those bits out the stress bucket so what are those things that have been sitting there for months that actually i just bloody need to get done and then that's something out of the stress buckets positive actions and the third one is positive thoughts now this isn't toxic positivity it's not i must be happy i must be happy um because that's not helpful either although there is a place for affirmations actually because again our brain is listening to us but it is different again what we're talking about is that ability to see the small stuff so this is where again we want to think about widening out doing our what's been good thinking about actually what am i proud of there and how am i challenging those shitty thoughts that are coming in and sort of going god that was mean like yeah it's really how i'm talking to myself yeah or how would i talk to somebody i love and we really can change those thought patterns with enough practice so a lot of people coming to see me will be saying but I've thought this way for years I just don't think it can change but the brilliant thing is the brain is plastic so yeah it can change and we can change at any point so sometimes you know it does take a bit longer because we are changing those neural pathways so that your brain is working for you and it can take a bit of time but we absolutely can change the way we're thinking about things which then changes everything.

43:07There's something I learnt from Ellie, did a podcast with this woman called Stephanie Chivers and I interviewed her for my upcoming book and she was talking about when we overcome something really hard, our brains grow from that. In terms of the new skills and our resilience grows and often people think, oh, if you've been through a really difficult life situation and you're somehow sort of broken or it's to a detriment. But actually overcoming something or getting through an addiction or a difficult time actually strengthens our brains. And it is plastic. And I think you're so right, especially at this point in our lives, we're like we've always been like this or I've always been anxious or I've always – but you can change.

43:53And it does take time. It is that sort of step by step. There's no magic pill. And it's so empowering to know that, that actually, you know, you don't need to be stuck if you feel stuck that can change and that's where i think the fact that this work in particular is forward looking you know how do you want things to be how do you want to feel about that and so you're getting your brain to work in that way that is just incredibly helpful for you rather than being stuck in a place where you don't want to be so yeah it's amazing that the brain is plastic and change can absolutely happen yeah and and do you get a lot of women in there like perimenopause especially when we're encountering hormonal changes when somehow overnight someone says I just don't feel like myself anymore so that's out of your control it's not like your job's changed or your relationship's changed you've suddenly chemically changed some people say I used to sleep really well and then all of a sudden I'm waking up with hot flushes and all that sort of stuff you know I've just done taking estrogen hopefully that works I don't know if it does or not but um yeah all the hormonal stuff plays a huge part and so if you imagine when you're going through perimenopause all of those feel-good chemicals are naturally dropping so you're not getting as much serotonin you're not getting your oxytocin which was a is our nurture and sort of the love drug yes that's where we get to a certain point i think we're like screw you get your own tea i'm done here yeah you know that sense of actually i've had enough doing everything for everyone and this is where in our sessions or my sessions with clients we also talk a lot about selfish so that word in itself a lot of people really struggle with well i don't want to be selfish but actually in all honesty selfish women are generally happier putting a bit of yourself first yeah because if we actually look at what does that word mean it's not inherently bad it's like we've just learned as a society that it has these negative connotations so it's really interesting i think at this stage of life there's also a real opportunity to start to think about what do i want the next 20 30 40 years to look like for me so yeah it can also be a really empowering time difficult of well there is that period where you're looking at the hormones and everything that's going on but we can absolutely help there's lots of different ways of getting through that and this work does help enormously as part of that.

46:20Yeah. Now, talking about hypnotherapy again, Lorna, let's do some myth busting. Let's bust the myths. I'm not going to lie. I was a little bit disappointed. First time we worked together, you didn't just wave a pocket watch in my face and make me eat an onion. But you did start clucking like a chicken, which I really appreciated. That was just a sex thing. What? Me and Pete doing our own time as our business. All right. You don't have to tell me about it. Yes, what are some myths about hypnotherapy that you would like to bust? Yes, so many misconceptions. So I am not going to make you fall in love with a mop or eat the onion, anything like that.

47:01And actually, probably the most common misconception is that you're not going to be in control. Right. So people sort of have that fear. But actually, it's kind of the opposite. So you're in a state of increased control when you're in that deep relaxation state, which we call a trance state and that's actually a really common state that people go in and out of several times a day so if you imagine if you're driving a route in the car that you are so used to you've driven it a million times and you get to where you're going you suddenly think god i don't even remember getting here so you've actually been in a trance state then so we're just using that really relaxed focused state to help you make those changes so the subconscious is just more open to change when you're in that really relaxed state because again our conscious brain can get really defensive so all the good stuff happens in that really relaxed state so you're in control more rather than less and I guess the other thing maybe is that it's a magic fix so you kind of talked about that and because we are working with the brain in terms of that plasticity of the brain it takes a bit of time so it takes consistency and repetition it's just like training for your marathon you know we're in that mind gym and to get that six pack we're gonna have to do really a bit of work here and we're gonna have to be consistent with it and keep going until we have changed those neural pathways because what's happening is the brain always optimizes for efficiency so if you've got a certain way of thinking that you have thought in that way for donkey's years the brain's going to choose that because it's very efficient so we are bringing in new ways of thinking and it just takes a bit of time for the brain to go oh okay we are well it seems to be something new in here we're kind of thinking in that way and then eventually the brain recognizes this is what we're doing we're taking that new path and that's the more efficient path and that's when all the brilliant stuff is unlocked and that's when people are saying to me god you know i do i just feel so much less anxious and i'm not reacting in the same way i used to and i've not got that rage or i'm able to take that coastal path so much easier and this happened but actually i've been able to get through it so we know then that that the brain has been doing that that brilliant work in the background so those are probably the two main myths maybe yeah yeah no i really like that thing about it takes time as well because i think and i had another analogy on another podcast i can't remember what it was now because i was 48 the other day but they were like you know when you're trying to make a change like this you you know you you leave the room and you expect to go straight into the new room do you know what i mean and so you're leaving all this shit behind and you expect to go straight in the new room but actually you'll find yourself in a dark hallway on your way to the you have to walk down the hallway which takes time to get to the next room and the real trick of it is not to give up and go oh well this isn't working i'm in this shit hallway this is bollocks and i'll just go back in that room yeah because at least i know where it is and it's comfy and it's cozy you just have to keep going right exactly and do you remember we talked about building new habits probably the first session i think and how often somebody thinks right i'm going to start introducing this as part of my routine often on the 1st of january and then by the 15th of january it's gone to shit but it's exactly that the brain takes time to actually learn this is what we're doing now so you have to keep going and the other thing is when the stress bucket is really really full it's harder to stick to new things so it all comes back to that stress bucket and just thinking about that and that ability to get up to your intellectual mind so here we are we're in the hallway holding our stress bucket turning off the tap yeah looking at the blinking lights on the dashboard i think that's probably enough metaphors and analogies even for me lorna and i do love them yeah more p words please oh yes penelope keith Oh, podcasting.

51:02Yes. Oh, that was brilliant, Norma. Thank you so much. Now, as is tradition, let's release some slutty dopamine now as we share our scummy mummy confessions. Oh, well, I do have to say we had an excellent scummy mummy confession in the audience last night. I just want to do a big shout out to Nick, who is a man. And that in itself was a surprise. Because the confession was that they had a baby who was nine months old and their first nursery sort of settling in thing. And they went out for brunch and then that turned into a somewhat boozy lunch and then they were late to collect their job. Well, they forgot.

51:47They literally sort of forgot they had a baby. Yeah. And the nursery rang them and they were, in their own words, full of shame. Yeah. And we went and got some mints and picked up the baby. So we read out these confessions and that one won. And lo and behold, the winner was a man, which we've only had, I think, a couple, maybe two other male winners. Yeah, in like over, what, 600 shows we've done. So very rare. Yeah. But he came up on stage and he was top bands. And it turns out it's your mate, Lorna. Yeah. I brought Nick along with my friend, Jill, his wife. Yes. Yeah. So excellent. So sweet.

52:24And all the confessions were sensational last night. but do you have a confession? Did you write on the card last night? Did you? I didn't because I saved it for today. Excellent, Laura. You're keeping a power with Brian. She knows. She knows. Yes. Okay, so when my daughter was about five, I think, this was the time when kids that age were watching YouTube videos endlessly, watching other children unwrap things. Yes. Do you remember? Oh, God. Brian's fucking old. Oh, my God. Yeah, we were right. Because our kids are all the same age. So we're right in there with you. So unwrapping Easter eggs, unwrapping Christmas presents for hours.

53:02And my daughter Flo had really bad eczema when she was younger. So that actually really kind of soothed her. So she did quite a lot of that. And we were obviously fine with that for a while. And then one day I looked at the iPad history and I realized that she had tried to find YouTube herself, except she had put a P instead of the T. Oh, that's so. I my heart went into my mouth and yes I looked up you pube to see what she might have discovered you pube you pube and actually I think the world must have been a much more wholesome place back then because it wasn't nearly as bad as you might think thank god thank god well there we go we've reached the end of the podcast it's been an absolute delight thank you for um enlightening us i i feel i feel like my bucket is getting slightly less full yes i've got a full bucket at the moment but i i feel like you know i think it's just having those tools and actually just stepping away from it because i think we're all in a sense of overwhelm they're like where do we even start and just having that knowledge like you said that it is sort of not fixable because that implies there's some moment in the future everything's fine forever yeah but it is changeable and malleable just having those those um those tools are really important yeah and also it's a joy to see that you found your purpose and you'll you know that and that must give you something as well when you see people kind of sleeping better or just feeling feeling better in themselves that must give you such a hit as well yeah it's honestly just bloody amazing I just absolutely love it and often people make life-changing change in this work so it just feels actually a real privilege to work with people in the way in this way and yeah it is just it's an absolutely amazing tool to help with that anxiety stress just helping you cope better with the challenges of life and sleep as we've talked about today and make huge changes with that as well.

55:14So where can people follow you and find you Lorna? Yeah so I am the Hypnotherapy Nook and I guess another point is that hypnosis and hypnotherapy works just as well online as in person so you don't need to be anywhere near me I've worked with people in Europe and the US so anywhere in the world and check me out on my Instagram have a look at my website and you can get in touch there so if you would like some help in any of the areas we talked about I'd love to be with you on that journey Excellent And as I say I've worked with Lorna And I think I've worked with Lorna That makes it sound like I've done things You have Lorna has done amazing things for my brain So yes Thank you so much for that And thank you for coming on the podcast Thank you for having me It's been brilliant I've loved it We're doing lots of lovely shows I'm really looking forward to going back to Norwich That'll be wonderful We're going to wonderful places And the end of the year we're going on a trip to Ireland, which will be very, very exciting.

56:16But just go to scummymummies.com for more and obviously follow us on the Instagrams and things like that. And I hear, I mean, you don't like to talk about it. I'm not sure if the listeners are aware, but I heard you've written a book. I have. Thank you. Oh, yes. So my book is coming out. Well, that's enough of that. Thanks for listening. No, go on. Go, go, go. My book is coming out on the 2nd of April. It's called How to Face Big Change and Come Back Stronger. So it's lots of different, it's a story of how I face big change through divorce and also through grief. But it's a hopeful book about how the different pathways you can overcome and live with loss and grief, but also all the joy and light and love that comes from doing that.

57:01And like, as you say, your brain is malleable how people have navigated that. So it's an uplifting read. You can get it on Audible and on Hardback and Kindle, anyway, from Book Places. Thank you for having us in your beautiful home, in your beautiful city. It's been a joy. Thanks, Lorna. You must come back. I've loved it. Oh, well, yes. And thanks, as always, for listening, listener. Until next time. Bye. Bye. Bye.

57:38oh i'm just gonna sorry oh yeah just open your diet coke yeah yeah sorry i'm just getting that slutty or classy diet coke what do you think i think it's kind of half and half as well i i do you know what i call diet coke oh well i many people call it it's a fridge cigarette oh and and so sometimes like you know i've given up nicotine and i'm almost giving up my alcohol but I still have my Diet Coke and I was like, of all the things I could have, I reckon this one is, yes, it's less slutty. Good for you. Yes. Can I have the less slutty option, please? Yes, yes, yes. You know, just a little, like maybe a short skirt but not tits out, you know, like, yeah.

58:18Yeah. Short skirt but not tits out. The head and thorns stories. 50 % slut. Yes. Love it. A father's absence can have a serious effect on a child. Fatherless children are twice as likely to drop out of school and 11 times more likely to exhibit violent behavior. I'm attorney Jeffrey Leving, and I've been protecting the rights of fathers for more than 30 years. Dads, don't lose your important relationship with your children. Call 312-356-DADS. That's 312-356-DADS for help and a free father's rights information kit. For more information, visit dadsrights.com.

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