Chill Like a Mother Podcast
This show shares stories, offers tips and tricks, and provides education to help you feel more chill like the mother you know you want to be.
Hey! I'm Kayla Huszar, a creative counsellor who's all about unconventional therapy that encourages creativity, curiosity and finding what makes you feel alive (again). I've helped so many women navigate the waves (ups and downs) of motherhood, and I'm here for you, too!
So, if you're feeling overwhelmed or need a moment to yourself, grab your headphones and press play on an episode!
You're not alone, and you already know what you need.
Chill Like a Mother Podcast
Tune In: The Calm Before the Morning Chaos
Mornings can often feel like a chaotic race against the clock for many mothers—like you’re starring in a reality show called Survivor: Breakfast Edition.
But what if a little music could transform that mayhem into something more serene? In this episode, I’m chatting with music therapist Jennifer Buchanan about the magical powers of sound in setting a peaceful tone for your day.
We’ll dive into how the right tunes can activate your calming response, reduce stress, and even improve family dynamics.
Whether you’re a mother wrestling with toddler tantrums or just trying to find a moment of calm in the chaos, we’ve got practical tips to help you create a morning routine that feels less like a frantic scramble and more like a well-rehearsed symphony.
Tune in and discover how to turn your morning chaos into calm—no life jackets required!
Meet Kayla Huszar, the Host of the Chill Like a Mother Podcast
Hey, moms! I’m Kayla Huszar, and I’m here to help you calm the chaos in modern-day mothering with expressive art therapy. As a creative counsellor, I support moms who feel stuck and are looking to regulate their emotions, reduce anxiety, and tackle stress and overwhelm.
SOCIAL WORKER | EXPRESSIVE ART FACILITATOR | PERINATAL MENTAL HEALTH
Join me on Instagram for more tips and inspiration. And thank you for letting me be a part of your day—even with the kids running amok! If this episode helped you feel a bit more chill, please leave a rating or review. Your feedback helps the podcast reach more moms who need to hear it.
Welcome everyone back to the Chill Like a Mother podcast. I am here with Jennifer Buchanan, an incredible music therapist from Calgary. She taught me everything I know about incorporating music into my life and into my work with my clients, and I am just so, so excited for her to be with us this morning. Good morning Jennifer. Good morning Kayla, so happy. Oh, I'm so glad that you're here. I just want to share with you morning routines. Like, can we talk about morning routines? I want to just talk about the morning, the morning.
Speaker 2:Like like just how that happens and how quickly it can go awry. Let's do that. Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes. As you know, I have two little kids. My partner works away 50% of the time, which is not a bad thing, it's actually a really great thing but my kids wake up with a bang Right. So can we talk about how moms like navigate the morning from eyes closed to eyes open?
Speaker 2:Right, and just as a reminder I'm coming from this place now of looking back on it too, because my kids are living in their own places and they're living their own lives, creating their own homes, and we're still talking about how to set the tone of our homes, because, regardless of whether you have kids, kids just add a complexity to it, but this concept of creating an auditory environment as well as a beautiful physical aesthetic, whatever that will be, which may or not include a pile of laundry, whatever that's going to be for you, this concept of just adding that dimension of sound into your home is a real piece that we don't always talk about, and so I'm glad we're going there right now. I can remember when they were little and I get that jumping out of bed and they're just activated. What is that? They are just ready to go Like, where did the slow entry into the day disappear to? You know? Like letting the eyes flutter open and having a little relaxation time.
Speaker 2:I can remember that it was too much for me as someone who would then go and do a job that had a lot of sound. There are sounds in the morning which included a lot of mommy, mommy, mommy, which it included a lot of pitter, patter and then a thunk, and then you would have, you know, going and rifling through the cereal boxes or whatever was going to happen. Going down the stairs and rifling through the cereal boxes or whatever was going to happen going down the stairs, sometimes sliding down the stairs. There was so much activity right away and it wasn't always happy either. There could be also fighting. I don't know how many people have the twos. Mine were, you know, 16 months apart, and by the time there were two and three, one and two even. I mean there was just always so much happening between the two of them right out of the gate. So I tried a lot of things around.
Speaker 2:How could sound help? Because sound also adds cognitive load. So when done not well, it could add to that level of chaos. And if you're ever that's our first message today if it ever is, it's better not to have it. But with a little bit of intention and a little bit of planning, we could have, with today's technology, not only your alarm clock that should make music and not a buzzer. So that's one thing. Let's change that over to music and hopefully you're now using phones and you can, you know, find the right song that you want for yourself. But also there's a way to do that within your living room environment or where the main place is going to be when the kids enter into it in the morning. Be when the kids enter into it in the morning. So, as you think about that space, that auditory space, we can set music to start playing at a very light level 15 minutes before their actual wake time, because then they're also waking up into it, and that's going to be our first audit. How does that affect them? So Every idea needs some testing. If it doesn't work the first time, try it again.
Speaker 2:I'm going to suggest trying three or four times, because we want this to be something where you could go that didn't work, that worked differently, that worked today, and then you can continue doing it. So you've got this space, you've got some music going on. How do you can continue doing it? So you've got this space, you've got some music going on. How do you choose the music?
Speaker 2:We talk a lot about preferences and so sure it could be your kids' preferences, but that also tends to have a ramping up effect where they get so excited about their music. So I'm going to recommend for this early morning. It's something they don't know and maybe even something you want to introduce. So this is where you could come up with some world music. It could be a way that now we also know it's going to help with some brain development by hearing something new and developing those new neural pathways. And I will suggest keeping it at a very slow tempo.
Speaker 2:So we're talking around that 40 to 60 beats per minute, which is very low, which is also what we go to sleep with.
Speaker 2:So you want to keep it still in that sleep realm, in that calming realm. The first song closer to the 40, the second song the 50, the third song the 60. So you can also have this general waking up state. Just as an aside, we're doing research on this also at the local hospital, where people are feeling pain and we are using a mechanism that takes them through this U-shape of starting at higher, at 80 beats per minute, and dropping people down to 40, but then doing the wake-up time at the end, from the 40 to the 60 to the 80. And so far, with a thousand respondents, we are seeing a 35% reduction in perception of pain, 35%. And so that's that being able to activate that parasympathetic, keep people really calm, and wouldn't it be nice even for five minutes? And that's all we're asking for here. We just need five minutes in the morning that they wake up into their calming music. How does that sound for a first step?
Speaker 1:Amazing first step. Amazing. And I absolutely agree with you in terms of sometimes their preference or their choice of music is a is an activator, it's a rever, you know it. It brings, the more it adds. It actually adds to to the energy, even though it's their preference and their tempo.
Speaker 1:And as a parent who is living it right now, in the thick of it, I in my brain, I would choose the well, it's their preference, I don't have to argue about it. Then, in the thick of it, I in my brain, I would choose that Well, it's their preference, I don't have to argue about it. Then I don't have to like there's no negotiation, there are no extra on on my end. But I also see it from the other side, where I have experimented with this. When it's theirs, it does rev, or it needs to be. Like when we're getting close to the door, choices right. Because then it's like okay, like now we got to go when. When it is my choice in the morning, or I've just come down the stairs, speaker on okay, flip, flip, flip. This one has had that effect of the calming because they don't often know the words and it's just in the yeah and it is, and yet it still has influence.
Speaker 2:You know you're bringing up a good point. You know developing this together and just hearing what you're talking about. It would also be interesting if this is your 15 to 20 minute set list. You know, just giving you those few moments, it could go to an hour if you wanted to, but the last few songs could lead into one of those softer preferences that they recognize, which also could be the trigger as in. You know, now we're ready to go off in our day, so you're sending them off with something.
Speaker 2:Keep in mind that, no matter what music you choose, especially if you're using it repeatedly over periods of weeks and months, this is really going to become a part of their soundtrack. They're going to remember these things a decade from now. Remember, mom, when you did this or you played that or I really liked that song. You know I just heard it again for the next day. I hear this from my kids now. You know, thank you for introducing me to that. When it comes to lyrics or no lyrics, there's some thought with that as well, and this is again just trying things and doing things with intention. Lyrics are adding to that cognitive load, as you're mentioning, the ones that they don't know will have less impact. The ones they do know have greater impact in that revving sensation. Trying with no lyrics is always an interesting quest as well, and, I think, healthy for us to be able to just see how we respond. You can move into something with some lyrics afterwards, but starting with, you know, music with no words may be a good start.
Speaker 1:Mm, hmm, yes, I've been experimenting only because it's just been released. So Linkin Park re-released their like our paper cuts, and so one version is all the lyrics and music and the other one is just acoustic sounds. And I've been, I've been experimenting with both and I actually really, really enjoy the non-lyric album because it gives the beat, the body beat and and the the memory of it, without some of the what some people would perceive as the harshness of the lyrics or the way that, the way that they sing the rock music, and it's been interesting to just have it on in the background well, and and there's a lot of evidence now that says that music with no lyrics are the ones that help you with studying, help you with sleeping and help you with relaxation.
Speaker 2:Those three have so much evidence when the lyrics are removed, even when it's melodies that you recognize, and it's because it just doesn't have that added thing that your brain has to attend to in some ways or that it naturally wants to attend to, and so it gives you the space to be able to do those things.
Speaker 1:Do you have any insight for the audience who may be thinking like? This is one more thing I have to add to my morning, you know, and that kind of built in objection for, for busy parents, yeah, Put it automated.
Speaker 2:So this is something. If you could set it up like the alarm you know that so it could be on your phone, it could be your second alarm, so your or your alarm actually, and it plays on the speaker in your living room. So have it set up for that, you can have your second alarm for you coming up if you need that. But that's one way to do it is to automate it as much as possible to go on, and that's again how technology can help us. It is something because it's going to be a part of the routine. I feel that for that 15 minutes and the effects that are going to happen or potentially happen, or what I've experienced happen in my own life, it's really worth it because it is going to help all the other pieces fall in line like breakfast.
Speaker 1:Yes, and I can attest to that as well, especially in a neuro spicy household where we wake up with a bang, and it can definitely provide it's a sweet spot in that mental load of support and a focus point you know, and even if it's just for you.
Speaker 2:So if, at the end of this, we're not setting things up in the living room and we're not setting up music for the kids in particular, set it up for you. Set it up for you and how is it making you feel and is it giving a bit more of a frame to your day, something you know? Music quickly becomes a reliable friend. That isn't going to say things outside of expectation, it's just. This music can just be there and validate us where we're at and make us feel like we're contributing to something by just pressing play and being a part of something that includes ourself in it. We're not being neglected and left behind. So that's what music can do for us.
Speaker 1:Yes, thank you so much for sharing this resource with us today. I really appreciate your perspective of the looking back on it, and I remember hearing this story of how you set this up for your children nearly seven years ago, when I was taking my expressive arts therapy training, and I have held on to this story of how music in the morning, when done with intention, either for myself or for all of the members of my family, have really shaped the way that our mornings go. Family have really shaped the way that our mornings go, and so I just appreciate you sharing this resource. It's great. Thank you so much for being here with us today, jennifer. I really really appreciate you. You're welcome. Thank you for having me.
