Disclaimer: This is transcribed using AI. Expect (funny) errors.
Mindy Peterson: [00:00:00] I’m Mindy Peterson, and this is Enhance Life with music, where we explore the practical ways music transforms everyday life – health, happiness, and beyond. Every single one of us has a mother, and postnatal depression affects way more mothers than most of us realize. Many of these mothers suffer in silence and feel isolated and hopeless at the very same time that they’re supposed to feel joyful. But emerging research suggests something both ancient and beautifully simple may help these mothers. And that’s singing together. Today, we’re exploring a groundbreaking program that’s getting a lot of attention called Melodies for Mums, and also the research behind how this group music making is reducing symptoms of postnatal depression, offering a cost effective community based solution at a time when mental health services are stretched thin. My guest today is Yvonne Farquharson, founder and managing director of Breathe Arts Health Research. Yvonne is a multi-award winning social entrepreneur who specializes in developing creative, research led programs to improve healthcare and transform lives. She has gained international recognition for her work in the arts and health and social enterprise sector, and is an in-demand speaker and consultant globally. Most recently training the World Health Organization. Yvonne has co-authored papers published in peer reviewed medical journals and regularly contributes to book chapters and other publications. Welcome to Enhance Life with Music, Yvonne.
Yvonne Farquharson: [00:01:50] Thank you so much for having me.
Mindy Peterson: [00:01:52] It’s so great to have you. And I’m really looking forward to this, this conversation and learning more about Melodies for Mums. Starting out though. Tell us, how common is postnatal depression and what are the symptoms? How might someone know if they or a loved one has postnatal depression?
Yvonne Farquharson: [00:02:10] Yeah. So postnatal depression is actually more common than a lot of us realize. The stats say that it affects around 1 in 10 women, but in reality we think it’s a lot more than that. In Covid, for example, we know it was around 1 in 4 women, and we also know that a lot of cases go undiagnosed. So I would say that’s a very modest example of a figure there. And I think postnatal depression can exhibit itself in many, many different ways from lack of sleep, too much sleep, feeling really low, feeling tearful, um, not being able to bond with your baby, withdrawing from society, withdrawing from yourself. But the interesting thing about postnatal depression is because it has such a variety of symptoms, many women simply don’t realize that what they’re experiencing is postnatal depression. And in those early days, you know, people talk about the baby blues and oh, everyone feels a bit down. But actually, postnatal depression is a very serious condition and it’s very dangerous. And actually, it’s absolutely essential that we take this seriously in society.
Mindy Peterson: [00:03:21] Is postnatal depression something that happens any time during the first year after giving birth, or what time period are we talking about?
Yvonne Farquharson: [00:03:29] Yeah. So it’s generally within the first year after birth. So okay, within those first couple of weeks after birth, people talk about the baby blues, for example. And that’s a very common phrase that people understand. But if those feelings go on beyond those first few weeks into months, that’s when we start to realize, actually, this isn’t just baby blues, this is postnatal depression. Once you get beyond that first year, it generally is kind of encompassed within depression more broadly.
Mindy Peterson: [00:03:58] Okay, tell us about Melodies for Mums. Explain what the program is to listeners.
Yvonne Farquharson: [00:04:05] So Breathe Melodies for Mums is a groundbreaking new way of addressing post-natal depression in mothers. So it’s a ten week music making and singing program that is specifically focused on the mother. So you will be aware that there are many mom and baby singing groups out there in society, but they tend to be focused on the child and they tend to be a lot of nursery rhymes overstimulating, quite intense. And breathe melodies for mums is the absolute opposite of that. It puts mother right at the heart of the service. Now what we know is that we know there are a lot of barriers for women to accessing traditional healthcare services, so things such as antidepressants or talking therapies. But we know that historically, women will access singing programs with their child. So we’ve taken the concept of a mother and baby group. But we have designed it intricately to meet the very specific needs of postnatal depression. So let me.
Mindy Peterson: [00:05:10] Just clarify, are you saying that mothers are not likely to take advantage of talk therapy and medications, but they will take advantage of a singing session or they’re just there isn’t access to talk therapy and medications or both.
Yvonne Farquharson: [00:05:27] I think a bit of both, but we actually know there are a lot of services out there for women experiencing postnatal depression, but we know there are a lot of barriers to women accessing them. So sometimes things such as fear to explain that you are suffering, fear their baby might be taken away. Shame of admitting that this is what you’re experiencing. There can be cultural barriers to accessing mainstream therapies, but we do know that women will go to singing groups, and very often they think, oh, well, I’ll go to a singing group for my baby. But we flipped that on its head and we said, okay, we’ll get you to the singing group. You think you’re coming for your baby, but it’s all about you.
Mindy Peterson: [00:06:07] Got it. And the babies do come to these sessions, right? Even though it is very focused on the mother and not the baby in terms of nursery rhymes and the types of music and things like that. So the babies are present though?
Yvonne Farquharson: [00:06:19] Yes. So mothers come along with their babies and they learn to sing songs in multiple languages, in four part harmonies, in rounds. Beautiful, challenging artistic melodies that have been designed specifically to meet those needs. So let me give you an example. So we have groups of around 10 to 12 women, which is a perfect number to create a good sense of community, but without a sense of overwhelm. For these women, we sing songs in rounds, which encourages eye contact. Now, a great way to form social connection and bonding. Something that can often be a struggle for women when experiencing postnatal depression. They can feel isolated and disconnected. We choose lyrics that help to uplift and empower the women and feel strong, as well as lyrics that help them to let go and release emotions and sometimes cry in a safe space. And then we challenge the women, as I said, artistically, and one of the things that we know is that the songs we sing are simple enough that if you’re incredibly sleep deprived, you can learn it, but they’re challenging enough to keep you cognitively present in the room. So therefore, singing becomes a form of mindfulness as well as distraction for these women. And we know that when we’re awake, we often spend. I think the stats are something like 47% of our waking hours with our minds wandering on things that we’re not actually doing at that moment. And if we can get the women to really learn these songs and be cognitively present in the room, we’re enacting a form of mindfulness, which actually gives their brain a break from some of those repetitive cycles of anxiety that we know women with postnatal depression are often experiencing.
Mindy Peterson: [00:08:05] Kind of interrupts that ruminating cycle that they could be in. Yeah.
Yvonne Farquharson: [00:08:09] Yeah. So there’s many aspects to the design of the program as to why it works so well for postnatal depression and why it’s not your usual mum and baby singing group.
Mindy Peterson: [00:08:21] And you mentioned that the melodies are simple and yet complex. Simple enough, but complex enough. And I believe no musical background is needed. Right? Women can join this group regardless of whether they have singing experience or any musical background, right?
Yvonne Farquharson: [00:08:36] Exactly. You absolutely do not need to be able to sing to come to one of our programs, but I can almost guarantee that when you leave, you will feel like you can sing, because we teach these songs in a way to empower the women to own their own voice. And we tell them again and again that especially when they sing to their baby. Your voice is your baby’s most precious commodity. Your baby loves your voice. It doesn’t matter if you don’t think you can sing. You can sing. And that sound for your baby is beautiful. So it encourages the mothers to sing to their babies. But what we’re actually doing is getting them to sing for themselves. They think they’re calming their baby, but they’re calming themselves. It’s a beautiful synergy.
Mindy Peterson: [00:09:21] Wow. And I believe that during the process of being in this class, the moms are taught how to use singing as a tool outside of class. And I believe that during the class itself. Depression is not talked about. Postnatal depression is not talked about. Explain a little bit more about what a mother experiences from the moment she walks in to this group that allows her to develop singing as a coping mechanism and as a tool inside and outside of class, and without even talking about depression in the process.
Yvonne Farquharson: [00:09:53] Yeah. So that’s something that’s really unique about our Breed Melodies for Mums program is every woman in the class knows that every other woman in the class is struggling. They know it’s a space for women with postnatal depression, but that alone is enough to create a safe and inclusive environment for these women just to know they are in a safe space, surrounded by people who are experiencing the same challenges as them. But then we use music and singing as the tool to help them overcome those challenges with postnatal depression. We don’t sit and talk about it. We use music to release those emotions, to let go of those emotions, to empower these women, to strengthen these women, to give them tools to bond with their baby. And that is the beauty of this work. And that’s the beauty of the arts and creativity in so many spaces. It connects to us on a human level, and sometimes it can do so much more than words alone can do.
Mindy Peterson: [00:10:55] The sessions are led by an arts and health music specialist. I believe there are an hour session that is held every week for ten weeks. Is that right?
Yvonne Farquharson: [00:11:05] Yeah. So that’s right. So we work with professional artists and musicians. We give them bespoke training on postnatal depression and on the kind of arts and health space, but something that’s also really unique about our melodies for mums program, which does make it quite different from other singing groups, is we always have a breathe member of staff in the room who is someone who is safeguarding trained, which means that it’s not the responsibility of the artist to hold the health conditions and the health needs of that group. The artist who leads the session has been chosen because they are artistically excellent at what they do. They are an incredible singer and a music lead, but we provide a safety and support network for the women in that space. This isn’t just a creative intervention. This is a new healthcare pathway for women at a very, very critical and often frightening time in their life. So we don’t put that responsibility on the artist. We, as an organization and our staff member in the room, we hold that we’re connected into other mental health services. We signpost them to get other support. This is a healthcare intervention at its heart.
Mindy Peterson: [00:12:19] That’s very insightful because I hear from a lot of artists and creatives that music and the arts in general. But music, of course, is the focus of this podcast. Music does tend to bring out emotions in people. It’s been called the sound of emotions, and people who are trained rigorously, as artists often are not trained as therapists. And yet people in their audience may approach them with these really heavy feelings and experiences that the music draws out of them. And so that can be really hard on the artist because they aren’t really trained on how to deal with that. So that’s super insightful that you have somebody who is trained in that. Yeah, it makes it so much more comfortable for the artist to just focus on what they are great at during these sessions.
Yvonne Farquharson: [00:13:09] And we really believe not just in safeguarding the women we work with and the babies, but we believe in safeguarding the artists and the creative that we work with as well. And they are brought in for being artistically excellent. And that is what their role is within the session. And we can hold everything else around that. And that’s the beauty of being a social enterprise with the infrastructure that we can put in place to make sure these women first and foremost, above everything, are safe and that safety does not sit on an artist’s shoulders at breathe. We do not believe that’s how it should be.
Mindy Peterson: [00:13:44] Mhm. Love that. So safety is considered not only physically but emotionally. Mentally, in every capacity. Yeah. What are some things that you notice in a traditional session room? By the end of the session that might not have been there at the beginning.
Yvonne Farquharson: [00:14:00] Yeah. So women can often walk in either very withdrawn to the sessions or they can sometimes feel quite frantic as they enter a session. I mean, anyone who’s, who is or has been a mother knows that feeling of even getting out the house can be.
Mindy Peterson: [00:14:15] A.
Yvonne Farquharson: [00:14:15] Challenge, let alone if you’re struggling with post-natal depression. But we run the sessions, so we start the sessions with deep breathing and some kind of gentle movement for the mothers. We know that when you take those deep breaths into your diaphragm, we know that calms the nervous system. It taps into the parasympathetic nervous system, gets you out of that fight or flight mode. We do gentle stretching with the mother all around the mother’s movement and body before they’ve even started singing. Then we do some call and response songs with the artists and the women, just to get them used to using their voice. And then gradually, before they know it, they’re singing four part harmonies in rounds. And, you know, their voices are filling the room. And the very nature of singing. It releases endorphins that feel good chemical, and we see women sitting up straighter, smiling, their eyes coming alive, being able to hold eye contact with someone next to them, which they couldn’t do literally five, ten minutes before. It’s a transformative moment, and that’s just within a one hour session. So when you then compare the beginning of the ten weeks to the end of the ten week program, often these women, I would say they’re different people, or maybe they’ve gone back to their original person. You know, they found themselves again.
Mindy Peterson: [00:15:35] Um, myself again.
Yvonne Farquharson: [00:15:37] Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Mindy Peterson: [00:15:40] And you’ve had some pretty dramatic results with this program. Tell listeners sort of the percentage of participants who experience positive results, How quickly do they see results? How long do the results last?
Yvonne Farquharson: [00:15:54] Yeah. So again at Breathe Arts Health Research, everything we do is underpinned by science. So we don’t believe in designing programs that we just hope work. Or we got a feeling it makes a difference. We want to know in robust scientific evidence that this program is really working, and not just if it works, but how it works. And that’s where the science really comes into play. So our whole model is based on a study that was originally conducted by the Royal College of Music and Imperial College London, and that took ten weeks singing programs for mothers with postnatal depression and measured depressive symptoms over the course of that ten weeks. And what that found is that there was a reduction in depressive symptoms by 35% by week six and by 40% by week ten. So that’s a huge change in the women’s depressive symptoms. Then, as an organization, one of our specialisms is translating research into practice. So what does that mean on the ground in our local communities? So we took that research and we started running it, setting it up local groups across London to say, how does this translate into the local communities that we’re working in? And we saw a really similar outcome with the local groups we were running in London. So we thought, that’s really exciting, but perhaps we can do even more research and see, could this work at scale? Could this be something that could actually transform the way healthcare is delivered for women struggling with post-natal depression? So we’ve then recently just finished a five year scientific research study in collaboration with colleagues at King’s College London and University College London, that looked at depressive symptoms across the ten week program for mothers and babies, as well as at six months post the end of the program and what we found.
Yvonne Farquharson: [00:17:51] So we took almost 200 women and their babies, and two thirds of the women were sent into our singing for postnatal Depression group. So brief melodies for mums and a third of them were put into a control group. So kind of care as usual. And what we found is not only did the singing group see a dramatic reduction in depressive symptoms over the ten weeks, but six months after the intervention had ended, they were still experiencing that same reduction in depressive symptoms, which we didn’t see in the control group. So that shows us that there’s long lasting benefits for women singing for their baby and for themselves when they’re experiencing postnatal depression. And alongside that, because we measured saliva samples, which holds cortisol, which is our stress hormone, we measured that in both mothers and babies. And another really interesting finding.
Mindy Peterson: [00:18:44] You measure in the babies too.
Yvonne Farquharson: [00:18:46] Yeah.
Mindy Peterson: [00:18:46] Yeah. Absolutely interesting.
Yvonne Farquharson: [00:18:49] Um, and a really interesting finding that came out of this most recent study was that for the first time, we saw a kind of correlation, a synchronization of the cortisol levels between mother and baby in the singing group. Now, what that shows us is there’s a kind of biological manifestation of mother infant bonding in the singing group, which is just so exciting. And we know that singing with your baby helps you to bond with your baby. People generally think that they know that, but biologically, to be able to prove it is, is something else. And we’re really, really excited about some of these new findings that have come out of our fantastic research.
Mindy Peterson: [00:19:30] Oh, for sure. That is so exciting and so fascinating about the synchronizing that’s happening between the mother and the baby. Is there any kind of a theory on how that happens? Is it something related to the breast milk? Or is this regardless of whether babies are breastfed or not.
Yvonne Farquharson: [00:19:49] Yeah, I don’t think it’s anything to do with breastfeeding. That wasn’t kind of a factor within the research. It was simply comparing women who were singing with their babies to women with care, as usual. And it was the singing group that showed this synchronization. So and our research team behind this at King’s College London and University College London, they are some of the best at what they do. And they just took an absolutely brilliant approach to monitoring these women. Like I said, over a five year it was a five year randomized controlled trial. So the kind of gold standard in medical research. And they looked at social factors, behavioral factors, psychological factors, biological factors, as well as the cost effectiveness of the program. So we’re now in a position where we can say this isn’t just clinically effective. This is also a cost effective intervention and treatment pathway for women with postnatal depression.
Mindy Peterson: [00:20:43] Yes. And I want to talk about that. But first, I know Daisy Fancourt is your head of research, and she was a recent guest on this podcast talking about her brand new book, Art cure, which I highly recommend. Me too. Was she involved? She was involved, I think, in this five year study. Right?
Yvonne Farquharson: [00:21:01] Absolutely. So, Daisy, Daisy’s been involved in all of the research behind this intervention. So Daisy was involved in the original study with Royal College of Music. And in our most recent five year study, she was one of the principal investigators alongside Professor Kamani at King’s College London, and together they have been the masterminds behind this research. And yes, I must also be a big advocate for Daisy’s book on this podcast. Absolutely brilliant way of getting science into the mainstream and getting our society to understand how arts can benefit us all.
Mindy Peterson: [00:21:39] Great way to describe it. Yes, 100%. Daisy is a superstar when it comes to research and music and arts and health and translating that into language that all of us non-scientists can understand and apply to our everyday lives. So yes, one other statistic that I saw that I just want listeners to hear is that the mothers who took part in this program, you saw a 73% recovery rate of post-natal depression. Is that right?
Yvonne Farquharson: [00:22:10] Absolutely, yes. That was one of the original findings as well. So there are so many stats now that just show unequivocably that singing is a great treatment pathway for women experiencing post-natal depression.
Mindy Peterson: [00:22:24] Sure. And this is a little bit beyond the scope of today’s conversation, but you mentioned the babies synchronizing with their mothers, and that five year study did show that your group singing program, the Breathe Melodies for Mums, did benefit not only the mental well-being of the mothers, but really benefited the babies too. And there is a really great overview film, uh, on your website or on YouTube or both. I can’t remember where I saw it. Both. Okay. Yeah, I’ll see if I can link to that in the show notes, but really great overview on the program.
Yvonne Farquharson: [00:22:59] Yeah. And we’ve found not only does it benefit, as we’ve said, the mother and now we can see benefits in the baby. Like we’ve also heard from the women that their partners are singing the songs at home with them. Other family members are learning the songs. They’re singing together, often as family units. So most recently, we’ve actually started piloting this work also for fathers, um, because we know postnatal depression now can also impact fathers and partners. So we’ve just been running a pilot over the last year looking at a singing program specifically for fathers. And our next mission is to work with the LGBTQ community because we know families now have very different set ups. It’s not as straightforward as mothers and fathers anymore. And actually, everybody needs to find their tribe in those early days of parenthood. And we know that coming together with like minded people, engaging in creativity in the arts, in that really critical time, could be crucial for all types of people, not just mothers.
Mindy Peterson: [00:23:58] Yes. You mentioned the cost effectiveness of this program, and I know mental health services here in the US are under a lot of pressure. There’s a huge demand and need for them and not quite enough supply to meet demand. And I believe the UK has a similar situation. What do you want listeners to know about the pressure that mental health services are currently under, and the cost effectiveness of Melodies for Mums compared to some traditional treatments?
Yvonne Farquharson: [00:24:27] Yeah, absolutely. So we have an incredible national health service in the UK. We’re very fortunate that we have that to support us, but it’s overworked and overstretched, and there can be very long waitlists for people, often at very critical times in their life. And what we want to do as a social enterprise is we work both with and for our National Health Service to support them, as well as support our local communities. So we’re able to step in often and provide services at a time when women may be on longer wait lists, waiting for other forms of therapies and services. And we’re also reaching those women who we know are not accessing traditional healthcare for one reason or another. It may be, as I said earlier, that there’s fear or shame or embarrassment. But sometimes there can be many, many reasons why somebody is not confident enough to reach out to their GP. What we find with the women accessing our program is very often English might not be their first language. So we sing songs from all around the world. Actually, English is just one of many, many languages that we teach our music in and we accept referrals from GPS, midwives, healthcare workers, but we also accept self-referrals. So our program is completely open to anyone who feels they’re at need. We then do clinical screening tools still, even outside of our research, pre and post the intervention to make sure that we’re continually monitoring the impact of our work, which is absolutely essential. But we know that we can be a support both for women and for the healthcare service itself, by offering this as an additional service and also offering women a sense of choice in their healthcare pathway. It doesn’t need to be instead of traditional healthcare, it could be as well as traditional healthcare.
Mindy Peterson: [00:26:16] Absolutely. I could see this being a huge complement and supplement to moms who are choosing and accessing talk therapy or medication. So whether they are or not, whether that’s something that they need or not, I can see Melodies for Mums being a huge complement and supplement to anything else that they’re doing.
Yvonne Farquharson: [00:26:36] Absolutely.
Mindy Peterson: [00:26:37] Tell us where Melodies for Mums is available. Is it just in London. Is it just in the UK?
Yvonne Farquharson: [00:26:44] Yeah. So we run a lot of in-person programs in London, which is where we’re based as a social enterprise, but we also deliver an online program that is available to all women nationally and internationally who could access this program. But we’re also in the process of partnering with the World Health Organization to roll this out into other countries. So we’ve currently trained teams in seven other countries across Europe and as far afield as Singapore. So we now know, for example, in villages in Romania, in towns in Denmark, in Switzerland, in Portugal. Um, this program, a culturally relevant version of this program is running in those local communities and across the UK. We’re looking at scaling this up at breed. We tend to do things in a slow and steady approach. So as I mentioned earlier, because safety and safeguarding is at the real heart of this and because we see it as an actual healthcare service, not just a kind of singing group. We’re growing slowly and steadily and making sure we’re getting those partnerships right in local geographies to make sure this can become a brand new way of treating postnatal depression, not just for ten weeks, not just for the next year, but forevermore. So yeah, so we’re in a really exciting phase of development where we’re just building those partnerships on a regional, national and international level. And we hope that we’re going to make this available for as many mothers, fathers and parents as possible.
Mindy Peterson: [00:28:13] Love that. Is the program available in the US at all, say online?
Yvonne Farquharson: [00:28:19] Yeah, we haven’t run it in the US, but we have an online program that people can access from wherever they are in the world.
Mindy Peterson: [00:28:27] Okay. I know you mentioned that new moms often join the program after it’s suggested by a midwife or a general practitioner, or they can find it on their own, maybe through social media or word of mouth. Are there other ways that people tend to find out about it and if it’s not available locally? For example, maybe people in the US who maybe they want to join online, but would also love to have a local in-person group. How can someone make that request known and advocate for bringing it to their own community?
Yvonne Farquharson: [00:29:03] Yeah, so we’re really open to hearing from anyone out there who wants to bring this into their local geography. We’ve now got a training program available. As I said, we’ve trained teams in a number of countries across Europe and Singapore. So we’re looking for kind of international partners who would like to be trained to deliver this in their local area. And in regards to how you find the program, we’re trying to get it out there as much as possible. Our research has now been published in medical journals. We’ve got kind of global press around this work. We have a really strong mission at Brede that we want this to be an inclusive program for anyone who’s struggling, and we want to hear from anyone who would like to partner with us, commission this service, be trained to deliver this service and make sure that together as a big community, we can transform the way healthcare is delivered for women and parents with postnatal depression.
Mindy Peterson: [00:29:56] I know we’re running out of time here, but is there a story from a participant that has really stayed with you that you can share with us?
Yvonne Farquharson: [00:30:06] Yeah, I actually was at a group just before Christmas and a woman came in and she looked very tired and very withdrawn at the beginning of the session. And at the end of the session, she looked slightly less tired and slightly less withdrawn. And sometimes you don’t always know what’s going on in people’s lives, and you just notice these very minor changes. And then she came up to me just before she left and she said, I haven’t had the energy to shower for three days. She said, I haven’t left the house since this last session last week, she said. But I got on a bus and I got here today with my baby because this is my medicine. And I just remember thinking, wow, you have struggled to get in the shower, but this means so much to you that you will get out the house and get on a bus and get here. And she made a joke as she left and she said, oh, I might even have a shower when I get home. And you know, but it didn’t matter. You can turn up and be at your. You can be on your knees and walk through that door and we will hold you and support you. There is no expectation to look a certain way or be a certain way or present in a certain way. We provide safe and inclusive spaces that we meet women where they are at, when they need us most, and there is no judgement in our space. And we are here for absolutely everybody. And it meant so much to me that she had managed to get here, and how much it had meant to her to go through those steps at such a critically low point of her life. And the pride that I feel on a daily, weekly basis for those women and what they’re achieving is our absolute driver to make sure this is available to as many people as possible.
Mindy Peterson: [00:31:58] I imagine I just have goosebumps hearing that story, and I just can’t imagine how rewarding this work must be to see women at this vulnerable stage of life who are struggling and just realize that you’re giving them hope. You’re you’re making a difference in their lives. I just think back to, I mean, having this conversation takes me right back to, yeah, over 20 years ago when my kids were born and just what a difficult stage that was for me as a, as a woman, as a mother, young mother. And I just can’t tell you how much value I place on the work that you’re doing. So huge kudos to you and your team for what you’re doing. You have a podcast as well. So obviously people who are listening to this are podcast listeners. So there’s the Melodies for Mums podcast. So I’ll put a link in the show notes too to that so people can quickly get their fingers on that on their device and find that and get their earbuds in and listen to more. Is there anything else before we close out with a coda that you want listeners to know, either about the podcast or about Melodies for Mums that we haven’t already covered?
Yvonne Farquharson: [00:33:10] Yeah, I think my biggest takeaway with Melodies for Mums is people think it’s important to sing to their baby. And of course, it is important to sing to your baby if if that feels right for you. But I want to encourage our listeners today to sing for themselves. Singing calms our nervous system. It releases positive hormones and endorphins. I actually went to a Breathe Melodies for Mums program when I had my daughter a couple of years ago, and I went through the whole program as a participant, and I still sing those songs to myself to calm myself as much as I sing them to my daughter. And singing can be the most wonderful medicine for all of us. And you don’t have to be any good, and you don’t have to join a choir. And you don’t have to sing to anybody else except two. And for yourself.
Mindy Peterson: [00:34:06] Oh, I love that. I didn’t realize you had gone through that program yourself when you became a mother, and that’s so wonderful to hear how you still use those tools today.
Yvonne Farquharson: [00:34:17] Absolutely.
Mindy Peterson: [00:34:18] Wow. And there we go. That’s the Coda for you. I usually ask my guests to close out our conversation with a musical ending, a coda, by sharing a musical tool that you wish more people knew about. And that’s it right there, right? Unless you have something more to add to it.
Yvonne Farquharson: [00:34:33] Singing for just sing for ourselves. That’s my biggest tip.
Transcribed by Sonix.ai