Program: The music that saves us

Sana Qadar: A quick heads up before we start. This episode touches on the topic of sexual abuse.

Sana Qadar: When Sabrina McKenzie thinks back to her early childhood, the soundtrack she hears is a bit like this.

Sabrina McKenzie: Just reggae, lots of that good soul kind of music. Bob Marley, UB40. My brother and I used to do so many duets. Oh, so many duets. We both sing and we're both musicians as we grew older as well.

Sana Qadar: She grew up in Melbourne, one of five kids, and her very earliest musical memory?

Sabrina McKenzie: Singing Greatest Love of All by Whitney Houston in very many family concerts, many times. We'd find a stage anywhere we were. If we were at home, there was like, you know, a table. We'll build a stage and would sing a song. Always a lot of playing, creating and singing.

Sana Qadar: Now, it all sounds like the elements of a lovely, loving childhood, but that's not exactly how things played out.

Sabrina McKenzie: I've kind of blocked out some of the music that I listen, that my parents pretty much listen to back in the day, only because it triggers me. I was a I am a survivor of childhood abuse and trauma. And so that was I feel like a lot of my childhood was spent experiencing abuse. And then a lot of my teenage years was then spent fighting the person that caused this abuse. And so I feel like a lot of the memories that I had back then, a lot of the reggae songs and a lot of the Bob Marley are songs that I kind of put in the backseat because they brought up a lot of things I didn't want to think about.

Sana Qadar: That's not to say Sabrina turned away from all music altogether. In fact, music is what kept her going through her darkest moments, like when one section of her family refused to believe her about the abuse she was suffering or when her younger brother died. There were very specific songs that got her through those experiences. And now as a PhD researcher in music psychology, Sabrina is investigating whether music can not just reflect or influence our emotions. There's plenty of work on that already. But whether music can influence the way we treat ourselves, like whether it can spark self-compassion.

Sabrina McKenzie: Self-compassion, it's all about treating yourself with that same kindness, warmth, care, understanding that you would easily offer to a friend who is going through a tough time. Research shows that is a strong predictor of mental health.

Sana Qadar: But self-compassion takes cultivation. You don't suddenly become nice to yourself if your usual pattern is to be self-critical. And research has mostly focused on how practices like meditation or journaling can cultivate self-compassion. But Sabrina's hunch is that music can be an even lower barrier to entry.

Sabrina McKenzie: I wanted to know if we could use music as that facilitator to then get to self-compassion. And when I say music, I mean everyday music, the music that we like to listen to, not a music that someone's giving you and saying, here, listen to this.

Sana Qadar: It's a hunch born from her own experiences, and now it's the subject of her study. So today, the songs that saved Sabrina and the novel research digging for a link to self-compassion. From ABC Radio National, this is All in the Mind. I'm Sana Qadar.

Sabrina McKenzie: I was sexually abused throughout my childhood. I don't remember how young I was when it started, but it ended when I was about 14 years old. And so I feel like a lot of my childhood was spent experiencing this abuse. It wasn't just that type of abuse, it was also physical abuse, and I feel like my childhood memories are the ones that were the most emotional. are wrapped up in that pain.

Sana Qadar: Sabrina didn't get to benefit from therapy until much later in life, and so in the meantime all she had was music. And one of the first songs that she found solace in is perhaps one you wouldn't expect. It's an Alice Cooper song.

Sabrina McKenzie: I used to make a mix tape and it was a mix tape that had, I can remember it, like feel written on the top of it. And it was funny because back then in order to make a mix tape you had to have the physical version of the music to be able to make the mix tape, or you had to be there at the right time when the radio was playing it. So sometimes it's just half a chorus and half a verse. But there was this song by Alice Cooper called Why Trust You. I only had a chorus and a verse of it and it was just these lyrics that just spoke about why trust you, why trust you. And it was just this song that I had to keep playing for myself to keep going. After I came out about the abuse and I spoke to my mum about it and we did everything that we needed to do to get through that moment, parts of my family called me a liar and I was not believed pretty much. And I was very confused at that time and it made me think, why trust him and not me? And I had to just keep this song on repeat because I felt like it was the only thing that got me, it was the only thing that understood me and I could be alone and still feel like I was supported.

Sana Qadar: How old were you when you told your family?

Sabrina McKenzie: I think I was 13, 13, 14.

Sana Qadar: I wish I could play you the actual song. Unfortunately, we don't have the rights to it, although we do have the rights to another song that Sabrina will mention in a moment. But if you're not familiar with Alice Cooper and his sound and the song Why Trust You in particular, it sounds vaguely like this.

Sana Qadar: I was listening to Why Trust You this morning because I hadn't actually heard it myself. It's very hardcore.

Sabrina McKenzie: Yeah, it's hardcore. It's quite, I find Alice Cooper's singing, I love his voice, but it can be comical at times as well. Theatrical, I should say, not comical, but very theatrical. And that's how I describe the song. It's hardcore. It's got lots of electric guitar sounds in there and it's theatrical with his performance. And I think that's what I needed. I needed that punch to get to me. And I felt like other people, if this song was written, then other people are going through this too. The artist was going through it too. And I felt like I was more connected to people that were going through pain. And so I wasn't alone in what I was experiencing.

Sana Qadar: That's really significant because I don't think you were going through therapy at this time either.

Sabrina McKenzie: I wasn't, no. I started therapy a lot later on. I pushed back on that quite a lot because I didn't want to talk. There was so much shame for letting what happened, happened. And so I didn't want to talk about it. And I feel like music was able to let me put my emotions into words, which then allowed me later on to be able to go and get the help that I needed professionally to work through it.

Sana Qadar: As Sabrina grew older, her relationship with music deepened.

Sabrina McKenzie: In my teenage years, I feel like I used music a lot more to help myself, but it was in combination with singing as well. There's this song that I was performing as part of my singing lessons at the time. It was Out Here On My Own by Irene Cara from Fame. I remember standing in my singing lessons and singing this song. And at the end of the song, I bawled my eyes out crying. And my singing teacher stopped me and she said, you were going to sing this song. You were going to sing this song. You were going to sing this song. And I said to her, I was. And there's these lyrics in the song where they're speaking about being alone and I'm out here on my own. And then there's this part where the lyrics say, baby, be strong for me, baby, belong to me, help me through, help me need you. And my singing teacher asked me, who are you singing that to? Is there someone that you're singing that to? And I said, you know what? I'm actually singing that to myself. I'm singing that to my younger self. She's still there. At the moment, I'm going through some really challenging times, but I need her. And that's what I'm singing about in that song. And I feel like my teenage years was more about finding songs that I was able to connect to in that way.

Sana Qadar: Then, when Sabrina was in her 20s, her family suffered a devastating loss. By this point, she had moved out of the home and she was studying a Bachelor of Music.

Sabrina McKenzie: My second youngest brother, Jermaine, he was born with Down syndrome and tuberous sclerosis. And when he turned six, he was then diagnosed with leukaemia. And at that point in time, he was the only one in the world to have all three conditions.

Sana Qadar: Oh wow.

Sabrina McKenzie: And so this obviously was massive for his medical team. They had no idea how to treat or how he was going to respond to treatment. Jermaine was, I guess you would say, he was my best friend. He didn't talk. He couldn't walk. But we communicated in some sort of way. He would sit and he would listen to me blabber on about so many things without judgment. I think he was the first person that I spoke to or shared my abuse to because there was no judgment coming from him. He was a beautiful soul.

Sana Qadar: Doctors thought Jermaine would only live for three more months, but he ended up living three more years.

Sabrina McKenzie: He passed away when he was nine. And even though he was 12 years, I was 12 years older than him. We had a super special bond. So when I lost him, I not only lost my brother, I lost my best friend.

Sana Qadar: And so when he died, there was a particular song that you played at his funeral that has a lot of meaning for you and your family. Tell me about that song.

Sabrina McKenzie: Yeah. So my family and I were sitting around the table planning Jermaine's funeral, and we were thinking about a song that we could walk him out of his celebration of life to where we're carrying his casket. And we started listening to Tina Arena's Now I Can Dance. At the start, it sounds like this journey, like this chugging along. And there's some absolutely beautiful lyrics in there, such as give my mother a kiss, tell her I'm okay. And then my absolute favorite, though I can only imagine the sadness in your eyes, please understand now I can dance. And I'm getting a little bit choked up.

Sana Qadar: Fair enough.

Sabrina McKenzie: Yeah. And so what's really interesting to me is that the original writers of this song intended the lyrics to resemble this transition of demanding work as a musician to artistic freedom. But my family saw these lyrics and the content so differently. We saw it as Jermaine's transition from this life into this freedom, this life that he can now be free, and now he could dance without pain. It felt like his message to us as well, and his present to us, to let us know I'm going to be okay. It's a song that I revisit so many times when I want to remember him and to remember the freedom that he now has.

Sana Qadar: Yeah. And so when it was played at his celebration of life, what was that moment like?

Sabrina McKenzie: I was a mess by that stage. We walked out of that celebration, I think, as a stronger unit. It was like a continuation of his journey. Our walkout wasn't the end. It was our walkout to his new beginning.

Sana Qadar: How often do you listen to the song now?

Sabrina McKenzie: I've actually been listening to it a lot more lately.

Sana Qadar: Oh, yeah?

Sabrina McKenzie: My kids, I've got three young kids, and we've got pictures of Jermaine up in our house. We speak about Jermaine a lot. I was playing the song to them the other day, and my 11-year-old was like, oh, I'm going to put this on my feel playlist. We have playlists at home.

Sana Qadar: That's cute. They have a feel playlist.

Sabrina McKenzie: Yeah, they have a feel playlist, just like my feel mix tape that I used to have when I was a kid. But my 11-year-old said, I'm going to put this on my feel playlist, and I'm going to listen to it because I want to connect with him. And I think it's a really beautiful song for me to have that connection with someone that I've never met. And I think it's such a beautiful thing that music can do. This song has become part of my story. It's become part of my family. It's become part of my memory. Regardless of what the intentions were in that creation of the song, it's now shaped into our life.

Sana Qadar: You're listening to All in the Mind from ABC Radio National. I'm Sana Qadar.Sabrina didn't launch into her career planning to study music psychology. But given her story, it's not surprising that life landed her there.

Sabrina McKenzie: I was doing a Bachelor of Music at RMIT, and then many years later, I decided to pursue a Master's in Applied Positive Psychology at the University of Melbourne. And it was through that course that I started learning about self-compassion. And its ability to help with mental health and well-being. It's actually a strong predictor of mental health. And there was a practice that we needed to do as students over a period of time and then report back on it. And this practice was meditation, love and kindness meditations done on a daily basis to achieve self-compassion. And I was like, yeah, cool, I'm going to do this. And I'm going to see if I can become more self-compassionate. And it was great. It was fantastic. I scored higher after I had done all these meditations. But there was one morning that I woke up after I'd finished the course of meditations. And I thought to myself, I was achieving this back when I was a teenager with music.

Sana Qadar: Right.

Sabrina McKenzie: I was actually feeling these same feelings back then when I was using music. And so I was digging in the research, seeing is there anything using music to cultivate self-compassion? There wasn't. There were many studies that used a specific song or a specific soundtrack for many people, but not about music in itself and looking at what music can do for this specific skill.

Sana Qadar: A word on self-compassion for a moment. It's a concept in positive psychology that's been studied for over two decades now and basically involves treating yourself with the same kind of kindness or care you would offer a friend who was going through a tough time. In the literature, it's defined as involving three elements. There's self-kindness, which is self-explanatory. There's common humanity, which means recognizing that mistakes and suffering are universal experiences. And there's mindfulness, which is the ability to be present with your pain without over identifying with it. There is a growing body of evidence that links self-compassion with not just improved mental health, but improved physical health.

Sabrina McKenzie: So self-compassionate people, they also measure healthier. So they have lower stress responses, reduced inflammation, better heart resilience.

Sana Qadar: There are a few pathways for why this might be the case. One is that self-compassionate people might be more motivated to take care of their health in the first place, which makes sense. If you like yourself, you'll take better care of yourself. But research also shows that self-compassion can bolster your ability to deal with the problems that life throws at you, which in turn can lower your stress response, which has all these kinds of flow-on effects to your physical health. One thing to mention is that one systematic review of the literature on self-compassion and health that was published in 2022 noted that many studies still rely on self-reporting, which is widely used, but it can have its limitations. It requires people to accurately assess their internal states. Either way, multiple studies and reviews do suggest there is a connection between health and self-compassion.

Sabrina McKenzie: And it's interesting because so much of the music listening literature points towards self-compassion without directly saying it's self-compassion.

Sana Qadar: Oh, right. If they don't say self-compassion, what do they say?

Sabrina McKenzie: They talk about emotion regulation. They talk about mood enhancement. They talk about, you know, there was one study that connected to common humanity. So looking at that, you know, not feeling alone. So it doesn't necessarily look at self-compassion in itself. And one thing I was really interested in, and specifically because people that are self-compassionate measure healthier, so that lower stress responses, reduced inflammation, better heart resilience. I wanted to know if we could use music as that facilitator to then get to self-compassion. So in the clinical spaces, in well-being spaces, meditation is used a lot to be able to get to self-compassion. There's also journaling that's used a lot and physical activity. But no one was using music. And when I say music, I mean everyday music, the music that we like to listen to, not a music that someone's giving you and saying, here, listen to this and see how you go.

Sana Qadar: So you wanted to see whether we could achieve the benefits of meditation or journaling on our own with just the music that we love listening to.

Sabrina McKenzie: Definitely. Like music is in our back pockets, right? It's on our phone. It's not an additional thing that we need to tell people to do. We're already doing it. The statistic is we're already spending 20.7 hours a week listening to music.

Sana Qadar: Oh, wow.

Sabrina McKenzie: So why not flip that and use some of those hours to better our mental health and well-being and to do it intentionally?

Sana Qadar: It's this gap in the research that Sabrina is trying to address with her PhD.

Sabrina McKenzie: Because there's not much research in music cultivating self-compassion, our very first study had to show that music has this ability to do this. And so very first study that we did, we found that 81% of people experience self-compassion as a result of listening to music. And this study was done in 2021 during the COVID-19 lockdowns. And it was this time where we were all in this collective pain. And so we were really interested to see how music was impacting people's care and kindness for themselves. And 81% were experiencing self-compassion as a result of listening to music.

Sana Qadar: How did you do that study and how many people were involved?

Sabrina McKenzie: Yeah, so it was through a survey with scales as well. So we use the self-compassion scale to measure self-compassion. We as well asked participants to explain their music listening experiences to provide us with some details on a time where they felt self-compassion as a result of listening to music and to give us a little story or a memory. A lot of people spoke about using music to sit in pain, to have a cathartic release. One surprising thing that came out is that even though people were alone, they felt like they had a friend in the room. It was like music was a social surrogate for them. This friend that was able to be with them during that space and during that time.

Sana Qadar: In a more recent study, Sabrina has gone deeper into qualitative research.

Sabrina McKenzie: We've just finished a study at the moment that's being written up that we had long in-depth conversations with people that use music during hardships and their experiences with self-compassion and we're finding similar patterns. So we're chatting to people that deliberately go to music when they're feeling down. We're figuring out what type of music they're listening to, what styles of songs, is it the lyrics that are getting them to a certain place? Is it their connection with a specific artist? And what we're actually finding is that it's so different for so many different people. I spoke to one guy who doesn't really enjoy his work. And what he does before he gets to work is he plays Slipknot, heavy metal, music in the car. And he said as soon as he gets to his job, he's able to open the door, shut the door and weights lifted off his shoulders. He's able to just get all that anger out and he has a much better day as a result of it. And some people that I spoke to wouldn't even touch heavy metal when they're feeling down. And so I think the important thing that we're finding is that different people respond to music in different ways.

Sana Qadar: There have been other individual research papers as well, looking at, for example, Spotify playlists that are titled self-compassion and analysing the songs you find in those playlists.

Sabrina McKenzie: A lot of songs that are telling you when times get tough, you've got this. So the most popular song on the list was This Is Me from The Greatest Showman. That was a song that was found on repeated playlists that were labelled for self-compassion.

Sana Qadar: She's also doing work looking at the difference between passive and active listening.

Sabrina McKenzie: So passive is like, you know, we're listening to music with another activity, whether it's we're exercising or doing housework rather than, you know, active listening. So when we're sitting and engaging in that music listening experience, I feel like I did that engagement quite a lot when I was younger. And I'm doing a lot more of this music listening experience where it's done with a different activity now. So we're looking at the differences between those types of music listening and that impact that it's having on mental health and wellbeing.

Sana Qadar: And so where are you kind of landing with the research, what you're seeing so far? The question of like whether music can play a similar role that meditation plays or journaling. Is that going to require a lot more research to say that?

Sabrina McKenzie: Definitely. We are at the moment validating a scale to be able to measure that. We have identified that music can cultivate self-compassion, but there's so much more work that needs to be done. I think more importantly, I want to see more people research that validates the psychological benefits that measure stress responses, heart rate variability, inflammation markers to show if self-compassion through music listening can create the same measurable health benefits that other self-compassion practices can. But there's still a lot of big gaps to fill before we can effectively say music works just as good as these established practices such as journaling or meditation.

Sana Qadar: And to be clear, there is variation in the degree to which meditation or journaling can help any one person cultivate self-compassion.

Sabrina McKenzie: I love meditating. Meditating is my jam and it's something that I can really engage with, but I know that there's some people that actually find it really tricky to get into that spot and to practice meditation.

Sana Qadar: It's the same with music. Sabrina's first study found 81% of people surveyed experienced self-compassion through listening to music, but that still leaves a bunch of people who didn't experience self-compassion.

Sabrina McKenzie: Music isn't for everyone. There's some people that don't listen to music or don't have that reaction. And it's so, it's all about providing other paths for people to use for self-compassion.

Sana Qadar: So clearly still very early days with this research, but Sabrina is hopeful that we might one day talk about music in the same way that we talk about meditation and journaling.

Sabrina McKenzie: It was such an important part in my life as a child and as a teenager. And I really hope that this can be something that people can use, especially kids, especially adolescents. It's such a great tool and something that we're already using.

Sana Qadar: You talked about a lot of songs that you reached to at various points in your life growing up to provide solace, to provide escape. Is there a particular song you reach to now at this point in your life?

Sabrina McKenzie: My favorite song to reach to, I actually listened to it on the way here today. It's a song by J.S. Ondara and it's a song called Saying Goodbye. He writes it as someone saying goodbye to their lover, to this person that hasn't had the best relationship for them. But I take that song as saying goodbye to all the crap that I don't need in my life anymore and getting good at saying goodbye to that. And it's something that I listen to a lot because I'm still needing to say goodbye to things that I say yes to or invite into my life. And so it's something that I gravitate towards and something that's helping me at the moment.

Sana Qadar: This is another song that I hadn't heard of until speaking to Sabrina. And oh my gosh, I wish I had the rights for this one as well to play here right now because it is gorgeous. We will put a link to the song and all the other music mentioned in today's episode in our show notes. And do yourself a favor after listening to this, go find that song.

Sana Qadar: What are some of the lyrics and where is he from? I haven't heard of him.

Sabrina McKenzie: Yeah, he's a Kenyan artist. I believe he does live in the US. The lyrics are, honey, I'm just getting good at saying goodbye. And it's all about the bitterness of relationships. It's all about the tenderness of that vulnerability of letting go of something that you don't want to, but you know that it's good for you.

Sana Qadar: I feel like you've given me a lot to listen to after this. Thank you, Sabrina.

Sabrina McKenzie: Thank you so much, Sana.

Sana Qadar: That is Sabrina McKenzie. She's a PhD researcher in music psychology at the University of Melbourne. As I said before, you can find links to all of the songs mentioned in today's episode in our show notes. And you can also find links to the research papers we referenced in this episode in the show notes as well. And that's it for All in the Mind this week. Thanks to producer Rose Kerr, senior producer James Bullen, and sound engineer Roi Huberman. I'm Sana Qadar. Thanks for listening.

Sana Qadar: And just before we go, a little sneak peek of what we've got coming up in a couple of weeks. It's our mailbag episode, where you sent us your questions on difficult people. This is following on from our episode about difficult people that aired a couple of weeks back. Here's a little of what you can expect in the mailbag episode.

Sana Qadar: One thing that occurs to me is that this episode is going to air right before we break for the holiday period. So there is going to be a lot of people traveling to see family that they might not see all that often. Lots of difficult relatives mixing. Do you have any general advice for people heading into the holiday period, which is emotionally heightened anyways?

Dr Rachel Samson: I do. Christmas is not the time to address anything with family.

Sana Qadar: Good advice.

Dr Rachel Samson: Do not do it. There's alcohol. There's multiple dynamics. Do not. If you can, just contain whatever it is that's going on until after.

Sana Qadar: Do people generally follow that advice? Do you find after the Christmas break, do you have clients come back and be like, oh my god, this happened over Christmas. I was not going to bring it up, but I brought it up anyways.

Dr Rachel Samson: People are pretty good, actually.

Sana Qadar: That's coming up in about two weeks' time. Thanks for listening this week. I will catch you next time.