[00:00:00] Cynthia Garcia: Misophonia is a condition where people experience intense anger and disgust when they hear sounds made by other human beings. 

Welcome back to The Transformational Nutrition podcast. The podcast that is redefining nutrition as anything that feeds you physically, mentally, and spiritually. I am your host, Cynthia Garcia, the founder and CEO of the Institute of Transformational Nutrition.

Alright, today’s episode is going to get very personal. It might be a little bit weird. I am going to share something with you that I deal with personally, on a deep, raw, kind of disturbing level. And the reason I’m sharing this is because I’ve noticed lately that when I tell people about this thing that I used to think was crazy.

Like I literally thought I was crazy. That oftentimes people will say, oh my gosh, I have that too. I deal with that too. It has a name. Wait, I’m not crazy? I’m not just overly sensitive. So I thought it was so important to do an episode on this. And I’m not going to tell you what right away. I want to see if you can guess what I’m about to share with you.

So here’s the thing. I’m just gonna lay it on the line for you. I have issues with noise. Now, here’s what I mean by that. I, at first thought I was just really sensitive. Because when I sit down to dinner, if people are making noises with their mouth, it could be a slurping soup, it could be chewing with their mouth open, it could just be chewing loudly, or where I can hear the food mixing in their mouth. I can hardly stand it. Like I can hardly stand it. Or if someone is tapping over and over and over, and it’s just this repeated, like clicking a pin or tapping your foot, or there’s something making a noise over and over and over and over. 

Or someone is whistling. Oh my gosh, the whistling. Cannot deal with the whistling. Oh, these noises, while a lot of people, at some point that’d probably get on your nerves, right? You’d be like, all right, that’s enough. You know? And oftentimes we do it with kids cause they’ll be making these noises and you’re like, okay, that’s enough. Stop it, Billy or Tommy or Cindy, whoever. 

But for me, it is a whole other level. Like I feel instant rage and just fury. And I want nothing more than to make this stop. It is like I want to get out of my own body. I can’t even stand being in my own body when this happens. Now, again, I have had this for as long as I can remember.

It’s always been something that I’ve dealt with. Chewing gum. I can’t, y’all. I can’t, I just can’t do it. And I thought it was just me. I thought, like, I know I’m sensitive. I am sensitive. Like I’m sensitive to air. But, it’s more than that. And then for a while, I thought, well, I definitely know I have mental health concerns, never been great in that department. So maybe it has something to do with that.

 Until one day I got online as we do. Cause I thought I’ve got to figure this out. Like I cannot be the only person in the world who deals with this. Because like I’ve told my husband, like, can you please stop? Or my children? Right? Like my daughter, Raine loves to whistle. And when she first learned how to do it, I was just like, oh Lord, help us. One of us is going to have to move out of this house, and one us is paying for it. So I’m pretty sure it’s going to be the other one. 

But it was so intense, and I thought I’ve got to get some help because I thought, gosh, am I just being super dramatic? What is wrong with me? And so I go online on Google again, as one does. Dr. Google. And I started searching just random terms, you know, things like, why are you chewing so loud? Or why do noises make me want to hurt people? All of these things. And here’s what I found. Because are you relating to this at all? Like seriously, do you deal with these sound issues?

We’ll just call them that. Okay. So if you do, I have great news. If you don’t, you’re probably not going to relate to a lot of what I’m about to say, but if you do, I mean, the clouds might open up and angels start singing because it is a condition. I’m not crazy. You’re not crazy. I’m not dramatic. You’re not, well, I don’t know if sometimes I’m dramatic, you might be dramatic too, but this condition is a real thing and it’s called misophonia.

Have you heard of that? Like even the name when I first found it, I was like, oh, that ain’t real. That’s not real, but it is. It’s very real. Misophonia is a condition where people experience intense anger and disgust when they hear sounds made by other human beings in particular sounds like chewing, lip-smacking, breathing, breathing. 

Oh, my gosh breathing. When one of my kids has a stuffy nose, and they’re trying to breathe through it, I’m just like, oh my gosh, I can’t, I can’t do it. But these things again can cause intense anger and physical discomfort. As I said, I don’t even want to be in my own skin. And so you may react to that in a number of ways, from anger to annoyance, to panic.

Some people truly have panic attacks because of their misophonia. And you could just leave, right? You could just flee. The disorder and it is a disorder is sometimes called selective sound sensitivity syndrome, but that’s a lot to remember. So I just call it misophonia, and for me, mine is triggered by everything. 

Truly, I’m not joking. So again, when someone eats, when they breathe, when they chew. Keyboard, loud keyboards, I can’t handle it. Windshield wipers, just that repeated back and forth. Air conditioning. So recently. I have this vent in my home, and I’ve got this cover over it sort of redirects the air. It’s in my bedroom and I don’t want the air coming right down on me, so I put this little thing up and it redirects the air. And the other night it was like making this rattling sound. And I just, I can’t, I had to get up in the middle of the night and fix it. That’s how intense it is. 

And sometimes, now this doesn’t bother me, but for some people, even small repetitive motion, like someone fidgeting or wiggling their foot, even that can annoy people. And I don’t have that. For me, it’s just sound. And you can have different levels of her response to this. If you just have like a mild condition, you’re going to feel a mild reaction. Like you might feel a little bit anxious, uncomfortable, the need to just leave. Like I’ll just go or even like disgust. 

If your response is more severe, then the sounds could cause again, rage, anger, panic, fear, emotional distress. And this is a pretty newly addressed condition. So researchers aren’t exactly sure what causes people to have misophonia. We do know that it’s more common in females. So, hey ladies, you’re welcome. And many people start to experience symptoms as early as nine years old.

We’re going to dive into this topic more, but first I want to share the powerful lessons of growth and transformation ITN student, Stine, has gained from her studies and connections at the Institute of Transformational Nutrition. Listen in as she gives us a peek into her world and shares her thoughts about two of the three transformational nutrition model pillars, mental and spiritual nutrition.

[00:08:00] Stine Fjelstad: Life is unpredictable, and we don’t know what’s gonna hit us. By the time I was 23, I didn’t have any parents or grandparents left, but I think that made me realize even more that life’s too short, and finding the confidence to go out there and do what you want and do what you’re passionate about, it’s worth every penny.

I have a quote on my webpage and that is you don’t have to be a victim. You can use the power of your mind to change your life. You just have to find the key how to do it.

[00:08:44] Cynthia Garcia: We’ll chat with Stine later on in the show, but now let’s get back to our topic. 

Now, again, I remember having this my entire life. I will say, I feel like it’s gotten worse in adulthood. Maybe that’s just me. If you’ve dealt with this, let me know. I’ll give you some information and you could reach out later in the show. 

But it is definitely something that, again, more common in females. It can start as early as nine years old. From what we do know, doctors think that it’s part mental and it’s part physical. So it could be related to how sound affects your brain and then triggers automatic responses in your body. One study that they conducted in Amsterdam found that misophonia cues could do things like elicit anger, disgust, and even sadness in patients compared to controls of that study.

And emotional changes were often associated with increases in heart rate. You know, you go into that fight or flight response, and it is very, very stressful. So people who live in loud cities where there’s construction or sirens, or, you know, just humans living their lives often deal with this type of thing.

And they don’t always understand what’s going on. But the study that was done in Amsterdam, the data did show that there was increased activation of several parts of the brain that were linked to communication, emotion, and awareness, which is pretty interesting. And these areas of the brain only lit up when the participants in the study were viewing video clips designed to trigger misophonia. 

Now, when they compared this to the same people watching clips that weren’t designed to trigger them, those areas of the brain didn’t light up. So those results demonstrate that audiovisual stimuli, trigger anger and physiological arousal in patients who have misophonia.

So, what this means is that misophonia is a real condition and that it does stimulate our brain in a negative way. Now, now that you know what it is, and you know that you’re not just overly dramatic or crazy. And again, that’s my word. Like I thought I really thought I was losing my mind, but you’re not. Good news, you’re not. 

So how do you deal with this? Because I think that’s what’s more important. Yeah, sure you might have this. But what do you do about it? Because I know from firsthand experience, it can seriously affect your social life. It is hard for me to go out, especially in restaurants, right? Or where there’s a lot of kids because kids don’t know, you know, they just do the thing. You know, they’re often making the repetitive noises over and over and over. 

And I know for me, and for a lot of other people who deal with me so far, you start to develop anticipatory anxiety when you know you’re going into situations where these triggering sounds might be present. So you might avoid eating out at restaurants altogether or eating away from your family or your roommates or your spouse. Now I don’t do that. One time I wanted to, but I don’t. But it is an often misunderstood condition. 

When we talk about dealing with it, it can be scary to even just outright say that you deal with it. I know people that suffer with it, but they don’t talk about it. And I know people who don’t know me, and they don’t know that I have this might sometimes think I’m just rude if I like excuse myself to go away or that I’m being dramatic.

So for me, the more I can say to people, so look, I have this condition, and here’s what it is. And it’s not you, it’s me. It tends to just neutralize the situation. And once people know they know, right. And they can be more aware and forgiving and accepting and all of those things. 

When we ask our amazing student, Stine, what called her to the ITN community and what prompted her to make the decision to become a certified transformational nutrition coach, here’s what she shared.

[00:13:02] Stine Fjelstad: I grew up in a small place outside of the main city that is Oslo in Norway. It was pretty much just like the forest right outside and grew up close to nature. Grew up with a mindset that how you talk to yourself, how you feel in your body, it’s all connected. I would always hear from my mom, like if I said, oh, but I’m feeling so sick. And, uh, if I was sick and she was like, yeah, but if you keep on telling yourself that that’s exactly what you’re going to be. And I was just like, okay. 

So I kind of grew up with that whole holistic kind of thinking when it comes to your health. How everything is. When I started ITN, it was like, okay, you have the holistic approach. You have the science. You have like the fresh cook science coming straight out. And that was really important to me to be into something that was up-to-date and maybe also something that was for Norwegians and maybe Scandinavians a bit far out. People are interested and open in seeing how things are connected together. So just felt right.

[00:14:24] Cynthia Garcia: It just felt right. Man, I love that, Stine. Look, if you’re interested in learning more about ITN’s certified transformational nutrition coach certification program, why not visit us and download a course catalog today. Head on over to transformationalnutrition.com/coursecatalog. Okay. Let’s get back to the episode.

So there are some things that you can do, including just, just acknowledging it and sharing this information with your friends and your family so that everybody’s on the same page, right? Like, I mean, it is a true health condition. So if you had some other type of health condition and you said that to someone, they wouldn’t be like, oh, come on. Right. If you have say a GI disorder or an auto-immune disease or depression. You would tell people about that. And they wouldn’t be like, oh, come on. Right. I mean, they’d be like, yeah, of course. It’s I get it. Thank you for sharing. I can understand you better. I get it. Same thing is true for misophonia. 

So just owning it and sharing it for me was huge. And so if that feels good to you, I think it can make a huge difference. Another thing that you can do is identify your triggers. What are your misophonia triggers? And the more specific you can get the better. So what is it that triggers you? Lip-smacking, chewing, loud repetitive noises? Because once you’ve identified what your triggers are, then you can start trying to either slowly expose yourself to those triggers at low doses and in low-stress situations, or you can find other ways to deal with them, right? 

And oftentimes what I will do is deal with them in advance. So if I know I’m going to a restaurant, I meditate in the car before I get out and go in. I’ll also do tapping, right? I’ll even do this in a restaurant. I don’t care. Too old to care what people think about me, but I’ll just start tapping. And if you don’t know about tapping or EFT, you should definitely check it out because it’s so helpful, not just in this situation, but in a lot of stressful situations. I do it when I’m traveling like on planes.

That drives me crazy. The sounds of people on planes. So I do EFT a lot and I meditate a lot. Another thing I do is I wear earbuds because it drowns out the noise and for me that’s huge. And you can wear whatever type of your phones work for you. If I don’t need to hear anything going on around me, like if I’m on a plane and you know, we’re just in the air, I’ll just have like noise-canceling earbuds.

And I just zone out completely. And that’s my happy space. And I like it there. Right. But if I’m going through say an airport to get on the plane, I have these little earbuds that I put in. They’re not noise-canceling. They just dampen noise. They’re just like a little earplug and I can still hear what’s going on around me, but it’s just more muted. And I’m never without these things. I travel with them all the time.

Like I’m never without earbuds or earplugs or something where I can dampen or get rid of the noise altogether. I’ve also really worked on my mental nutrition. Right. So what I do is whenever I’m eating with others, I will try really hard to focus on other things other than the sounds that they’re making.

Right. So for me, it was just strengthening my mentality, working that muscle to kind of put mind over matter. So that I wasn’t completely focused on the sound, but rather focused on something else, their outfit, what they were actually saying, how that waiter is balancing those food trays, you know, whatever the case might be, but just shift your focus and don’t feed into the feelings that are happening because of the sounds that you’re hearing.

So that’s another important thing. Now another thing that you can do is set up safe spots or quiet areas in your home. And that might be, might sound silly, especially to people who don’t have this condition, but for those who do you might be thinking, I have waited my whole life for this is amazing. So for example, you know, if your family is going to.

Then you do it in the dining room so that the living room can be a relaxing place to focus on good conversation and just connecting, but you’re not going to be distracted by chewing sounds or any of those other noises that stem from meals, you know, forks, clicking and clinking on plates, those types of things.

So think about having just sort of a safe zone in your home that you can go to. I have a friend who actually just goes into her closet. It’s a true story. It’s not even a big closet, but it’s safe and it’s dark. She doesn’t turn the light on. She just goes in and she just breathes. She’ll do like box breathing or just focus on her breath for just a few minutes.

And then she’s better. Right. Whatever you need to do whatever space you can have just for yourself. It’s really important to do that. So that’s kind of, I’ve given you physical. I’ve given you mental spiritually. Once I realized what was going on with me, it allowed me to really get more in touch with my spiritual neutral.

And start doing things like more meditation, mindfulness, grounding techniques, right. Just being present and enjoying the silence in the moment. Like when I get picked up from an airport and I’m getting, you know, driving home or someone’s driving me home, like if I do an Uber or Lyft or a car service, I always ask them to turn the radio off.

I can’t do radio, especially if I’ve just survived an airport or two and flights. Like the last thing I want coming in spiritually is more noise. And so I always ask them to turn it off. I’m very careful about overstimulating myself because I know better. Right? So I’ve developed these different techniques, including visualization, where I can just get in the car, the noise is off and I can just start to visualize whatever it is that will serve me in that moment. Sometimes it is being reunited with my daughter, if I’ve been away. Sometimes it is, you know, visualizing getting home and relaxing into my bed.

My bed is my safe spot. So that’s always a great thing for me to visualize, but sometimes I’ll visualize just being out in nature or something, whatever it is that serves you in that moment. So those are all, some tips on what you can do. Mentally and spiritually, now that you know, you are not alone and that this is a real thing.

The most important thing here is to also be understanding if you know, someone who’s dealing with misophonia because again, now, you know, they’re not crazy. They’re not trying to be controlling. They’re not trying to be rude. And they’re certainly not just trying to be dramatic. And they don’t want to deal with this any more than you want them dealing with this or any more than you want to deal with them dealing with this.

Trust me, if there’s something that I could just get rid of, I would do it in a hot second. So think about that. Become aware of it. And remember it is a condition much like any other health conditions. So treat those people the same as you would if they had another health condition. 

Doubting yourself imposter syndrome and putting your needs on the back burner happens to the best of us. Listen in as we chat with Stine one last time to hear how she leaned into ITN’s live coaching labs to get clarity on how to drown out all of the noise and truly understand how she beats herself mentally.

[00:22:05] Stine Fjelstad: We have something here called, which is, you’re not supposed to think that you are something or, you know, something. And fortunately, that is like step-by-step falling away, but it’s just like getting to the place where I can be as certain in myself and in what I believe in to think if anyone else says something else then it wouldn’t bother me. 

I’m like starting to get there that I will be free from the so-called, and I got great grades advice from Cynthia in our business building. And that woman is so on point. Throughout all of ITN, Cynthia always says first you then your clients. And sometimes I’ve been mad about that just because I was doing something that made me uncomfortable, but I wouldn’t be without it because it was, I took her word and what she said and going through everything, like the story coaching and all of the methods that we’ll learn in ITN, amazing.

[00:23:21] Cynthia Garcia: We love learning about and celebrating our students and alumni here at ITN. So thank you so much Stine for sharing your thoughts and a piece of your journey with us. For more information on how you can become a certified transformational nutrition coach here at ITN, or to connect with Stine, be sure to check out our show notes. Now let’s get back to it. 

So if you’re looking for information on these modern-day nutrition topics and health topics, head on over to our private Facebook community. You can go over to Facebook and search on your Transformation Generation, and we have a private group there and we’ll continue the conversation.

Cause I want to know if this is something that you deal with and if you have any other tips other than the ones I’ve shared here today, cause we’re all in this together, right? You’re not alone. And people need the information that you have to offer, and I’m sure you’ll be able to find some great tips and techniques and tools there that you can use.

All right, that’s it for this episode. If you enjoy this episode, please follow or subscribe to the show so that you don’t miss out on important topics, just like this one. And if you would please take 60 seconds to rate and review so we can reach more people who need our help to understand that they are not alone, not just with misophonia, but anything that they are going through or dealing with. 

So thank you so much for joining me today. You can find all of the show notes for this episode over transformationalnutrition.com/episode008. Don’t forget to again, rate and review the show and then head over to our Facebook group. And let’s continue talking about how we deal with this and many other modern health issues that we find ourselves confronting these days. So thank you again for tuning in. I will see you back here again next week with another new episode.