E15 | Linkin Park = Stress Relief?

Mike | MusicFit: Welcome back, everybody. Today I've got one of those shows. You know, when you're doing something and you're doom scrolling away, or you see some sort of ad and you're like, that doesn't look right. Well, today was one of those days. and I want to talk about it. because there's this study that is going around making major rounds in the headlines, and frankly, it's been bothering me quite a bit. a healthcare tech company called Tebra. Published a massive survey tracking how Americans use music to cope with mental health, which is sounds fantastic on the surface. Here's the headline: 57% of respondents say they use music to avoid or de-escalate a panic attack or emotional breakdown. On top of that, media outlets like Revolver Magazine started blasting the results because of who made the Top 10 list. The number one band Americans reach for to relieve stress, you guessed it, Linkin Park, Now, on paper, hear me out. This sounds amazing. Music is medicine, it's perfect. here's the problem. if we look at the bands that make the list, every single one of them is writing from a place of deep hurt, not healing. Hear me out. Meeting the listener where they are is incredibly powerful. Let's let's recognize that. Let's acknowledge it. When you're on the verge of a panic attack or a mental breakdown, and your internal world is absolute chaos. Hearing Chester Bennington scream gives you instant emotional validation. Now, there's an old, old podcast where I was talking with Adam Chin of the Enlifted Method. He's a co-founder over there. And we were talking about the 90s blame rock. Linkin Park came up in that conversation. if you head to miketheschwartz.com You can go check out the podcast vault and dig it up. the episode with me and Adam Chin. Cause we talk about this. Here's the thing: there's a huge difference between validation and regulation. when you are listening to Linkin Park or Korn or Evanescence or Blink 182, I think Taylor Swift was on that, Ed Sheeran was on that, Tool was on that. There's there is validation in that. That artist has expressed that moment in their lives. And it's really nice if you're going through that to know that you are in good company in the dark. Now, here is where it gets interesting because it's highly dangerous to call that stress relief. There's, like I said, a massive Physiological difference between validation and nervous system regulation. Now, Why did they do this? Well, first of all, it's highly marketable to look at, you know, a self-survey like this and come out looking like the good guys who are validating all these people with their choices of music, providing stress relief. But holy freaking hell, let's not get it twisted up. Avoidance is avoidance, not relief. And I imagine if I spoke to the same 57% , they'd also tell me that wine helps them sleep at night, which we know to be false. Without physiological evidence of, say, heart rate variability, something like that, we're confusing validation with regulation. And I don't even like that word. We need to learn how to feel things and not jump ship every time discomfort sets in. Learn how to sit with it, learn how to navigate, not dismiss everything that isn't rainbows and frickin' butterflies. At best, this study is conflating results, it's misleading. And absolutely incorrect. Now, at worst, it's sending a message that avoiding feeling uncomfortable is relief with air quotes. And that's dangerous. So let's talk about why. I want you to think about what's actually happening during a panic attack. Your sympathetic nervous system is trapped in a fight or flight firestorm. Your heart is racing, and your brain thinks you're dying. If you pump aggressive frequencies, screaming vocals, and lyrics about helplessness into your ears, you are not cooling the fire. You're feeding it. Take Linkin Park, for example. Think about the track crawling. The lyric is literally crawling in my skin. These wounds they will not heal. Now, if we just hear those words, it's very different. Without that catchy earworm hook, without the heavy distorted guitars, without the crazy cool beats. Granted, that's what brings us into it. That's what meets us in the storm when it's all rain, thunder, all that. They certainly do not help you get out of the storm. They trap you inside it. They force your brain to ruminate on the pain, keeping your cortisol levels spiked. And locking you into a toxic panic loop. And this is exactly why public corporate surveys are misleading. Tebra just asked a thousand people what they choose to listen to. It's like me going to the same thousand people saying, How do you like to sleep? I love wine. Wine helps me sleep. No. They didn't measure their actual heart rates or brainwaves or anything. Humans in pain. Crave things that match the chaos. But what we crave in the dark isn't always what brings us into the light. We gotta remember that. Please refrain from making the all too common mistake of taking a mirror for a medicine cabinet. To actually break a panic loop, you need a clinical intervention, not just an emotional echo chamber. That is why I built the beat RX protocol. Instead of matching the chaos, we use engineered alpha brainwaves, what I call Calm RX. These specific targeted alpha beats are scientifically designed to step in and physically downregulate your overactive nervous system, while a heavy rock lyric keeps you in brain waves that are firing at a frantic panic pace. Calm RX actively shifts your brain into a state of deep, relaxed focus. It physically forces the body out of fight or flight. Now here's the here's the takeaway for me anyway. I would just suggest you listen to the music that validates you when you want to feel seen. Then when you're ready. To get out of that, Because I believe it's it's truly okay to be down. It's not okay to stay down. So when you're in the middle of a clinical crisis, you have to switch from the music of the hurt to the music of the healing. Lean on the beat RX protocol, put on your Calm RX, and let the frequencies do the work to pull you out of that loop. And if you'd like to learn more, head to miketheschwartz.com check the link in the show notes here. I'm gonna make sure that I've got an alpha wave track, one of my favourites with hand pan and calming frequencies to bring you back off of that cliff. All right. That's it. That's all for today. Really appreciate you being here and just be careful, read and use your discernment. Because Fifty-seven percent of people definitely only read the headlines. That's the real facts. And if you enjoyed this, be sure to share it out with someone you care about and make sure you like, subscribe, do all the things for me. really helps get the show out there. Stay sweet, y'all. See you next week. Peace.