The Pure newsletter comes out once a month and is designed to build up, entertain and encourage you. Sign up for our newsletter at pure247radio.org. Right, here we are again with Ann Law Jackson and fresh off her U.S. tour for "Sontay". Hello Ann. Hello. Oh, that sounds so rare. I'm here and that's like, I am awake, it's amazing, it's good. Yeah, I'm travelling, I think I mentioned this one time before we went to Guernsey only by Catamaran, but because of having to get the boat early because of rough seas, I had really severe jet lag, effectively, because we were all ready to go to bed, having worked a day, went to bed and the phone rang, it was a ferry company saying, "You need to get here for this earlier thing". So we didn't go to sleep, we then drove straight through the night to get to the ferry. It was about four o'clock the next day when I had what people have now described as jet lag, where I just thought, even my hair hurts, I don't know what's going on. I'm very thankful for, yes, for transatlantic where they can actually take care of you and you can actually have some sleep, because if I can't lie flat, I don't go, that's the deal. If I'm heading over across the water anyway, across different time zones, I need to be able to lie flat for my vestibular system and for me to be able to rest because I can't rest upwards. Some people can, my system doesn't let me do that, so. Yes, I can't say I envy people who do that, but I would love the opportunity to try resting sitting up, but no, I can't do it. It just does not work for me. If I'm not lying down, I can't sleep, I can't rest, I can't shut down. Yeah, yeah. And I think that is originally how our vestibular system was intended to be. That's the point where we have our awareness of quite the position of our head, whether we're slightly tilted, or if it's forwards, or if it's backwards, or if it's flat. And I think when we do have it in that laying down position, then there is that, that's that in an innate, this is sleep, and therefore it's much easier to go to sleep in that position for the majority of people, but obviously everybody's vestibular systems are different, so some people can sit up or fall asleep on a chair, but yeah, no, I'm not one of them. I guess that's partly how we're made, isn't it? When God designed us, when we lie down, it goes dark, there are periods of the nights on whether the darkness actually helps us to be in that deep asleep, which is why some people have eye patches or blackout curtains, we have both. I don't do well in any sort of a light-ish environment, so I always have a pair of eye-goggle things to shut out the light, but I guess that's that's hardly how we're designed to function is those times of probably shutting the body down, so our senses, our whole body can actually get a rest. Absolutely, absolutely, and that design of within that 24 hours, to have that period of rest, the recuperation, regeneration, healing, renewing, but it is, it needs to be ideally sensory deprivation, so our body, our pro-perceptors, our muscles and our joints can relax because the important parts of our body are all supported, and the best bed designs will support you everywhere your body does need to support, so all of your muscles can relax and you're not going to fall, it's not going to be hard on your tactile processing, there is a softness to the bed that enables your brain to be able to relax into it, your eyes, as you say, they're covered over or it is black if we have any form of light or if we're camping and we're woken up, by light that's going to disturb us for babies, we need to put those blackouts up for them too for them to understand the difference between night and day or to try and help them get into a night and day programme when they're used to waking up every three to four hours for feeding, all of that stuff really helps and then reducing noise, earplugs, yeah, so using all of our senses and making sure that ideally that you're not by a kitchen as well that is producing some wonderful food at two o'clock in the morning that can quite happily wake you up and think, oh I need to break my fast and let's have some breakfast so yeah, hence break fast, of course, a completely different topic, I do thought your brain was going to be firing all over the place, I don't need the encouragement, right now, so you've been to the US, you've flown back, but I saw some wonderful posts from you, as you really were sort of, in words and pictures describing some of the sensory differences of the United States of America and their approach to life, to coffee machines and all sorts of things, so let's just work through some of the things that I saw, starting with that first one because you put a post about a coffee machine that was providing water for tea, there's an interesting one to start with, we'd like our tea, don't we British? Oh, tea, I couldn't believe how much tea was such a big factor of the whole experience. So yeah, firstly that I knew, well I wasn't sure that there would be kind of like property or any tea, because the last time I flew there was no capacity for tea that the hotel didn't have tea in the rooms, it was like, really? And then, so I thought, I got to the room, I bought my tea bags with me, and then it was like, oh dear, how do I get hot water from a coffee machine, so that was a new learning curve for me, but then once you've used your coffee machine once, it is used to having coffee in it, so the first time I was having a cup of tea, learning how to boil, well no, learning how to heat the water, it was kind of like, it needs to be boiling for tea, but yes, obviously the espresso machine hasn't, I can't just tell it to make boiling water, but anyway, so the first cup of tea, I had a lovely coffee taste to it, so my gestatory sense was not happy, thinking this is not tea, this is tea with some coffee, because you had to rinse it out first, and then you have your hot water, a hot water tea, and I thought, well, that's better than nothing, but it wasn't a boiling water, and then it was quite interesting that going down to breakfast in the morning, and it was lovely, the waitresses were just, oh, the servers, they got to know me, and it's like, you're doing, you know, great to see you, and we're getting, we've got you, they said, we'll get your tea, because everyone else is having coffee, but then bring it out in as hot water with a tea bag next to it, so again, it was just like, by the end of the last day, it says, can you please put any boiling water onto the tea bag straight away, and then bring me the tea, don't bring me the cup with water in it, and then have the tea bag at its side, and that, that would be really helpful, thank you, so yeah, definitely temperature, when we talk about temperature, we talk about taste, and yes, funny, funny old things, but these things are comforting out there, because if you've got the tea that you like, or, you know, maybe a particular brand that you especially like, or perhaps you're an ill-grade drinker, not just a normal tea drinker, those things, the scent, the smell, the texture, it provides such a familiarity that maybe everything else is different, but we've got a cup of tea, and I recognise that. Yes, yeah, and it is, it is very grounding, it is very lovely, and it's very, it's very nurturing, it is funny how the senses are, are so nurturing, because they provide that comfort and that assurance and that familiarity, and yeah, and hot drinks, especially with the air conditioning, oh, I still can't, I came back to Heathrow, and I was like, yes, the heat inside a building, is it really cold? Oh dear, it's like, they haven't really cold, I don't know, I've never been to America. Right, oh, I tell you, like, those little experiences, I'm sure, I mean, it is very, very hot outside, or certain, because we went through Dallas as well, and that was like 35 degrees, I still can't quite work out the difference between centigrade and Fahrenheit or Celsius, and so it's, yes, but anyway, so that was 35 degrees in Dallas, and boy, that was hot. So yeah, it was very, very appreciative to be able to go inside, but I don't know why it set so cold, the only time I wore a jumper for the whole time of the trip was inside a building, because it's set so, set so low, so I don't know whether it was just, well, it is not actually, it's people, other people were commenting from the post, recognizing that they also don't understand or struggle with the fact that the air conditioning is set on a really low temperature, so I can imagine some of my people who do already struggle with temperature regulation, just quite how they cope, they obviously have wiped out their own ways, but still. Yeah, it's a shock to the system, if you've got 35 degrees, I mean, you can be in an air conditioned vehicle, you still got to get out of the car that might be, you know, cool, into a very hot environment, back into a cold environment, just from a physiological point of view, that's quite a lot of strain on the body, as you go from cold to cold to hot, the body's trying to adjust in it, yeah. And I don't know, it was below 18 degrees, it must have been in the rooms, so I don't, I mean, I could have gone to check, but all I just know is that I need to wear my jumper. Weird. You see, we bought air conditioning for the studio, because it is so hot in this particular room where we have the studio, and we have two computers working all day, so it generates a lot of heat, so we finally bought air conditioning, because by the time I get to my show, 3pm, I was seriously getting the heatstroke and deodorated, so we've solved that. But when I had it, what temperature I was setting at, I'm setting it like 22 degrees, because it's 24-25 outside at one point, and I'm just taking a little bit of temperature off, and for me that's enough, I said it's 19 initially, I feel cold, and I'm not going to run air conditioning to wear a jumper to be cold, I'm just going to make it less cold. Yes, that's, yeah. Again, like, I'm with you, I don't know, and I thought, well, it's not my place to say anything, because it just isn't, but that's exactly what I would think. Which makes sense to me. Okay, other differences about the US, because this is the thing, you're going to an English-speaking country and yet, you know, America is not the UK, it's a different country, you know, that's obviously, but then we think, well, they're English-speaking, therefore, it's very similar to us, but actually it's a different culture, so you have to get to different sounds, different temperatures. What was the food like for you from a central perspective and walking into a restaurant? Is it a similar experience to the UK, or is it different? Again, I just think everything that I experienced over there was more intense. We know culturally it's a bigger space, visually everything is bigger, the cars are bigger, the roads are bigger. I was taking photos of the fields, it doesn't help probably the fact that I'm from Jersey, so our fields are pretty tiny, and our roads are pretty tiny. But everything is huge, and we've got huge characters and big personalities, and yeah, just everything was big, so everything's just more intense, or more extreme to what I'm used to. It's very typical, not extreme for them, obviously. But Adeburger with a jalapeno pepper, a jalapeno, yeah, is spicy thingy, tapped into the top, and I didn't know what it was, and thankfully, when I was with one of my American friends, she ate it first, she wasn't sure if it was an olive, and she said, "No, that's not an olive, that's a jalapeno." She was like, "Ha, give me something to drink." So it's like, "Oh, thank you for letting me know, but why on earth would you stick?" It didn't say it on the menu. I just wanted burger and chips, thinking that that would be a safe option, because I wasn't sure with some of the other bits and pieces, and I'm quite adventurous in my flavorings, but it was utterly gorgeous, apart from the intensity of some of the extremes of the food, and mixing sweet. I nearly took a picture of, you kind of have your sweet, and your savory all in one, and we do less of that over here, but all the breakfast things, you had your waffles and your blueberries on the same plate as they're bacon and their sausages, and so I was looking at what the Americans were doing, thinking, "I wouldn't put them on the same plate," but everybody else was, so it was just like, "Really?" Like, "Okay." And cornbread, cornbread was really sweet, and yet that's like, yeah, so the whole kind of savory and sweet thing was definitely a different experience as well. All fascinating, all absolutely amazing, and no judgment, other than this is just very different, this is just bizarre to me, just musing, but with no judgment, it's just appreciating and finding, yeah, finding the funny in the differences, or except the toilets. That was quite shocking. Okay, let's go there. What's with the toilets? We know so many of our people struggle with auditory processing issues, hand dryers, just the noise of a hand dry, in a public toilet, is just really hard going for so many folks with sensory processing issues. So I was well prepared, I'm always well prepared, I don't have auditory processing issues myself anyway, but I'm always prepared, I'm always sensitive when I go into bathrooms and I'm conscious of what's going on. We're not going into too much detail, the fact that there are automatic flushes, which is a new thing for me, that as you, yes, when you're sitting there, every now and again, the flush just goes off because it's either timed, or there's a little sensor at the back. So if you move in any way or shape, they think you have done what needs to be done and that you have left the toilet, that you are no longer sitting on it, so it flushes at you anyway. And that is so scary when you are not expecting it, never heard of it in my life before. And this is the power of preparation. This is the difference that knowing that something is going to happen from a sensory perspective, the difference that it makes to your arousal levels and your alertness levels, because I was almost jumping off that toilet thinking, what does just happened? You know, it's behind me, I don't see anything happening, there's an automatic flush, you get the noise, you get the splashes, you get all kinds of things, and it's just like, what does just happened and why did it just happen when there is no sense of rhyme or reason at the time? Why that would happen? Because no toilet has ever flushed without me telling it to flush. So yeah, very scary, very scary, and I felt such like a pro. Like by the end of the week, I'm like, yes, I got this. Should I really be saying that I'm proud that I can't conquer the toilet flush? I just felt such a pro. This is it though, isn't it? You just said you've got no sensory processing issues and yet it was quite a shock to you. Preparation is key and by the end you just lost it out. But of course, if you've got processing issues, whether that's auditory or visual, whatever version it might be, actually some of those things that they can shock you and make it far more difficult, which is why one of the regular things that we almost always say is preparation is so important to what you're doing. Being prepared means doing a little bit of research, talking to people. I mean, you saw somebody at a jalapeno thing and you know, okay, I'm not going to do that. So you've learned, but you've got visual awareness, whereas somebody who doesn't might just grab the burger and eat it. So there's lots there, isn't there? Yeah. Oh, absolutely. And I have to go back to the toilet, Siobhan, because the other thing that's really disconcerting was the gap in the toilet. Like at the side of the toilet, we're used to here, you have a gap at the bottom of where the toilet door is, and you have a gap at the top. So if people need to get in, if you have anything happens to anybody in the toilet, you can go either under, we can go over the top. But most toilets that I'm aware of actually are privacy screens, because you're exposing yourself. Whereas these ones, and it was in a few places where there were strips down the sign. I thought, if I can see you at the sink, then if you turn around, you can see me. Okay. The visual processing. This is, I really don't want people who have really good visual processing and really good eyesight to turn around. That would just, it just bizarre. I don't get it. I think it will probably help if there was some reasoning behind it, but I still haven't found an answer as to why, because we can all make doors. It's not as if they're hard to make, that you have a door that closes like completely. So I'm waiting on that one. If there's any like Mary in Montana, if you are listening. If there's anybody stateside, who knows why this would be the case. That would at least, at least put part of my mind at rest, even if not my process. But this is the thing about just travel, generally, is that you can prepare as much as you want to. We went to the gathering, which is in the UK. We drove five hours. We're still in England, and we went to the gathering. We had a 10 that we've borrowed, which was great. But there's so many new things that you have to learn how to do. I was quite surprised when I went to the toilets. They were actually lovely at the gathering, completely different from a big church festival, a different festival we went to, which were little sort of square cubicle things. These were lovely caravan type things. It was just really pleasant, much more space. I went and went to flush the toilet thinking I'm going to have to stand and pump this thing to make it flush. It was like Niagara Falls just erupted through the toilet, which is a bit of a shock in a really good way. But again, from a sensory perspective, it can be very overwhelming when you've got these differences going on. The tiniest things, the other thing that got me was the light switches, the way you flick them up and down. We have motor memory, the way that we used to pick them up a cup. If you have a favorite cup, you kind of know the weight of it, to take it up to your mouth so that you don't spill it or you don't shove, it doesn't fall out everywhere. We have this motor memory of things that we do on a regular basis. It's like handwriting becomes automatic. You don't need to teach yourself. Driving becomes automatic. You get used to where things are in the position of everything and the kind of grading and the force that you need to turn the wheel or to move the gear stick or the shift stick, whatever you want to call it. The same way with just the tiniest thing of just switching on and off a light switch, I wasn't aware of it before, that my motor memory is that I flick a switch down to switch it on, whereas up there or over there, at least where I was staying, you flicked it up to switch it on and you flicked it down to switch it off. I was not aware of it until I had to think about the movement that I was making and that's where when it comes to sensory processing, things that others take as automatic you have to think about and that is why life can be so tiring and so exhausting because of the amount of cognitive thinking effort that you need to put into everyday activities. My job is to help that automaticity become more automatic more quickly. How did you get on with the flights? I know the last time you flew, it was quite an assault on the senses because it's sort of constant noise, I suppose it's the air moving around effectively. I don't know how you describe it. It's not high pitch, it's not low pitch, it's sort of somewhere in the middle but it's kind of constantly there isn't it? How did you manage that this time? This time I bought myself some noise cancelling headphones and I thought I'm going to try these. I know again for, I recommend them all the time but I thought well let's try it myself because I knew this was 27 hours worth of travel, sleeping where I could and preferably, yeah preferably on my one flight where I knew I could reduce or flatten the flat emotional seat. And normally yeah I would recommend listening to higher frequencies because it's easier on the brain but you're still listening to something and I thought actually for 27 hours let's see, let's try these noise cancelling headphones so I bought some and it was beautiful. I didn't wear them all the time. It was very much on, it was very much off. According to what I felt, how I was sensing my own, how I was perceiving my own body and my own mind and if I felt there was some form of dip in functioning or that I knew I wanted to prepare myself for the transitions to somewhere else or I knew I was going to be going into a bigger, noisy place where I needed to have all my wits about me and all my senses about me, then I would prepare myself and just put my noise cancelling headphones on for about 20 minutes, half an hour before. Just to give my brain a break from everything is beautiful. Just explain for me how they work. I mean I've had headphones, none of them have ever been noise cancelling. I've got one set that sort of do it a bit but what are they actually doing? Is it making it silent like an ear plug would do or is it just reducing overall noise a lot? For me, I think there will be different ones. I'd really like to start inquiring now and actually going around and trying different ones because the ones that you get, the builders, I think of that padded that it is, they just block it out. The ones that I have, the typical noise cancelling actually transmits something back so it's almost like they reflect the sound waves coming in so that you can really have a very immersive quiet experience but I was noticing there were certain frequencies, there were certain sounds that were still coming through. The rest was really, the general background noise was reduced but there were still the odd particular voices or just an individual thing that would still come through so that was fascinating and that's why I want to, I want to explore more and find out more, much more about the different types of noise cancelling headphones now because the technology is changing all the time and these ones definitely, you kind of like click to switch in order to produce the noise cancelling. If not, you click it and then you just have it, they called it transparency so you could hear, you had your headphones on so you could play music in but it wasn't cancelling out the sound or you flick to switch and then it kind of like bounces, the bounces sound away from your ears. I used to wear, when I was at a motorbike I still a lot of, I used to commute to work about 45-50 minutes a day so I had ear plugs but I mean they, if I got it right they cancelled almost everything and it was just, I knew I could hear the noise, the engine, the bike because it's pretty loud but they were ear plugs that was literally preventing pretty much all noise but when one of them used to pop out or something there's nothing you can do about it and then I'd think wow I didn't realise just how effective these were because this is really loud but I didn't notice until they stopped working how much they were actually working. Yeah and that's where we went in therapy and in treatment we don't advise wearing them all the time. With most things it's like use them, it's like weighted vests and things like that because your brain will get used to something that it is exposed to a lot and it will become its new norm so therefore when you are exposed to bigger sounds, if you take off your weighted jacket all of a sudden you lose the impact and the norm is much more extreme so that's why we don't want to have them on all the time because your brain thinks this is the new norm rather than using it as a tool to take out the extra. It should just be there as a tool to help you function for shorter periods of time to give you rest because we don't live in an environment where there is no sound. We don't live in an environment where we are carrying an awful lot of weight on our bodies. Our bodies are designed, our brains are designed to connect with whatever we are carrying around ourselves with our own muscles and our own fat and our own joints that is what should be norm for the brain not when you put extra weighted stuff on you. The extra weighted stuff can be a real help to be very grounding and organising to the brain but you use it for a period of time and then you take it off again. Same with the ear defenders, you put it on for a certain period of time but not great to get used to it for 24 hours a day. Otherwise it's not going to be able to help us, is it? It's just going to make life a lot worse if you ever take them off. Okay, so have you got just wrapping all of your US travels? Have you got any reflections of things that you've learned? Give us one thing you've learned that you thought, okay that didn't work and give us something that you've learned that did. I'll always go back to tea, making tea with non-boiling water. We British, we like our tea. Asking, yeah asking preparation, being humbled to ask, accepting differences, honouring differences and not trying to change someone else when you're aware that you're the one who is a guest, who is a visitor, that was interesting to think, yeah anything that I have, some people think when they're a guest that everybody should change for them but it was very much to know the other way around, it's just like, no I'm here as a guest in their environment, this is their culture, this is their norm and it's for me to change, not for them to change them to me, apart from how you make a cup of tea. Bottom how you make a cup of tea, which is going to be one of those ongoing things. I have a friend David and he has Earl Grey tea in the morning, which he has and he loves, it's a lovely little chat we have every so often because he's an American through and through, absolutely lovely guy but he has his cup of tea with boiling water in an Earl Grey tea and it's quite funny how he does it properly, absolutely but there's this sort of ongoing thing of the US, UK, what is this thing that you're doing with that tea bag and that water, which is fascinating culturally but I loved how you said because it was the words with my mind, you're entering their norm so you need to adapt to how they are and as hosts we want our guests to be feeling very comfortable and welcome but I suppose in the same sense we kind of want them to make the most of how we are and who we are and how we live and if we're a guest going somewhere it's great to be cared for but at the same time I want to enter that culture because I want to experience it because I don't want my norm, my norm's back at home, I want to experience this one because this is unique and special and when we were at the gathering the other weekend that's not my norm, a festival with 2000 blokes is not my norm and I really wanted to get into that and I absolutely loved it because it's so not normal and yet I looked forward to coming home but I also really really sad at leaving it because I'd made friends and it was a great experience not my normal experience, it's very loud, in fact at one point I did say to boys I really need to stop because I'd done I think eight hours of live radio with 10, 15 interviews in a really loud room and I did get to point of I've got to go and find somewhere quiet and I did just I had to take myself off for a little bit because we have our limits as much as I enjoyed it I also needed to withdraw sometimes to go back into it enjoy it some more which is what you're saying with the vest or the you know the ear defenders it's not something that we can have 24/7 we need to enjoy it come out and we can enjoy it again. Fab right so happy from your trip from the US there's lots of smiles so that's great you obviously loved it, loved it, loved it, laughing back and you think well that's life we just yeah made the most of every every circumstance and live life abundantly. Yes wonderful right if you want to get to know and more and what she can do to help you in your life then go to our website pure247radio.org pure247radio.org forward slash a l j bull animal Jackson thank you thank you and we'll see you again soon. Excuse me. Did you know pure247radio has a shop well we do you can buy merchandise while supporting the work that we do here simply head over to www.pure247radio.org forward slash shop that's www.pure247radio.org forward slash shop
