Why does regional Australia need a brain reset tour?

In 35 years of working closely with Australian farming families, micro-behavioural neuroscientist and former Professor of Dispute Resolution, Allan Parker OAM, says he has noticed one big change.

“I have watched the corporate world be crazy and stressed and go at 100 miles an hour, and I always thought rural people were more stable and sound and had their feet on the ground,” he told Beef Central in a recent interview.

But numerous challenges over the past decade – from droughts, fires, floods and rodent infestations to COVID, overseas wars, cost of living pressures, and losses of export markets – have changed that picture.

“I have watched the farming community’s stress levels rise and I think they’re equal to or above the city people now.”

Studying patterns of agreement

Allan specialises in studying human behaviour, and specifically, the patterns of agreement and disagreement.

But he notes he is more interested in the patterns of agreement “because everybody is more skilled at disagreement than they are at agreement.”

In a distinguished 40-year career he has worked with Governments and major corporations in dispute resolution and training, and has authored books and written Australia’s first university degree on the subject of negotiation.

Mr Parker said he first began working with rural people 35 years ago when the-then NSW premier asked him to manage a water dispute.

He has since worked closely with hundreds of farming families to assist with tricky subjects such as succession plans.

He said he loves working with rural families and has noticed in more recent years a rise in indicators showing that people in regional areas are increasingly in need of support.

Regional Australia has one of the highest teen-to-mid 20 suicide rates in the world, he notes, along with growing rates of domestic violence.

Starting “a mass conversation” about techniques to control rural stress

But, as a neuroscientist and expert in human behaviour, he says there are many practical things people can do to take control and make their life “easier, simpler and much more pleasant”.

Mr Parker said many people believe that stress is something that controls them, that memory inevitably gets worse as we age, and that poor sleep is a fact of life – but they are all things that “we now know don’t need to be the case”.‍

We have learned more in the last decade about the human brain than we have in the previous 100 years

“We have learned more in the last decade about the human brain than we have in the previous 100 years,” he said.

Concerned by the rising stress levels he was witnessing across rural Australia, Mr Parker said he decided that it was time to do something about starting “a very large mass conversation” right up the eastern seaboard coast of Australia.

His aim is to help people to “learn what’s possible when they when they understand just a little bit about how their brain works”.

“I came up with this idea that I would visit 20 towns and I would teach them enough about the brain, so they understand how to keep it healthy.

“And how exercise, sleep, nutrition, and constructive, expansive conversation improves brain function.”

Initially 20 regional towns and cities across eastern Australia were chosen for the Regional Brain Reset Tour, and events have already taken place in several locations.

However, demand has been so strong Mr Parker has since had requests to speak at 46 locations, and has expanded the list of regional towns and cities on the tour (which can be viewed at this link)

A large percentage of those who have attended workshops so far have been family farmers.

Messages for farming families

Asked to pinpoint some of the messages he believes are particularly relevant to rural people, he quickly points to the conflicting roles that can often exist in family farming dynamics.

“There is a need to work out how to separate my relationship when I am dad from my relationship when I am the boss of the family business.

“And when people learn that, they can have two different types of conversations that produce completely different impacts.”

One thing Mr Parker has regularly been called on to teach and assist with in the rural sector over the past 35 years has been farm succession planning discussions.

The one big succession planning mistake farming families make

There is one mistake, he says, that he sees all too often.

“The biggest mistake in farm succession planning is starting too late,” he said.

“It’s never too early to start, and bringing children in can provide an invaluable education in good meetings, good conversations and good decision making.”

“As a brain scientist, the earlier you can get good patterns in the brain, the easier it makes the rest of life.

“My strong encouragement is to start early, and get people involved in a productive way early.”

This did not mean having to give up control and power early, but to start to engage and share your thinking, and share some of the difficult things you have been through and what you have done to manage them.

“And I start to get what is in my head out of my head and into somebody else’s.

“And I like to work with young people to teach them the art of questions and inquiry and curiosity.

“Good questions, good curiosity and good inquiry can help a lot.”

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More information about Allan Parker OAM’s Regional Brain Reset Tours can be viewed https://www.peakpd.com/events/regional-brain-reset-tour/

Source: Beef Central