Train Your Brain Through Neurofeedback

It is possible for your brain to heal itself without medication. You can improve your memory, attention, sleep pattern, and even stress levels by simply using a method known as neurofeedback.

Neurofeedback is a natural, non-invasive therapy that lets your brain relearn and retrain itself to function at optimum levels. It has worked for patients with depression, migraine headaches, post-traumatic stress disorder, autism, ADD/ADHD, Asperger’s and anxiety, just to name a few.

By having a specialist attach two electrodes to your scalp, and sitting in front of a computer screen and playing video games twice a week, while neuroscientists watch the activity going on in your brain. Through practice and repetition, patients have seen impressive results, and been able to alter their own brain waves, in as little as 13 weeks - without medication.

Although the procedure is expensive, almost $3,000 or more for the full treatment and few insurance companies will pay for it. Still, neurofeedback is growing in popularity. It is estimated that estimates that more than 7,500 mental health professionals in the United States are now offering neurofeedback, and more than 100,000 Americans have tried it over the last decade.

Neurofeedback has been successful for people in all age groups - from toddlers to seniors. Although there are still skeptics, many neurosurgeons prescribe sessions of neurofeedback as part of physical therapy for patients with brain damage. Athletes use the technique to improve their stamina and help them to stay focused, golfers and hockey players have improved their games.

According to Dr. Amen, author and assistant clinical professor of psychiatry and human behavior at the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine, one of his patients - a 16-year-old with ADD, found an “unexpected bonus from his biofeedback treatment,” The boy said, “So what if I’m doing my homework twice as fast,” he told us. “I’m more excited that my golf game has gotten so much better!”

Our Brain cells communicate with each another through a constant storm of electrical impulses. These patterns appear on an electroencephalogram, or EEG, showing the brain waves with different frequencies.

When the brain waves aren’t communicating as they should, and are not working correctly for the task at hand, the readings from the neurofeedback will show up on the brain map, and these will serve as a guide for the proper treatment. With this information, feedback experts could help a patient to slow down, speed up or redirect their brain waves. This is called operant conditioning. While the brain generates fairly random patterns the computer software responds by encouraging a positive response when the activity responds as it is directed.

A recent study, published in the journal Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, seems to have opened the eyes to the scientific community on the positive effects of neurofeedback treatment on cases such as ADD and autistic children.

A study published in the European Journal of Neuroscience states that long-term positive changes could be established through the use of neurofeedback by enhancing the brain’s ability to learn, to adapt, and to compensate for injury. It strengthens the brainwaves to enable you to focus, concentrate and remain calm - and the results can last a lifetime.

One of the biggest attractions for the procedure is that it does not use drugs, and therefore there are no side effects from them. In place of medication, patients practice routines that are more like exercising a muscle. All biofeedback equipment is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration as medical devices, but the only approved use is for “relaxation.”