Video Transcript for Neruofeedback in Denver, CO

 Weimer Neurofeedback LLC

Denver, Colorado

Transcript YouTube Video

What is Infraslow Fluctuation Neurofeedback?

Hi everyone, my name is Jessica Weimer, and today I’d like to talk to you about neurofeedback.  What is Neurofeedback?  Who might benefit from doing neurofeedback?  And, what does a neurofeedback session look like?  So, first of all, what is neurofeedback?

The easiest way to think about it is that neurofeedback is like showing your brain a mirror.  We have cells in our brains called neurons, and if these neurons aren’t working in the way that they should, we feel out of balance and can experience things like anxiety and depression.  But if we show the neurons what they are doing, or give them feedback, then they are able to change their patterns.  Once the brain starts to perform better it starts to feel better.  This feedback can be visual or it can be audio.  In some types of neurofeedback, the visual component is in the form of a movie, or a game.  In the work that I do the feedback is in the form of a tone, so there is just the audio component.

There are actually several types of neurofeedback but they are all going to follow the same basic principle.  We are giving the brain information so that we can make it more flexible.  We are using this “mirror” to get it out of its old, stuck patterns.

The type of neurofeedback that I most commonly practice is called Infraslow Fluctuation.  I don’t want to get too technical here, so just as a general overview – the electrical signals that we are picking up with this type of training are some of the slowest brainwaves that are produced.  And these brainwaves are very important in helping us regulate our nervous system.  Ideally, we have a balance between our sympathetic nervous system and our parasympathetic nervous system, or you may have heard of it as the “fight or flight or freeze” response and the “rest and digest” state of being.

In our society today we are constantly on the go and there are a lot of things grabbing our attention and we tend to live more in the sympathetic nervous system state and feel a little more anxious.  There are also people who have trauma in their past and they may feel stuck in a state of anxiety or hypervigilance, or they may feel very detached from everything.  So that leads me to the next piece, who might benefit from doing neurofeedback?

Because we are targeting the brain at such a foundational level, we are really impacting a lot of systems.  Showing the brain a mirror of these slow waves can help regulate sleep cycles, digestion, attention networks, and it can help with a lot of different mood disorders.  The majority of my clients have high anxiety or a trauma history, and they may have done talk therapy in the past but still feel stuck.  It’s like they are living in this constant anxiety loop, and their brain and their body can’t get out of their past trauma.  Once we are able to show their brain what it is doing, it’s able to release these patterns.

So I am going to go ahead and show you a brief demo, so you can get a sense of what a session looks like and take some of the mystery out of the process.

Change to office location:

Here is an electrode.  There is a little bit of paste on the end.  The paste is going to help the sensor stick to the scalp, and it’s going to help the electrical signal travel.  So I just attach it here (puts sensor on the scalp) and I already have the others on there, it’s a very simple setup.  Now nothing ever goes “in” to the brain, we’re not giving any electricity or stimulus.  We’re just reading the activity of the neurons so that the computer can feed back the information to the client.  So we’re just picking up that infra-low brainwave activity.  Now we’re all set, and the client is just going to sit comfortably in the chair while the training happens.

Pan to full office view:

So the training itself is very simple, there’s just a tone that plays that is a reflection of the brainwave activity.  I’m going to go ahead and start it now, so you can hear what it sounds like.

A low tone plays in the background:

Now, the client is going to hear this tone, and the training is going to take place whether they are paying attention to it or not.  Our brains are very smart and they are taking in much more about our environment than we realize.  The client hears the tone and their brain is going to realize that the tone is a reflection of itself and it’s going to start to monitor it.  This act of monitoring is what allows it to change.  Sometimes people like to watch movies during the training, sometimes they just like to sit and listen to the tone, almost like a meditation.  Some clients end up doing talk therapy during the training, it’s just very individual.

The training itself is going to go for 30 minutes, I’m not going to do that here, but it’s pretty simple overall, and that’s what a session looks like.

Change location:

So the goal in the beginning of this work is to find the right frequency for each client to train at.  It’s kind of like we are changing the angle of the mirror so that we can find the place where the nervous system is in its most balanced state.  This beginning process can take several sessions and it involves a lot of communication between the client and I, and changes usually happen pretty quickly.  Once we find the right frequency we keep repeating it so that the brain learns to stay in this state.  It’s like learning a new skill.  You repeat it over and over and it becomes second nature, like riding a bike.

After a few months of this work people usually start to feel much more calm and regulated, and better able to handle situations differently that would have triggered them in the past.

So I hope this helps some of you get a better sense of what neurofeedback is and who it could be helpful for.  If you like more technical information there are links to various research articles on my website and you can feel free to reach out at the contact info there as well.  Thanks for listening.

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