In 2014, whilst living in Bali starting Zen Brain Lab (our brain resilience & wellness centre in Bali) I came down with Dengue Fever-for the second time.

What that means is that when you get a second strain of Dengue Fever you get REALLY sick–for me this meant I ended up unconscious on the bathroom floor of our villa.

I had to be rushed in the backseat of a car in the middle of the night to the nearest hospital over an hour away where I was dangerously ill and bed-bound in hospital for days.

Luckily, I recovered from the acute phase in about a week and was able to go home, but I was basically unable to function.

For weeks after I had no appetite, crushing brainfog, fatigue and memory issues with headaches, dizziness, nausea and had to cancel my telemedicine medical practice for a few weeks.

I also had a weird heart rhythm that would come out of nowhere and leave me feeling slightly out of breath and feel my heart skipping beats.

This was pretty scary since normally I’m quite lucky in that my brain works really well.

I meditate and eat the best brain fuel and supplements.  I am blessed with a great memory and had hacked my productivity to quite high levels.

But now I was lying in bed for days barely able to string a sentence together and literally unable to do much of anything.

Even scarier was my normally amazing memory seemed to have deserted me and I wasn’t getting deep sleep.

But this is where my neurofeedback training kit comes in.

I had used it to treat clients of mine who had similar symptoms with chronic fatigue, chronic lyme symptoms and post-viral brainfog and fatigue and now I needed it myself for the very same reason.

Here’s what my brainmap looked like:

This map shows the dominant frequency of the alpha brainwave band.

Alpha activity is between 8 and 12 hz, and normally in a healthy brain, we want to see the majority for the alpha activity between 9.5 and 10.5 hz.

Ideally this map should be green, but a blue map is indicating that the alpha activity has slowed, to the 8 – 9hz range.

We often see this signature in conditions where people experience problems thinking clearly with brainfog and in low energy states like adrenal fatigue and people with thyroid issues.

I knew from experience with clients and patients that many people never fully recover from the brainfog and fatigue from getting dengue for the 2nd time, so I put myself on a daily neurofeedback training program to accelerate my recovery.

It took me 6-8 weeks of training but at the end of it I was back to my fully functioning self again!!

My 2nd brainmap showed my alpha activity had returned to normal, back to the 9.5hz to 10.5hz range.

You can see in this map the blue colour has mostly turned green.

I had used what’s called the peak performance rhythm training protocol, which is also known as sensory motor rhythm training (SMR).

I used it to speed up my sluggish alpha brainwaves and literally ‘wake up’ my brain again but without causing anxiety or hyperarousal.

It works by increasing the 12-15 hz brainwave frequency or Low Beta, the ‘in the zone’ or ‘flow state’ frequency over the motor strip area of the brain.

It is an incredibly powerful protocol and helps regulate the thalamo-cortical loops (which is basically how the frontal lobes speak to the limbic system) and is very stabilizing for the brain which is why it has proven effective in 100s of research studies to help a large number of medical conditions such as chronic fatigue syndrome, insomnia, anxiety and ADHD.

There are also many studies showing it enhances performance, focus and productivity in many different types of people and peak performers and has even been proven to improve the performance of surgeons during surgery!

After each session I would feel a bit calmer and more focused and feel a bit more like my normal brain was coming back online.

The coolest part is that your brain starts to make more SMR and rebalance even BETWEEN sessions. It helps your brain start to neuro-regulate better so you get more and more of the brain benefits not just while you are training, but all the time as you do more sessions.

There is even a cool story about this technique was discovered….

Barry Sterman, PhD. was a sleep researcher at UCLA who stumbled upon neurofeedback in 1965.

He had been experimenting with cats and found that he could train them to make more of this 12-15 hz frequency by giving them a pellet of food each time their brain increased the 12-15 hz frequency.

A year later he was doing some research again using cats for NASA to test the toxic effects of exposure to rocket fuel in animals before sending humans into space.

By chance, he discovered that the cats he had used in his previous experiments who had learned to produce more 12-15 hz were far more resistant to the stress and seizures that were induced when they were exposed to the toxins.

Their brains were far more resilient!

With this breakthrough in cats, the ability to increase their resistance to seizures, Dr Sterman then went on to experiment with drug-resistant epilepsy patients.

Instead of food pellets, the patient was shown a green light when they produced more 12 -15hz. When the patient produced SMR a green light came on.  When she was not producing SMR a red light came on. Her task was to keep the green light on to make more SMR.

The results were incredible – A 65% reduction in grand mal seizures when nothing else had worked.

The results were replicated in several other laboratories throughout the world and published in the medical journal Epilepsia in 1978.

This SMR brainwave work was then tried successfully with children and adults with ADD/ADHD and this  paved the way for this peak performer rhythm neurofeedback training to assist with all types of conditions.

And it is all because of an accidental discovery with Ultra Resilient NASA cats!!  :)

Neurofeedback, also known as brain biofeedback, is a direct way of training and changing the brain using non-invasive safe technology that teaches your brain what to do differently.

It is an entire science with 40 years of research and is recognized as the number 1 treatment tool for ADHD recommended by the American Paediatric Association Physician group.  

It is used extensively in the treatment of issues like depression, anxiety, insomnia, addictions, PTSD especially in the USA who are the leaders in this field and technology.

It is also used in the peak performance world by:

• • NASA astronauts
  • Olympic champions
  • Real Madrid, Chelsea and AC Milan
  • Tony Robbins
  • The London School of Music

 

How It Works

• • Your Brain Activity is picked up by electrodes
  • A Computer program reads the brainwave patterns and feeds it back to person by giving a reward sound when the brain ‘does the right thing’ makes ‘good brainwaves’
  • It can change how brain cells ‘talk’ to each other and what they ‘say’
  • It Tells your brain what to do differently–removes the guesswork for brain!
  • Helps the brain change dysfunctional patterns directly
  • Based On Neuroplasticity, neuroregulation & brain networking research-40+ years to help the brain function better under stress
  • It can change Neurotransmitter & cortisol stress hormone levels
  • Enhances brain’s ability to self regulate
  • The Brain changes are long term
  • It Takes Motivation to meditate out of equation & the changes are trackable

 

 

Beta Brainwaves

• Beta fast waves are needed for focus and concentration
• Too much Beta in the wrong area of the brain cause anxiety, worry, overthinking, body tension including:
  • High right hemisphere beta waves
  • High beta in the back of the head
• Beta wave imbalances lead to burnout, brain anxiety & toxic stress symptoms because the brain has no ‘off button’ and cannot return to a low arousal

 

Alpha Brainwaves

• Alpha brainwaves are the ‘middle frequency’ waves made when the brain is conserving energy or is ‘idling’ / relaxed but awake
• Too much alpha in the LEFT frontal lobe is associated with low moods, motivation, problems getting up & going in the am
• Slow alpha waves especially in the front of the brain is a marker of brainfog and mental sluggishness

Theta Brainwaves

• Theta brainwaves are part of the slow waves along with delta waves.  
• Theta waves are involved with emotional processing, memory and deep trance states
• Theta is highly linked to the brain’s limbic system & amygdala and the brain’s response to stress
• Low Theta to beta ratio in occipital lobes -issues with energy management and inability of the brain to self-rejuvenate
• Low posterior theta- adult ADD symptoms (poor focus)
• High frontal lobe theta-brainfog and inability to focus under mental strain

History of Neurofeedback

In the 1960’s researchers (Dr. Joe Kamiya & Dr. B. Sterman) discovered you can retrain brainwave patterns by using EEG brain feedback and they first used it to treat drug-resistant epilepsy with positive results.  

But the initial equipment was hard to use, large and extremely expensive-only used in research labs and studies at big university centres.

We now use a modern higher-tech and portable form of this ‘fast brainwave’ training to balance right and left brain hemispheres, enhance focus and mental clarity and target specific brainwave pattern issues that contribute to symptoms such as anxiety, low mood, fatigue, brainfog and even unrestorative sleep and morning tiredness.

History of Neuromeditation

At the same time, other researchers were developing a different form of neurofeedback training the slower brainwave frequencies and tapping into the ‘deep states,’ and this was led by Dr. Elmer Green, who was himself a devoted meditator as well as researcher and clinician.

He took his equipment to India and brainmapped advanced yogic monks in states of deep meditation to look for brain signatures of these states that took decades to master.

He discovered through this process a specific brain signature at the back of the brain when they entered into these deep states, and then created a way to use the EEG brain biofeedback to train the brain of any normal person into this deep state, called the ‘twilight state.

This deep brain training was called ‘alpha theta neurofeedback’ and used subsequently to help treat war vets suffering with PTSD and patients with alcoholism addiction. 

Dr. Eugene Peniston found that using it, Negative ‘problem personality traits’ disappeared and his patients were able to maintain sobriety even after 2 years vs ‘standard treatment’.

The reason it worked in these difficult to treat cases of addiction and emotional trauma has to do with its ability to put our brains in a unique ‘twilight state’ in between sleeping and waking where the amygdala and fear centres are taking ‘offline’ and the brain can reintegrate.

This same training is also used by peak performers to have more ‘aha moments’ of great insight or invention and to help solve problems that seem ‘unsolvable’ using normal ‘frontal lobe’ conscious awareness problem solving.

Modern Neuromeditation

This special state allows the brain to resolve deep psychological issues of the unconscious mind and brain, enhance novel thinking & creativity and help to heal the brain & body physiology from the long term effects of chronic stress and burnout.

We use a modern form of this Deep State alpha theta neurofeedback combined with specific guided meditations as a ‘brain warm up’ to guide your brain into the ‘twilight’ state.

Spending time in this unique brain twilight state lowers levels of brain and body cortisol (stress hormone) and enhances the body’s natural feel good chemicals (Beta Endorphin, serotonin).

The results from deep state brain training often go way beyond what talk psychotherapy offers and with greater depth for both healing and personal development and mental performance.  

What is the Twilight State?

This special state is marked by the intersection of the alpha and theta brain waves and is called a ‘crossover’ or twilight state.

Alpha brainwaves are generally found when we are awake and conscious but relaxed, like in many meditative states.

Theta brainwaves are related to day dreaming, emotions, memory and deep trance states.

In modern life, we no longer know how to access this twilight state because we are either ‘awake’ or asleep and only pass through the twilight state for a few seconds as we fall asleep each night.

When you are able to harness staying in this special ‘twilight’ state for more than a few seconds, profound brain changes occur to help the body and brain maintain health, heal and recover.

Anxiety, stress, depression, insomnia, worry, & digestion problems are all conditions that can be solved very effectively by tapping into the the twilight brain state.

Tapping into this and similar ‘altered states’ is actually the basis of most ancient / traditional healing techniques eg. shamanic journeys, research with psilocybin (magic mushrooms), LSD, other traditional psychoactive compounds used by various tribes in ritual, etc.  (note: good reading material on this topic: DMT: The Spirit Molecule: A Doctor’s Revolutionary Research into the Biology of Near-Death and Mystical Experiences by Dr. Rick Strassman)

This is what deep state brainwave training or neurofeedback does but without any substances or shamanic help.

This technology allows you to ‘cheat’ by guiding your brain into the twilight state and keeping you there for 30 minutes to allow this healing state to occur without spending years in meditation.

‘Brain Fear & Anxiety Loop Reset’

The number one health & healing ‘roadblock’ is in the brain.  This roadblock is hyperarousal of the limbic brain and amygdala (the brain centre for fear and anxiety) overactivity.  

When the brain is constantly in fight or flight due to low grade everyday stress of modern life it gets stuck in ‘background’ noise loops of mental chatter, worry and hyper-vigilance.  

In this state the brain cannot integrate trauma, rebalance body hormones or maintain a calm balanced mood.  

Being in this state too much of the time also affects the ability to get restful sleep at night and shut off the mind.

In order to break these loops, the brain has to be able to shut off the amygdala, that brain centre that is driving fear memory and fight or flight reactions.

When you are in the twilight crossover state, the amygdala part of your brain naturally goes ‘offline.’ At the same time, your memory and emotional centres remain active but without the fear memory or ‘fight or flight’ response.

This unique combination of emotional awareness without fear, panic or anxiety reactions allows your brain to heal old neural patterns of stress, anxiety, worry and trauma that are taking up brain resources and running as ‘open programs’ in the background of your mind constantly.  

The RAS Arousal Brain System & Toxic Stress

When the fight or flight overdrive is taken care of, your brain also changes its level of arousal at a deep level in a brain network called the Reticular activating system in the brainstem, the oldest part of the brain.

The RAS is your arousal system that controls motivation and need for stimulation.

Deep state training resets your RAS to a lower healthier level of arousal by deactivating your amygdala (fear and worry).  

This process also lowers your cortisol (the stress hormone that is toxic to your brain’s memory cells in the hippocampus), increasing beta endorphin levels (natural feel good brain chemicals) and helps body operate at lower level of baseline arousal so you don’t exhaust your neurotransmitters related to overarousal (Dopamine & Norepinephrine).

Exhausted neurotransmitters result in symptoms related to stress & burnout, chronic fatigue, brain fog, anxiety and panic and eventually depression.  

Balance can be restored to all of these systems  by getting your brain into the natural crossover ‘in between state’ modern life has forgotten how to access and prolonging this state to allow for total deep brain rest and reset.   

How is a Session Done?

You will place the EEG sensor on the back of the head and asked to close your eyes.   

The first 8 minutes after you close your eyes is spent listening to a guided relaxation and imagery program to help transition to a relaxed receptive mental state.  

Then the brain feedback reward tones will start to guide the brain to increase both alpha and theta waves in specific proportions to guide you into the twilight state.

What Happens When You Close Your Eyes

When you close your eyes, your alpha brainwaves naturally rise briefly before falling gradually until consciousness is lost.

With eyes closed, theta naturally rises with delta as sleep approaches but does not normally rise high enough to meet alpha until sleep occurs.

With these reward noises, the alpha is encouraged to stay higher and maintain consciousness and not drop into sleep so rapidly and the theta is encouraged to rise higher than normal whilst still conscious.

Reaching the ‘Twilight State’

The tones can thus guide you into the elusive alpha theta state, but you don’t have to worry about what the sounds mean, your brain knows what to do naturally so you can release all mental effort.

The tones keep you in this twilight state in between the states of awake and sleep. Normally you fall asleep if left on your own.

The tones you hear coming from the computer holds you in that normally fleeting state of conscious.

Session by session the brain becomes more skilled at remaining around the cross-over state and profound changes begin to occur in how you feel in waking life and old traumas are cleared out.

Benefits of Deep State Sessions

You will become more resilient to stressors.  You will have more ‘aha moments’ and more creative ideas.  

You become less ‘reactive’ to situations and people that normally provoke you.

Solutions to major life & health/healing ‘roadblocks’ start to emerge because your brain engages naturally again in novel behaviours, once anxiety and fear loops are broken.  

This state allows the brain to get rid of negative subconscious ‘mental chatter’ that is taking up brain resources.

Most clients report enhancement of their personal meditation practice done outside of the sessions and the mind calms down and becomes quiet more easily. 

Benefits

• Increases ability for novel behavior by breaking brain’s stuck patterns of thinking and behaving
• Decreases brain and body stress hormone (Decreases Cortisol)
• Increases Beta Endorphin Levels
• Decreases Addictive Tendencies/Behavior
• Resets the brain’s attentional network- your RAS (reticular activating system) to lower baseline level of arousal so you can perform better under pressure
• Decreases fear, worry and anxiety
• Decreases racing thoughts/constant thinking you can’t ‘shut off’
• Increases social accuracy (which is your ability to get social resources-ie get what you want from other people in social, romantic and business relationships by intuitively reading people and situations accurately and responding most appropriately to meet their emotional needs)
• Enhances Self Awareness
• Enhances Creativity & creative problem solving
• Helps to heal emotional trauma by reintegrating old trauma memories by taking the amygdala offline.  This free ups brain capacity
• Enhances effects of daily meditation practice
• Gives your brain the ability to calm down better especially under pressure
• Helps to resolve Insomnia by resetting RAS and sleep wake cycles in the brain that become dysfunctional over time due to modern life habits and stress
• More ‘Aha’ Moments of spontaneous insight & invention

Neuromeditation training also enhances dreams for many people.  

We get messages from our subconscious in the forms of dreams, although most people are unaware of most dream material.

During the deep state brain training process, the majority of clients begin to dream more frequently and have vastly better dream recall.  

This is a sign of brain integration as the older parts of the brain start to talk to the newer thinking brain.

Many people experience major positive life changes in the realm of career, relationships and personal growth as a result of their training.

Summary

Both Neuromeditation deep brain training as well as ‘fast-wave’ customized to your brain training can now be done at home and is a core component of our Ultra Resilience Program due to its unique ability to change the brain in a fraction of the time vs traditional mindbody approaches or nutritional approaches alone.

Alpha Theta (Neuromeditation) Research

• • Applied Research Using Alpha/Theta Training for Enhancing Creativity and Well-Being
  • http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10874208.2013.758968?src=recsys
  • http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1300/J184v08n01_04?src=recsys
  • A theory of alpha/theta neurofeedback, creative performance enhancement, long distance functional connectivity and psychological integration. (pubmed)
  • Alpha-theta brainwave training and beta-endorphin levels. (pubmed)
  • EEG-neurofeedback for optimising performance. I: a review of cognitive and affective outcome in healthy participants. (SMR, AT and general NF improves attention and memory)
  • Replication of elite music performance enhancement following alpha/theta neurofeedback and application to novice performance and improvisation with SMR benefits.
  • SMR and Alpha theta neurofeedback for enhancing creativity and the performing arts http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24239853
  • Immediate effects of Alpha/theta and Sensory-Motor Rhythm feedback on music performance.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24681246
  • Dance performance Enhancemet with Alpha Theta Neurofeedback
  • Alpha-theta brainwave neurofeedback training: an effective treatment depressive symptoms. (pubmed)
  • Silent Epidemic: The Effects of Alpha theta Neurofeedback in Treatment of of TBI (concussions)
  • Ecological validity of neurofeedback: modulation of slow wave EEG enhances musical performance
  • Individual alpha neurofeedback training effect on short term memory
  • Alterations in EEG amplitude, personality factors, and brain electrical mapping after alpha-theta brainwave training: a controlled case study
  • An Overview Of Alpha-Theta Neurofeedback And Its Treatment Effectiveness For Substance Abuse
  • Alpha–theta brainwave neurofeedback for combat-related post-traumatic stress disorder
• LInk to American academy of traumatic stress and AT training
• EEG alpha and theta oscillations reflect cognitive and memory performance: a review and analysis

Improvements in Mental Performance, Memory, Neuroplasticity and Resilience

Neurofeedback for enhancement of memory and concentration

The effect of training SMR neurofeedback protocols on cognitive performance

Optimizing microsurgical skills with EEG neurofeedback

SMR Training for Enhancing Golf Performance http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26866770

Shutting down sensorimotor interference unblocks the networks for stimulus processing: an SMR neurofeedback training study.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24794517

SMR for Inducing Calmness http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23357178

EEG-neurofeedback and SMR for optimising performance: a Review of the literature: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24125857

Neurofeedback training induces changes in brain white and gray matter.

Neurofeedback: an emerging technology for treating central nervous system dysregulation

Tuning pathological brain oscillations with neurofeedback: a systems neuroscience framework.

Endogenous control of waking brain rhythms induces neuroplasticity in humans http://www.nici.ru.nl/twiki/bin/viewfile/Main/MoniekMunneke?rev=1;filename=2010_Ros_et_al_-_Endogenous_control_of_waking_brain_rhythms_induces_neuroplasticity_in_humans.pdf

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20384819

Training Upper Alpha band for enhancing cognitive performance:https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S105381191001181X

Enhancing ability to handle mental workload:http://www.sid.ir/En/Journal/ViewPaper.aspx?ID=531322

QEEG brainmapping for brain performance and resolution of stress-related symptoms & burnout http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/7846849/

Replication of Elite Musical Performance in novices using neurofeedback peak performer rhythm training https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301051113002238

EEG-based upper alpha neurofeedback training improves working memory performancehttp://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/6090651/?reload=true

EEG-neurofeedback for optimising cognitive performance:https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149763413002248

Enhancement of short term memory:https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167876012005478

Improvements in Executive Function & Mental Performance: Boosting Brain Functions with Neurofeedback

Gaining Direct Control over brain functions:

How Neurofeedback allows you to ‘experience’ and gain control over your brain

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3798979

Emotional Regulation, Anxiety and Mood (Depression/anxiety)

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167876012006678

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3819266/

Neurofeedback to Reduce Anxiety

Neurofeedback for depression

ADHD, Focus & Concentration

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167876016307826

Neurofeedback outperforms ADHD medication for academic performance without side effects

Neurofeedback changes brain structure in both grey and white matter related to attentional processes

Lubar, J.F. and Shouse, M.N. (1976) EEG and Behavioral Changes in a Hyperkinetic Child Concurrent with Training of the Sensorimotor Rhythm (SMR): A Preliminary Report. Biofeedback Self Regul. 1976 Sep;1(3);293-306. ABSTRACT

Lubar, J.O. & Lubar, J.F. (1984) Electroencephalographic Biofeedback of SMR and Beta for Treatment of Attention Deficit Disorders in a Clinical Setting. Biofeedback Self Regul. 1984 Mar;9(1):1-23. ABSTRACT

Insomnia & Sleep disorders

Hoedlmoser, K. et. al. (2008) Instrumental Conditioning of Human Sensorimotor Rhythm (12–15 Hz) and Its Impact on Sleep as Well as Declarative Learning. Sleep. 2008 October 1;31(10): 1401-1408.

US Military Use of Neurofeedback

http://www.dtic.mil/docs/citations/ADA582852

Migraine & Chronic Pain Syndromes

https://behavioralandbrainfunctions.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1744-9081-6-9?__hstc=173329852.8c1a2092c1d34cb91fb1b4a95b48df35.1473811200301.1473811200303.1473811200304.2&__hssc=173329852.1.1473811200304&__hsfp=1773666937

Neurofeedback therapy in patients with acute and chronic pain syndromes–literature review and own experience

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome & ME

	EEG biofeedback as a treatment for chronic fatigue syndrome: a controlled case report.James LC, Folen RA Behav Med 22 (2): 77-81 (1996)
	Chronic fatigue syndrome: Its response to 14 Hz EEG neurotherapy training.Tansey, M.A. (1994). Presentation at 1994 Society for the Study of Neuronal Regulation, Las Vegas NV.
	A controlled study of the treatment of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) with 13-14 Hz beta band electroencephalograph (EEG) biofeedback.Lowe, F. (1994). Presentation at 1994 Society for the Study of Neuronal Regulation, Las Vegas NV.
	EEG Patterns and Chronic Fatigue SyndromeKatherine M. Billiott, M.A., Thomas H. Budzynski, Ph.D., and Frank Andrasik, Ph.D. Journal of Neurotherapy, 2(2), 1997

 

10 Hz Elevations as the Core of Eyes Open Alpha in ADD, Chronic Fatigue, Depression

by Brown VW, Ph.D.

 

ABSTRACT

This presentation examines the phenomenology of the eyes open alpha demonstrated in a variety of conditions. Case review of 10 clients with mixed clinical presentation will be used to demonstrate that the core constituent of eyes open alpha elevations consists in prominent elevations at 10 Hz regardless of client presenting symptomatology.

 

 

EEG Patterns and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

by Billiot KM M.A., Budzynski TH Ph.D., Andrasik F Ph.D.

 

ABSTRACT

This study examined the relationship between EEG recordings of 28 females with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) and age matched controls of the same gender. CFS subjects’ EEG recordings were also compared to their responses on the Profile of Fatigue Related Symptoms, and two questionnaires developed specifically for this study.

 

 

EEG Biofeedback as a Treatment for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: A Controlled Case Report [abs.]

by James LC and Folen RA

 

ABSTRACT

EEG neurofeedback has been identified as a potential diagnostic and treatment protocol with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) symptoms. In the present case study, the authors applied an EEG neurofeedback biofeedback paradigm as a treatment modality with a CFS patient. Baseline data were acquired using the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised and qualitative and subjective ratings of cognitive improvement. Test results and clinical findings revealed improvements in the patient’s cognitive abilities, functional skill level, and quality of life. The patient showed significant differences in pre- and posttest levels on the Wechsler scale.

 

Fibromyaglia

 

Fibromyalgia

Research Papers

Treatment of Fibromyalgia Incorporating EEG-Driven Stimulation: A Clinical Outcomes Study [abs.]

by Mueller HH, Donaldson CC, Nelson DV, Layman M

 

ABSTRACT

Thirty patients from a private clinical practice who met the 1990 American College of Rheumatology criteria for fibromyalgia syndrome (FS) were followed prospectively through a brainwave-based intervention known as electroencephalograph (EEG)-driven stimulation or EDS. Patients were initially treated with EDS until they reported noticeable improvements in mental clarity, mood, and sleep. Self-reported pain, then, having changed from vaguely diffuse to more specifically localized, was treated with very modest amounts of physically oriented therapies. Pre- to posttreatment and extended follow-up comparisons of psychological and physical functioning indices, specific FS symptom ratings, and EEG activity revealed statistically significant improvements

 

Fibromyalgia treatment of 252 patients with Neurofeedback: http://www.drmueller-healthpsychology.com/f/Donaldson,_Sella,_Mueller,_1998.pdf

 

Neurofeedback Improves Symptoms Of Fibromyalgia In A Randomized, Controlled Study

by Fisher A PHD

 

ABSTRACT

In a recently published article in the journal, Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback, researchers report that neurofeedback, a form of biofeedback, significantly improves symptoms of fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS). The authors devised a well thought out study that included a total of 36 patients who experienced FMS. Patient were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 groups: 18 in a neurofeedback group and 18 in an Escitalopram (i.e., Lexipro) group.

 

 

Neurofeedback Intervention in Fibromyalgia Syndrome; a Randomized, Controlled, Rater Blind Clinical Trial [abs.]

by Kayran S, Dursun E, Dursun N, Ermutlu N, Karamürsel S

 

ABSTRACT

We designed a randomized, rater blind study to assess the efficacy of EEG Biofeedback (Neurofeedback-NFB) in patients with fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS). Eighteen patients received twenty sessions of NFB-sensory motor rhythm (SMR) treatment (NFB group) during 4 weeks, and eighteen patients were given 10 mg per day escitalopram treatment (control group) for 8 weeks.

 

 

 

Chronic Lyme

 

Lyme Disease

Research Papers

EEG Biofeedback in the Treatment of Lyme Disease: A Case Study

by Packard RC M.D. and Ham LP M.A.

 

 

Neurofeedback and Lyme’s Disease: A Clinical Application of the Five Phase Model of CNS Functional Transformation and Integration

by Brown VW Ph.D.

 

 

Sleep is the new status symbol-and for good reason.

Non-restorative sleep, feeling groggy in the morning and needing an alarm or coffee to wake up, is a problem that dramatically affects how you feel and function every day and modern medicine has no good cure.  

Pills have scary side effects and new research is proving that they can even age your brain faster if you don’t deal with the core problem.

Non-Restorative Sleep & Daytime Fatigue Symptoms

• Struggling to get out of bed in the morning
• Needing to use waking up to horrible alarms
• Needing coffee in the morning to feel human
• Feeling groggy and cranky in the morning
• Afternoon energy crash at 4pm, zero energy to finish your workday, or go to the gym.
• Struggles enjoying your day, your work, and your favourite people
• Chronic low energy and fatigue symptoms with all medical tests coming back as ‘normal’
• Belly fat that doesn’t budge and carb cravings
• Low stress tolerance

Brainwave Dysfunction Patterns of Sleep Problems

If you can relate to these things, you are suffering from an imbalance in your brain’s natural daily rhythm and ability to wind down the brain for deep sleep and rest.

The Hyperarousal Effect can explain insomnia by looking at HPA (hypothalamic pituitary adrenal) axis dysfunction from a brain level.

Modern lifestyles involving excess screen time, hectic work schedules + poor diets over years have led to dysregulated brains and nervous systems in huge numbers in western populations.

The hardest part about having sleep issues is that they are ‘invisible’ problems and most people suffer in silence for years.   

It’s something that most doctors can’t help you with except to offer sleeping pills, and you can’t change it with willpower.

But you can take control over back, get energized again and restore healthy sleep so you can spring out of bed in the morning looking forward to your day, and have the mental clarity and energy to do the fun stuff you’ve been missing out on!

They key to understanding chronic insomnia, non restorative sleep and other sleeping issues is that this is not just an ‘at nighttime’ issue, it is a disorder related to a 24-hr hyperarousal or ‘no off switch’ on a brain level that has both daytime and nighttime brain differences involved vs. people who sleep deeply without sleep aids and wake up refreshed.

Healing sleep issues starts by changing some of these key brain and nervous system patterns, like the ones we can see on an EEG brainmap.

 

Higher P3 v.s P4 in alpha. This is another brain marker of chronic insomnia and often seen in people who are light sleepers and have daytime fatigue

 

 

 

 

High Posterior Beta Wave activity. The brain cannot shut down and turn off thoughts for sleep time

 

 

Low Powered Brainmaps. This is a pattern seen often in people who have chronic fatigue and low energy from years of sleeping issues.   The brain can no longer make enough energy to keep up during the day.

Neurofeedback & Neuromeditation For Sleep

In sleep problems, the brain has lost the ability to shift into the correct state for sleep due to chronic stress, environment, food and/or genetic factors.  

Neurofeedback is the quickest evidence based way to help you to restore your natural sleep rhythms without the side effects of sleeping pills (which do not actually restore normal sleep).

It works by training brain control and flexibility and also specific protocols proven to restore normal sleep from chronic insomnia so you can make a smooth transition in the brain and body from activation to rest naturally each evening.   

‘Sleep Reset Training’

The problem with mind body techniques like relaxation and meditation you’ve tried before to help you sleep and failed is that they are too general and self-directed, which often doesn’t work well if you suffer from insomnia and you have brain hyperarousal.  

We use a specific graduated holistic strategy to restore normal sleep at UltraResilience.

Eating For Sleep

If you are eating at the wrong times & eating the wrong combinations of foods it will be much harder to fall asleep before midnight.  

Eating late at night is one of the most common sleep mistakes with food because often we work late and by the time we eat, it’s 8pm or later and this shoots up cortisol before bedtime keeping you wired.

You can increase the brain’s sleep hormones production from a neurochemical level with specific medicinal foods, supplements and herbal combinations that help support the production of GABA the brain calming neurotransmitter as well as specific amino acids such as L- theanine, calming adaptogens and sedative-hypnotic herbs in small amount such as chinese skullcap, passionflora and california poppy.

 

3 Quick Tips to Start Sleeping Better

1. Shut off all screens 3 hrs before bed (and if you must look at a screen, wear good quality blue-blocking glasses, including smart phones, laptops and tvs since the blue light disrupts melatonin increases
2. Wind down your mind before sleep with a breath-focused meditation done sitting up for 10-15 minutes.  A racing mind is the most common cause of not being able to fall asleep normally.
3. Take a total caffeine holiday for 2 weeks-including coffee in the morning as some people are slow metabolisers and combined with a busy mind, even 1-2 cups in the morning can fragment your deep sleep, even though it won’t affect getting to sleep.

 

Neurofeedback and Insomnia Research

There are dozens of studies on neurofeedback to help re-regulate sleep patterns in the brain without drugs.  

• Bell, J. S. (1979). The use of EEG theta biofeedback in the treatment of a patient with sleep-onset insomnia.Biofeedback & Self Regulation, 4(3), 229-236.
• Berner, I., Schabus, M., Wienerroither, T., & Klimesch, W. (2006).The significance of sigma neurofeedback training on sleep spindles and aspects of declarative memory. Applied Psychophysiology & Biofeedback, 31(2), 97-114.
• Feinstein, B., Sterman, M. B., & MacDonald, L. R. (1974). Effects of sensorimotor rhythm training on sleep. Sleep Research, 3, 134.
• Hoedlmoser, K., Pecherstorfer, T., Gruber, E., Anderer, P., Doppelmayr, M., Klimesch, W., & Schabus, M. (2008).  Instrumental conditioning of human sensorimotor rhythm (12-15 Hz) and its impact on sleep as well as declarative learning.  Sleep, 31(10), 1401-1408.
• Mills, G. K., & Solyom, L. (1974). Biofeedback of EEG alpha in the treatment of obsessive ruminations [affecting sleep]: An exploration. Journal of Behaviour Therapy & Experimental Psychiatry, 5, 37-41.

Neurofeedback and Insomnia Research

• https://www.zotero.org/groups/80298/items/collectionKey/9TBDT2WN/itemKey/HNK6VH8I/itemPage/2
• http://www.indianjpsychiatry.org/article.asp?issn=0019-5545;year=2012;volume=54;issue=4;spage=359;epage=366;aulast=Sharma
• http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23574290
• http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22967281
• http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10617175
• http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10617175
• http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23594033
• http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23583625

 

We work longer hours than previous generations, push our brains and bodies harder, all while being exposed to toxic environmental and lifestyle factors that can seriously affect mental and physical performance including:

• Memory
• focus & drive
• Low Energy
• Premature Aging
• Hormone balance & Libido (for both men and women)

Hack Your Brain, Hack Life by Managing Brain Stress

Here’s the thing: we can’t escape stress.  It’s just not a possibility even if you went to live on a remote desert island, there will always be some trigger for stress because ‘stress’ as we feel it is actually in our brain (this is what we can change!) vs. ‘stressors’ are out there in the environment (these we have no or less control over).

When you decrease brain stress, it has huge rewards for:

• Improving Focus
• Improving memory
• Enhancing Motivation
• Working  better under pressure
• Having ALL Day Energy without afternoon crashes

Turning Bad Stress Into Good Stress

It’s all about shifting your spot on the Curve called The Yerkes Dodson Law.  

This was discovered in 1908 and tells us that we need some level of stress to perform at our mental and physical peak, but if the stress (in the brain) becomes too hard to handle, it turns into ‘toxic’ or bad stress and hampers our performance (ie it starts getting into burnout territory).

 

So Bad Stress —  overwhelms the brain and body’s ability to cope, leads to burnout, fatigue, anxiety, sleep disruption and health problems, and inflammation

Vs. Good Stress —  helps you adapt, enhances your resilience, called ‘EUSTRESS’

We can actually shift how much stress we can handle effectively by working on a brain level with how the brain copes and processes stressors, shifting our spot on the curve.  

In other words we want to make more Good Stress to Become Ultra Resilient and to perform at our peak and thrive in modern life.

Unique Issues for Men & Performance

Men are  different from women when it comes to the best supplements, neuronutrition and hacks that support mens health and hormone balance and prevent low testosterone, one of the things that even in mild forms can have a dramatic effect on men’s energy levels, mental focus and clarity, mood, libido and body fat percentage.  

And despite what you may have heard, most men don’t need testosterone pills or shots to boost their levels without the potential dangers and side effects (ie infertility, mood swings etc) of testosterone injections/pills.

Unique issues For Women & Performance

Women’s hormone balance is also affected by stress and feeds back into affecting our mental clarity, emotional balance and stress tolerance levels and for women this balance changes at different times in our menstrual cycle.  (Read more about women’s hormones and stress resilience here).

How to Hack Brain Stress

We used to think we were stuck with the abilities our genes gave us and that the effects of stress are unavoidable, so unless we have time to meditate hours a day or quit corporate life it’s something we have to live with.  

The truth is, with modern brain science and neuronutrition as well as advanced brain neuro supplements that are made in high tech labs but are natural brain boosters, we can overcome flaws in our genes, perform better under high stress and pressure and enhance performance without giving up your city life and fast-paced lifestyle that is the reality for many of us.   

Poor Focus & Concentration Have Specific Brain Signatures

Many people have experienced symptoms such as poor focus/attention, mental fatigue, low drive/motivation, increasingly bad hangovers as they age and inability to function consistently at your peak under pressure.

We can see these issues on brainmaps.

 

 

Low posterior Theta waves: This signature is a common signature seen in ADHD.

 

 

 

 

High Frontal Alpha: High alpha at the front of the head is a a sign of the executive centres / idling and not being active.

 

 

 

Low beta wave activity: Low beta,  especially at the front of the head, is another indicator that the brain is having activating and focusing problems.

 

 

 

 

In addition, High Theta to Beta ratio and high High Delta to Beta ratio are also common poor concentration markers.

Neurofeedback Studies for Enhancing Cognitive Performance Metrics

These above patterns causing poor concentration are all brainwave patterns that can be changed using a combination of targeted brain nootropic supplements (ie ‘stacking’ or ‘brainhacking’, mindbody techniques and food based programs and neurofeedback brainwave training.

Problems with focus and concentration are just a ‘final common pathway’ and some people have different patterns causing these issues that need to be addressed from a brain level, which is now possible to do directly in ‘real time’ with neurofeedback brain training.

Mind-Wandering

Canadian Researchers led by Dr. Tomas Ros wanted to see if neurofeedback would affect mind-wandering–the brain’s irritating tendency to get distracted and decrease focus (Ros et al., 2012).  And it turns out it did—big time.  

After a 30-minute session of alpha-wave training, participants displayed better cognitive discipline compared to a control condition that was given false feedback. After the training those who’d received neurofeedback had enhanced performance on a test of attention. Supporting Research

Improved Memory

Neurofeedback has been proven to enhance memory through multiple effects on the brain’s learning and memory centre such as decreasing cortisol in the hippocampus, the centre for learning and memory and increasing the brains capacity to retain and categorize information and consolidate old and new memories. Supporting Research

Enhanced IQ

Neurofeedback has been proven to increase grade scores and IQ scores and the ability to learn new things faster with better retention. Supporting Research

Enhanced Problem Solving Under Pressure

Ros et al. (2009) gave ophthalmic micro-surgeons eight 20-minute neurofeedback sessions, then tested them against those not given the training. After the neurofeedback training, surgeons were more accurate AND also 26% quicker.  So not only did they get more precise they also were able to do it faster. Supporting Research

Adult symptoms of ADD/ADHD & Concentration

Neurofeedback helps you work better, for longer with more mental clarity and conquer attentional problems & ADHD.  Training can increase a particular brainwave frequency seen in elite athletes, professional speakers and other peak performers’ called the Sensory Motor Rhythm, or SMR or ‘low beta’ and reduces excess ‘high beta’ which is detrimental to concentration and focus.  

Training the brain towards increasing alpha + theta in neuromeditation sessions heals the sympathetic overdrive in the limbic system and hippocampus memory centres for better memory.Supporting Research

Neurofeedback is now recognized as a category A treatment for  ADHD by the AMA (American Medical Association). Dozens of published studies in mainstream medical journals in both Europe and North America on the use of neurofeedback for ADHD have shown impressive results, including long term major academic performance and better grades, improved school and home behaviour and impulse control, anxiety, learning disabilities, reading comprehension, math skills, and social skills that last years after the final session of neurofeedback training.

Neurofeedback works for focus and concentration by adjusting neural networks that control attention processes and then change the way these networks work so that the changes last.  

This is done through a process involving long term potentiation into stable (attractor) states within specific brain networks and areas.

Neurofeedback also creates in the brain an enhanced capacity to regulate ‘state changes’ and gated neural signals between brain attentional control areas, much like the operant learning process of learning to ride a bike only on a more complex level.  

Basically it gives you more control of your mental and physical states over time and ability to ‘self regulate’ and ‘self correct’ after a stressor.

3 Tips to Start Handling Brain Stress Better for Mental Performance

1. Plan your workday in advance and avoid checking email or messenger apps first thing.  Don’t let your email inbox dictate your workflow, as this leads to fragmented focus, increased stress on the brain due to multitasking and prevents ‘deep work.’
2. Build mini-meditation 1 minute breaks into your workday to do a quick ‘brain reset.’ Start with a simple breath-focused meditation and use a watch vibration alert as a reminder, add up how many you do in a workday-aim for 5 or more.
3. Avoid the caffeine-alcohol cycle-ie coffee to perk up in the mid-afternoon followed by a glass of wine to ‘relax’ after work every day disrupts both your deep non REM sleep (caffeine) and decreases your REM dreaming sleep (alcohol) both of which lead to reduced stress tolerance and impaired cognition, problem solving and EQ the next day.  

Want to take your Mental Performance to the Next Level and Feel Great All the Time Not Just after a Vacation?  Book a free call with our experts to see how we can help.

Chronic fatigue, low energy states, adrenal fatigue, CFS and ME are ‘invisible’ problems and in addition to what is often crippling fatigue, brainfog and a variety of body symptoms you have probably also had to deal with the misconceptions of other’s (often your own family members and partners) such as:

• You are just ‘being lazy’
• There is nothing wrong with you, just work on your stress levels
• Why ‘don’t you just go for a run and start exercising’?
• What do you have to feel ‘ overwhelmed about’ anyways–you don’t even work that hard!?
• You have depression, you need to see a psychiatrist/take anti-depressants
• “All the tests results are normal, so there’s nothing we can do”
• Employers and work colleagues often have a hard time understanding why you can’t work the way you used to and can become increasingly unsympathetic leading to a toxic work environment and/or having to go on sick leave or put your job in jeopardy
• Advice from well-meaning friends and family to Just ‘deal with it’ and accept it so you can ‘move on’ and stop obsessing about it

What is Chronic Fatigue?

If you have chronic fatigue and low energy or adrenal fatigue, it makes it almost impossible to live your best life, or even feel like you are living at all and not just ‘surviving’.

Chronic fatigue is different than normal fatigue that healthy people may experience temporarily after a late night out or after running a marathon race.  

In chronic fatigue, the nervous system is not able to rest and restore deeply so people feel sluggish yet on edge, irritable and ‘foggy’ and they are not able to get into the deep state 4 phases of restorative sleep at night, keeping the cycle going again the next day.

These low energy states are actually related to brain patterns and oftentimes a whole ‘brain +body’ energy crisis like a circuit breaker fuse has blown controlling energy and you seem can’t turn it back on now matter how hard you try.  

Often people are told they need to exercise more, but if you have low energy reserves already this can deplete them further and send your cortisol through the roof, causing even MORE mental and physical fatigue.

The good news is that you can heal from these issues and flip the circuit breaker ‘back on’ in the brain and break the chronic fatigue cycle in the brain and body.

At the most extreme end, adrenal fatigue, CFS or ME occur when there is this brain and body ‘energy crisis’ and we can no longer generate enough energy to function normally.   

The whole chronic fatigue spectrum can also overlap with Fibromyalgia and cause severe disability and frustratingly, all medical tests come back is ‘normal’ so there is no conventional medical pill or treatment which is effective, other than trying to ‘spot treat’ each individual symptoms with sleeping pills, painkillers and anti-depressant medications.

The common thread and the key to recovering from these issues and getting your life back is working on the brain central issues as well as the cellular energy crisis issues.  

The initial trigger for chronic fatigue spectrum issues can be viral, often after a tick-illness or tropical viral infection or even a flu like illness.  

For others, it can be the end result of mental and physical exhaustion due to ‘acute chronic stress,’ for example, pushing yourself beyond your limit either mentally or physically while already under a chronic stress burden, as is the case often when you are told you have adrenal fatigue.  

In both of these cases, viral vs. pushing yourself past your limit, it is like a circuit breaker in the nervous system that controls energy and mental clarity gets flipped the wrong way and once it is done it cannot easily be flipped back on by any single one thing, pill or even meditation or mindbody technique.

We can, however flip the central nervous system and energy circuit breaker back on using a combination of brain biofeedback and neuromeditation, which helps directly ‘reset’ the brain patterns in chronic fatigue that lead to persistent brain fog, fatigue, exercise intolerance and an inability to focus as well as a lack of restorative sleep.  

We also use specific food and ‘mitochondria cell fuel’ supplements proven to help restore the ability to generate energy consistently.

Seeing Your Doctor

Most people with chronic fatigue eventually go to see a doctor and often get a diagnosis of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or ME (along with sometimes other diagnoses such as fibromyalgia, insomnia, anxiety or depression).  

However, after getting a diagnosis of CFS/ME it is often the ‘end of the conversation’ except for offering painkillers, sleeping pills and antidepressant medications.

These can all help for some people for treating some of the symptoms temporarily (when they do work at all) but the issue is that when you have ME/CFS the nervous system is in a hyperarousal, ‘tired but wired’ state and the brain is exquisitely sensitive to any medication and most people experience a range of side effects from any medication that they try even at low doses. 

Doctors often put this down to patients being ‘difficult’ and don’t believe them about the side effect severity at small medication doses but this is actually a well-known phenomenon among Integrative Medicine specialists in CFS and is due to an overwhelmed dysregulated nervous system as well as changes in how the body processes and breaks down many drug compounds.

Going to See a Naturopathic Doctor

Usually the next thing people try is going to see a Naturopath, a natural medicine physician.  

This is often more helpful than the drug approaches and usually includes a quite restrictive complicated diet regimen and many supplements to support energy.

Often times people get a ‘quick win’ by adhering strictly to this kind of a program but as time goes on, the results plateau and they hit a wall in their recovery–all while being stuck on a very restrictive diet and taking many expensive supplements indefinitely.   

Despite the diet and supplement approaches, most sufferers find they still are exquisitely sensitive to stressors, both mental and physical as well as environmental factors and toxins and so their life is still quite restricted and the mental and brain symptoms of CFS are not well controlled, like the racing yet brain-foggy mind and feeling tired and unrefreshed when you wake up in the morning, even though physical energy may be better.

Going on a Yoga Retreat

Many people try going to yoga classes and even a yoga retreat to try a mindbody approach and due to yoga’s many reported benefits.  

Modern yoga classes while great physical exercise and stretching, are not similar to the deep traditional yogic systems that took many years of hours a day mental and physical training to master, starting from a young age in India traditionally.  

Going on a yoga retreat or a yoga and food ‘detox’ retreat can often make people feel better (due to removal of all stress and lots of relaxation training) while they are there but the results often do not last longer than 2 weeks once you have returned from your retreat and it is very frustrating to see the progress ‘evaporate’ along with the thousands of dollars spent on the retreat itself!

Doing Meditation

Adding a meditation practice is another strategy that is often tried, because of the very real mental and brain symptoms of adrenal fatigue and CFS.  

The issue with traditional meditation and even MBSR (mindfulness) is that the practice must be done for at least 20-30 minutes each day and it may take up to 6 months to see any significant shifts.   

Many people with CFS have tried meditation but I have yet to see it reverse a chronic fatigue illness and put someone into remission.

Traditional meditation techniques have many mental benefits but it’s not quite the right tool for chronic fatigue, and traditionally these techniques were not intended for this purpose-they were used for spiritual practice and growth.  

In my practice, many of my patients with adrenal fatigue and CFS had been meditating faithfully daily for years and although it helped them with the worry about their health and getting more control over negative thoughts, it failed to help with physical and mental energy or give them more resilience to stress and energy zaps so they were still quite disabled by their condition.  

In CFS, specific mindbody approaches focusing on rebalancing the ‘tired but wired’ nervous system using a step by step system is what we have found to be the most beneficial, combined with neuromeditation, which is direct brain-guided meditation to remove the guesswork and deal with the brain signatures related to chronic fatigue states directly and rewire these brainwave patterns.

Brain Symptoms of Chronic Fatigue

• Brainfog and inability to focus
• Feeling of ‘overwhelm’ and racing thoughts starting from time you wake up
• Wake up feeling unrefreshed and groggy
• Wake up from sleep in the night–fragmented deep sleep
• Lightheadedness
• Crave Caffeine yet when you have it causes palpitations or other ‘overarousal’ brain anxiety symptoms
• Feeling ‘wired but tired’
• Headaches
• Trouble calming down easily before bed and shutting off your thoughts
• Energy crashes in the afternoon where you need sugar, carbs or caffeine to keep going
• Need to sleep and rest for most of the weekend (no longer able to spend energy socializing or exercising or on hobbies) just to conserve enough energy for the next workweek
• Less desire for sex or a lower libido than I used to
• Low ‘brain motivation’ to do things despite really wanting to

Body Symptoms Of Chronic Fatigue

• Energy high and then crash after eating a meal
• Always get sick and colds lasting for weeks longer than for other people and more severe symptoms
• Hair falling out
• Low exercise tolerance, even after mild exertion
• Loss of the ‘feel good’ rush post-exercise (lack of exercise endorphin rush)
• Feel more tired after exercise than before it
• Body aches and pains that move and migrate
• Shoulder girdle and neck pain, stiffness and tension
• Subclinical low thyroid despite TSH test being in ‘normal range’
• Heart palpitations despite heart tests coming back as normal
• Chest tightness feeling and having a hard time taking a deep breath despite heart and lung tests coming back as normal (ie ‘non cardiac’ chest tightness)
• Low blood pressure and risk of feeling faint if you stand up too quickly-happens often and daily

If you identify with any of these brain and body symptoms, you are somewhere on the chronic fatigue spectrum.  

EEG Brain Signatures Of Chronic Fatigue

 

Slowed alpha peak frequency: the brain starts to make ‘sluggish’ alpha waves, the brainwaves that control energy and brain resource allocation and calming of the brain and body

 

 

‘Backwards brain’: Brains who suffer with chronic fatigue ‘do the wrong thing’ and make too much fast waves (Beta waves) in the back of the brain (you should have high FRONT brain beta waves in the frontal lobes!) and too much alpha waves in the frontal lobes (ie too much brain idling in the front of brain that prevents you from being able to focus and gives you brainfog!).  This makes it feel like you are ‘driving with the brakes on,’ and often the harder you try to focus and work, the more brainfog you get–which is extremely frustrating.

 

Low posterior theta: low theta brainwaves at the back of the head indicate an inability of the brain to ‘self restore’.

 

When we see these brain signatures and I explain to someone WHY they feel tired all the time and that they are not crazy and it’s not ‘all in their mind’, and it’s not a personality flaw or something they can ‘just work harder at’, it is often a huge relief, especially since these brain patterns are CHANGEABLE using brain neurofeedback and neuromedtation technology to directly retrain these brain issues.  

Neurofeedback Brain training helps address multiple brain symptoms including symptoms of depression, cognitive deficits, memory and concentration problems, sleep disturbances, and chronic pain such as headaches. It also increases energy levels.

The mechanism of action appears to be that EEG brain training impacts regulation of brain and nervous system arousal and it increases the brain’s ability to self regulate normally again.  

It does this by monitoring brainwave activity, and restoring it to more normal ranges.

Persons suffering from Chronic Fatigue will often see early signs of progress within ten sessions done over a period of 7-10 days such as an increase in energy level, and changes in sleep patterns.  

Doing a minimum of three sessions per week or one session daily seems to get the best results fastest.

Often for more severe or long-standing chronic fatigue, 60+ sessions may be needed to make the gains more permanent but gains are normally seen in the first 10 sessions with increasing improvements over time, especially when combined with specific neuronutrition, lifestyle and mindbody training as part of our protocol used with hundreds of clients with chronic fatigue related issues.

3 Quick Tips to Manage Your Energy when you have Chronic Fatigue

1. Swap morning Coffee for Adaptogens for longer lasting energy without the caffeine crashes: ie Lion’s Mane, Chaga, Cordyceps and Reishi Mushroom tincture in herbal tea of your choice
2. Take 1-minute energy ‘Resilience Resets’ every hour by doing a mini-meditation to give your nervous system a chance to rest and reset so stress doesn’t build throughout the day-use a timer on your watch to remind you.
3. Set Your Boundaries-Chronic Fatigue is ‘invisible’ but it’s very real but it is important to educate your loved ones about where you are at so you don’t get burned out- Practice having firm boundaries with over committing yourself to projects and people if it is outside of your ‘energy envelope’ for the day.  Expect some initial pushback but this gets easier the more you do it!

Want More Help to Heal from Chronic Fatigue for good?  Book a free phone consultation with our experts to see how we can help.

 

Research Links

• Hammond, D. C. (2001). Treatment of chronic fatigue with neurofeedback and self-hypnosis.NeuroRehabilitation, 16, 295-300.
• James, L. C., & Folen, R. A. (1996). EEG biofeedback as a treatment for chronic fatigue syndrome: A controlled case report. Behavioral Medicine, 22(2), 77-81.
• Tansey, M. A. (1993). Neurofeedback and chronic fatigue syndrome: New findings with respect to diagnosis and treatment. CFIDS Chronicle, 9, 30-32.
• EEG sources of CFS: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925492709002406

• NF helps in Fatigue and pain in FMS doing SMR training vs. Cipralex: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10484-010-9135-9
• CFS kindling hyperarousal theory: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3166239/
• https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1yghcR5bq-UbzFlqJSxwdoG5jmXerNO_I
• (Synedrio Neyroepistimon 4 5 2011 (1).pdf)

                  

 

Taking care of your body & mind shouldn’t take hours a day, be confusing and stressful, or require hours of meditation and crazy diets and Modern life isn’t cut out to support and nurture your ‘best’ life-it’s set up to keep you fairly content and distracted.

Over-scheduled, multitasking,  being ‘efficient’ and fitting in more things into a smaller amount of time is the new expectation for ‘normal’ people and as women we are expected to be able to ‘do it all’ and make it look easy.  

But it’s not ‘normal and natural’ for your brain or your hormones.  Our brains and bodies haven’t caught up to the demands of modern life.

When I ask my women clients   What is the biggest barrier to living your best life right now?” these are the exact things they tell me:

• “I Feel constantly tired due to the daily stressful grind of modern life and I don’t have the time/ energy to make a change “
• I feel totally ‘overwhelmed’ some days and starting to feel burned out but I know I just have to keep going
• I feel ‘tired but wired at the same time–it doesn’t make any sense’
• “I have a health issue holding me back that doctors can’t find the cause for (all the tests come back as ‘normal’ )and just say I need to ‘manage my stress but I’m already eating clean and exercising and nothing is changing”
• “I have PMS, period problems, moodiness, bloating & brainfog which prevent me from  feeling like a normal human for at least 1 week each month before my period (especially after stopping the Pill) and I’m starting to worry now about my fertility”

‘Detoxing from Stress’

Finding a way to  ‘detox’ from toxic stress at brain and also body level is the only way to bring balance back.

The problems and symptoms of our generation aren’t solvable by just eating more veggies, popping a pill (or vitamin!) or doing yoga (which is still great for you though!).

The reason these things alone don’t work is that they do not remove the ‘brain stress’ driving many of these issues in modern life and wreaking havoc on our energy levels and hormone balance.  That is why working on things from a brain resilience angle is so key.

Modern Life Stress vs. Cavewoman Stress

Once upon a time your brain and body existed in a natural state of calm most of the time.  Like other animals, we only activated our stress response when we were being chased by a sabertoothed tiger, then were able to flip the switch instantly back to ‘rest and digest’ after the threat had passed.  

But because of the constant brain bombardment by low grade constant stresses of modern life our brains get confused and turn on our ‘fight or flight system’ constantly.   

Mental ‘Tigers’

I call these daily hassles and annoyances and constant distractions by technology ‘mental tigers.’

We are ‘over-connected’ to our devices, instant email and social media apps competing constantly  for our attention. Then there is the need to multitask to keep up at work AND still have a social life.  This is our reality.

So we end up doing everything on warp speed.  We do it often fuelled by ‘fake energy’ from sugar and caffeine which sends ANOTHER signal to your brain that you are in danger and pumps out more stress hormones into our brains and bodies, fuelling the vicious cycle of brain stress = body symptoms.

We have gotten so used to having constant ‘brain stress’ fighting our ‘mental tigers’ that we don’t register it at a conscious level any longer-it’s become the new ‘normal.’

Brain Stress & Low Brain Resilience Markers Cause ‘Crazy’ Symptoms

Brain stress drives problems that show up in your body.  There are low resilience markers that we can see on a brainmap that impact everything from your stress, anxiety and overwhelm level to your actual hormone balance, mood, energy levels and sleep.

We can actually see this now with modern brain scanning MRI and qEEG technology, which we use to brainmap clients and is one of the best tools available to ‘measure and see’ brain stress effects.

So getting rid of THIS ‘root cause’ of symptoms is just as important as the foods you choose or the supplements you take and in the long run it’s even MORE important.   

Your Brain is the master control switch for your hormone systems in the body.  The brain ‘talks’ to your ovaries (for women), your adrenal & thyroid glands and your metabolic (weight control) centres. 

When the brain gets stuck in fight or flight ‘stressed’ brain mode, it sends the wrong messages and your body systems get out of balance.  

That’s when crazy periods, PMS, mood swings, weight gain, sleep problems, overwhelm, and constant fatigue start showing up.

Many women suffer in silence from hormonal imbalances, bad periods, stress and fatigue, pre-period mood swings, skin problems, fatigue and problems losing tummy fat.   As women we intuitively feel they are connected–and they ARE. It has to do with how our brains talk to our ovaries and body hormones.

Hypothalamus Controls Hormones

The hypothalamus is the body’s ‘master hormone control centre’.  It is extremely sensitive to stress, stress hormones, changes in sleep, negative emotions, chemical residues in our food, medications and birth control pills.

We now know that women who suffer with painful, heavy, irregular periods  have differences in specific brain areas such as the prefrontal regions and left ventral posterior thalamus.

That is why working on balancing hormones from both a brain and nervous system AND a diet approach is the only way to heal your hormones for good.

Stress ‘Steals’ Your Progesterone

Chronically high stress hormone levels causes the adrenal glands to ‘steal’ the common building block needed to make your progesterone in order to make more cortisol instead.  

Progesterone is the hormone we really need to balance estrogen. This imbalance causes more PMS, mood swings, acne, irregular cycles and nightmare periods, especially once you come off the birth control pill.  This is called progesterone ‘steal.’

If you set your brain up to be resilient using specific techniques to change the brain and rewire these toxic stress patterns, your brain will start ‘talking’ properly to your body and you won’t have to work so hard to stay well and symptom free  you will be have more freedom with food (re: be able to ‘cheat’ a bit and live a little!) or having to take a handful of pills and supplements indefinitely to stay well.

The Root Causes of  Hormone Balance & Women’s Health Issues

Women’s health related symptoms like low energy, bloating, nightmare periods or pms and anxiety may seem unrelated at the surface and this is part of the problem–western medicine treats them all separately with different pills to control each symptom, but doesn’t dig down to the core issues causing them in the first place.  

The daily low grade background stress from busy modern life combined with toxic environmental factors affects our body hormones and cortisol levels in both our brain and body.  

The brain and body’s stress response system ‘on switch’ can get stuck in the brain, causing dysfunction in the brain centres that control body hormones, energy levels and mood, such as the limbic system and hypothalamus.  

This leads to feeling ‘wired but tired’ like you are driving with the brakes on.  Over time, we actually get USED TO FEELING THIS WAY.. it starts to feel normal.

However, living in this state affects our women’s hormone balance, energy levels, adrenal and thyroid glands and our cycles.  

All of these issues are connected and need to be addressed together to return balance to our hormones and nervous systems.

Estrogen Dominance Specific Nutrition & Supplements

Estrogen dominance is when there is too much estrogen in the body and not enough progesterone to balance it.  

It makes you prone to carb cravings and weight gain and may make it harder to control negative emotions in the second half of your menstrual cycle making you feel bloated, moody and grumpy.  

It also contributes to irregular cycles, anovulation, fibroids and PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome). There is no drug cure for estrogen dominance, but there are ways you can help rebalance your body’s hormones naturally through using specific ‘functional foods,’ a hormone balancing diet and a few key supplements and then dealing with brain stress with specific mindbody practices and brain training.

Specific Brain Resilience Practices To Heal Your Hormones & Nervous System

You can start to put your brain and body into a healing resilient state where the brain centres of stress, fear and worry, are turned off and your hypothalamus can start sending the right messages to your ovaries, thyroid and adrenal glands.

Doing just food or just supplement approaches alone is rarely enough to completely solve the issue, without dealing with the brain stress factors and working on brain resilience to stress and the derailing effect on your hormones.

3 Tips to Get Started Now

1. Start Doing a 1-minute Mindbody meditation practice each hour during the day to interrupt brain stress loops and return the nervous system to a calmer state.  We call these ‘Resilience Resets’. Lowering cortisol levels has a progesterone sparing effect which means less PMS symptoms!
2. Try An Herbal Adaptogen good for women’s hormone balance such as Ashwaghanda-which you can take as a supplement or put the powdered form into a morning and lunchtime smoothie.  
3. Take a Caffeine and Alcohol ‘holiday’ for 4 weeks-these are 2 main disruptors of the stress system and can affect women’s hormone levels too!

Want More Help?  Book a Free Assessment Call with our Experts to Find out about our Full Home Program with Dr. Dani

We all want to wake up happy and energized most days and feel connected to our loved ones and our life’s passions.

But modern life and work places incredible demands on our brains and bodies that can wreak havoc on energy levels, mental clarity, productivity, and happiness.

The ‘just eat healthy and exercise’ and or ‘just work on your stress levels’ approaches alone are not enough, especially if you are already feeling burned out or have symptoms of unchecked chronic stress even at a low level.

Brain Burnout Syndrome

Burnout syndrome or ‘Brain Burnout’ as we call it,  is the end stage of unchecked chronic stress where your brain and body systems can no longer function effectively. From a brain point of view, your brain loses the ability to ‘shift states’ easily, utilize energy, calm down and then activate when you need it to and maintain positive mood balance.  

Brain burnout radically changes the brain’s ability to handle stress and affects everything from our sleep and energy levels to our hormone balance, happiness and motivation.

Symptoms of Brain Burnout

• You can’t Relax Or ‘Switch Off’
• You get non-restorative sleep
• Energy Drain symptoms of mental & physical fatigue
• Need 3 day weekends to recover for next work week
• Trouble focusing & concentrating
• Low mood & motivation
• You feel sluggish & ‘Tired But Wired’
• Need coffee to feel normal in the morning
• Get afternoon energy crashes & brainfog
• Increased cynicism, decreased joy/passion
• Sense of pressure or anxiety for ‘no good reason’
• Increasingly more stress related health symptoms that ‘don’t seem to fit together’

Burnout Brainmap Signatures

The negative effects of chronic stress on the brain and body are real: We can now see them on MRI and functional brain scans and with qEEG brain scanning technology, such as loss of hippocampal (memory) brain cells that are poisoned by high brain cortisol or the main ‘’fight or flight’ stress hormone, and we can also see low brain ‘resilience’ markers.  

Brain ‘burnout’ patterns that we see on EEG brainmaps can include issues like slowed alpha brainwaves, too much alpha on the left (which is related to negative mood

& depression), and too much beta on the right and in the back of head.

This last pattern is related to an inability to shut off thoughts, to worrying and physical symptoms of anxiety and trouble sleeping deeply.

 

 

 

 

 

Burnout Can Cause Multiple Body System Symptoms

Burnout results in problems with mood, memory, physical symptoms of anxiety, apathy, low energy and many health symptoms that seem to be ‘unconnected’ and often have ‘all tests come back normal’ when you see a doctor.

Naturopaths often use the terms ‘adrenal fatigue’ or ‘mitochondrial energy crisis’ which is when a few of the body systems become dysfunctional and shut down due to chronically elevated stress hormones.  

But the problem is not just in the adrenal gland, which is why adrenal support supplements and diet alone rarely solve this issue. Very common with burnout is increased irritation and feeling ‘on edge’ but at the same time having trouble relaxing deeply and resolving mental and physical tension during the day and also when trying to sleep deeply.

Our Brains have not adapted Stressful Modern Life

Our human bodies and brains were designed, through tens of thousands of years of evolution, to respond well to ACUTE stresses, like running for your life away from a sabertoothed tiger.  

The problem is, in modern life, you rarely deal with life and death acute ‘survival’ stress everyday.

Instead you are bombarded with this chronic low-level MENTAL threats and stress–the kind that kind of creeps up on you without you knowing it.  And because this is recent in our biological history we haven’t adapted yet to handle it.

FACT: Daily low grade stress exposure changes our brain and neural pathways, changes our gene expression (called epigenetics) and also changes what proteins and hormones are floating around in our brains and bodies affecting how we feel and think and how well we can balance our mood and energy levels.

Constant  activation of the body’s stress response system creates strain on all the body’s systems, leads to high cortisol (stress hormone) levels in the body and in the brain causing problems like fatigue, brainfog, weight gain around the tummy that is hard to lose, poor memory and concentration and lower motivation and mood.

To completely reprogram stress in the brain we have to change your brain and nervous systems’s stress threshold and response to stress.

We have to decrease body and brain cortisol (stress hormone levels) and rewire neural stress pathways and brain signatures of low resilience and high stress that keeps us feeling  on edge, wired but foggy and fatigued.

Chronic Stress and Cortisol

Cortisol one of the body’s main so-called ‘stress hormones.‘  It is made by an organ in the body called the adrenal glands, that sit on top of your kidneys.  

The jobs of cortisol in the body are:

• Regulate the stress response
• Regulation of blood sugar levels
• Regulation of blood pressure and heart rate
• Helps regulate the Immune System
• Creates Inflammation and a pro-inflammatory state in the brain and body

Cortisol Stress Hormone Natural Cycles

The level of cortisol in the body changes depending the time of day: it is highest in the early morning, around 4am, and lowest in the evenings, when we should be going to sleep.

Increased levels of cortisol beyond it’s normal baseline happens when the body is in a state of chronic stress, even though you often cannot ‘feel’ this stress.

Symptoms of Disrupted Stress Hormone Levels

With chronic stress, our body’s cortisol level is increased above normal for long periods of time, and unlike in acute ‘danger’ situations like escaping a predator, cortisol increases over longer periods of time are actually harmful not helpful and the cortisol levels peak at the wrong time of the day–keeping you ‘wired but tired’ and causing:

• Impaired thinking (cognition) performance
• Fatigue and brainfog
• Decreased ability to learn new things easily
• Decrease memory
• Anxiety symptoms
• Suppressed thyroid function (ie. leading to thyroid disease)
• Blood sugar imbalances
• Decreased bone density (leading to bones breaking easily)
• Decrease in muscle mass & increase in fat in tummy area (i.e. harder to get fit!)
• Lowered immune system function (more colds and flus, slowed wound healing, increase in chronic diseases such as Cancers)
• Increased belly fat (abdominal fat).  Belly fat is worse than fat on other areas of the body for your health and is a major risk factor for heart attacks, heart disease, strokes, and diabetes, just to name a few
• High blood pressure ( risk factor for Heart Disease)

In fact there are many hormones involved in creating chronic stress overload or a high allosteric load within our bodies and brains, cortisol being just one of the key hormones involved, along with leptin, ghrelin, norepinephrine, male and female hormones and many others.  

That is why we have to work on stopping this stress response in the brain where the ‘master hormone’ switch is in the pituitary gland as well as working on a body level to deal with toxins and stress.

Getting Burnout Without ‘Feeling Stressed’

Modern life small daily chronic stressors are way out of the range of what our bodies were designed to deal with. Our brain turns off stress messages over time that it gets from various body organs and hormones so you don’t’ constantly believe you are running away from a sabertoothed tiger and can get through the day.

You may still feel foggy and fatigued but even this becomes ‘normal’ for many people because it has been their state of being for so long.  Your brain is trying to shut off the stress messages to protect you but it this is an example of the brain ‘doing the wrong thing.’

Signs & Symptoms of ‘Brain Burnout’

Chronic stress leading to burnout syndrome happens when the brain and body total stress burden exceeds what it can cope with given its current resources, resulting in lower brain and mental performance, mental and even physical fatigue if the problem gets past a certain point.   

This total stress burden is actually a scientific equation called the Allosteric Load.

Brain burnout  Effect on the Gut Microbiome

Chronic stress leading to burnout can cause changes in our gut lining to become inflamed, the gut to become ‘leaky’ due to tight junctions opening up and letting in things that it shouldn’t and gut microbes to shift from good to bad bacteria.

These  gut changes not only affect digestion but they affect hormone levels and actual BRAIN neurotransmitter levels that control mood, energy levels, anxiety and ability to focus.

That is why healing the gut and the brain gut connection is part of the big picture for burnout syndrome in many people and why so many people can have disrupted digestion as part of burnout.

Neurofeedback for Brain Burnout Recovery

Neurofeedback EEG Brainwave training is a direct ‘real time’ way of learning how to control your brain’s electrical activity and optimize brainwave patterns to change the way the brain handles stress.  

It is the only direct way of rebalancing the brain’s control over mental performance, focus and mood and is a much more direct way of changing the brain vs. pill approaches or traditional meditation alone where the brain has a very long and large learning curve leading to most people giving up after weeks or months.

It allows you to gain ‘conscious’ control over your body processes that are largely ‘unconscious’ without training, such as your cortisol stress response in the body, your sleep and your worry loops in the brain.  

Neurofeedback brainwave training helps restore the balance to the Autonomic Nervous System that becomes disrupted due to high stress loads and toxic cortisol levels over months and years, leading to dysfunctional brainwave patterns and impacting mental performance.

Neuromeditation

We also use a specific anti-burnout form of neurofeedback called neuromeditation in all of our programs, which accesses the brain’s ‘twilight state’ the deep brain state in between sleep and waking that we can harness using eeg brain training ‘neuromeditation’ deep state sessions leading to deep nervous system feelings of restoration, enhanced insight, improved energy levels and decreased sympathetic nervous system activation ie reduced ‘fight of flight’ stress responses.

3 First Steps You can take now to reduce Brain Burnout

1. Start doing a simple breathing-based meditation first thing in the morning and again before bed-start with 5 minutes each session and add a minute every 2-3 days until you reach 20 minutes to reduce brain stress and overwhelm
2. Swap any caffeine after 11am for a herbal adaptogen supplement blend for energy without sleep fragmentation later: A combination of reishi, chaga, cordyceps mushrooms and liquorice root are good ingredients to look for.
3. Shut off all electronic screens by 8pm including TVs, smart phones and laptop since these blue light devices disrupt melatonin sleep hormone cycles and fragment deep sleep later at night.

Want More Help?  Book a free assessment call to see how you can solve your burnout for good.

Selected Studies on Neurofeedback for Stress Response Regulation & Resolving Symptoms Associated with Brain Burnout

 

• Holmes, D. S., Burish, T. G., & Frost, R. O. (1980). Effects of instructions and biofeedback in EEG-alpha production and the effects of EEG-alpha biofeedback training for controlled arousal in a subsequent stressful situation. Journal of Research in Personality, 14(2), 212-223.
• Brody, S., Rau, H., Kohler, F., Schupp, H., Lutzenberger, W., & Birbaumer, N. (1994). Slow cortical potential biofeedback and the startle reflex. Biofeedback & Self-Regulation, 19(1), 1-12.
• Burti, L., & Siciliani, O. (1983). Increase in alpha-rhythm in anxious subjects using biofeedback: A preliminary study. Psichiatria Generale e del Eta Evolutiva, 21(2-4), 79-97.
• Chisholm, R. C., DeGood, D. E., & Hartz, M. A. (1977). Effects of alpha feedback training on occipital EEG, heart rate, and experiential reactivity to a laboratory stressor. Psychophysiology, 14(2), 157-163.
• Egner, T., & Gruzelier, J. H. (2004). The temporal dynamics of electro encephalographic responses to alpha/theta neurofeedback training in healthy subjects. Journal of Neurotherapy, 8(1), 43-57.
• Egner, T., Strawson, E., & Gruzelier, J. H. (2002). EEG sFisher, S. (2007).  Fpo2 and the regulation of fear. NeuroConnections Newsletter, January 2007, 13, 15-17.
• Garrett, B. L., & Silver, M. P. (1976). The use of EMG and alpha biofeedback to relieve test anxiety in college students. Chapter in I. Wickramasekera (Ed.), Biofeedback, Behavior Therapy, and Hypnosis. Chicago: Nelson-Hall.
• Valdez, M. (1988). A program of stress management in a college setting. Psychotherapy in Private Practice, 6(2), 43-54.ignature and phenomenology of alpha/theta neurofeedback training versus mock feedback. Applied Psychophysiology & Biofeedback, 27(4), 261-270.
• Vanathy, S., Sharma, P. S. V. N., & Kumar, K. B. (1998). The efficacy of alpha and theta neurofeedback training in treatment of generalized anxiety disorder. Indian Journal of Clinical Psychology, 25(2), 136-143.
• Jacobs, R.L. (2009). Rhythms of healing: A case study. Journal of Neurotherapy 13(4), 228 – 238.
• Applied Research Using Alpha/Theta Training for Enhancing Creativity and Well-Being
• http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1300/J184v05n01_02?src=recsys