S2 Ep18 Neurofeedback Basics In Plain English

Your brain can know a thought is irrational and still react like danger is real. That gap between insight and automatic stress is where neurofeedback gets interesting. We sit down with Yvonne Burwash, Mind Spa’s Director of Neurofeedback, to explain how neurofeedback retrains brainwave activity by using real time feedback so the brain can build balance and flexibility, often making it easier for talk therapy strategies to finally stick.

We break down what a QEEG brain map is, why we record eyes open and eyes closed, and how that data turns into a practical training plan. You will hear what “turning the volume up or down” on brainwaves actually means, how clinicians compare patterns to a normative database, and why we never treat a map in isolation from the symptoms and goals you bring to the table. We also explain what can show up when the nervous system does not feel safe, including patterns that relate to sleep quality, alertness shifts, and trauma related activation.

Then we get concrete about the brainwaves themselves: delta, theta, alpha, beta, and high beta. We connect each one to real life experiences like fatigue, zoning out, dissociation, calm baseline, low mood, stress, insomnia, and rumination. We also cover asymmetry and coherence, two ways of understanding how different brain regions communicate, plus what a typical neurofeedback schedule looks like, why the first ten sessions matter so much, and how medication can interact with training in ways you should plan for with your prescriber.

If you have ever felt stuck between anxiety and depression, frustrated by side effects, or curious about brain based approaches to mental health, this conversation will give you a clear starting point. Subscribe, share this with someone who loves nervous system tools, and leave a review with the question you want us to tackle next.

The MindSpa Podcast

Thoughtful conversations about mental health, relationships, identity, healing, grounded in clinical expertise and steady human insight.

Hosts

Tina Wilston, M.Ed., Registered Psychotherapist 

Co-Owner, MindSpa Mental Health Centre

LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook

Michelle Massunken, MSW, RSW

Co-Owner, MindSpa Mental Health Centre

LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook

MindSpa Mental Health Centre

Ottawa - Kanata & Gloucester

themindspa.ca

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Transcript

Welcome And Series Kickoff

Tina Wilston 0:02

Welcome back to the latest episode of the Mind Spa podcast. Today is the first in our series on neurofeedback. And today we are speaking with Yvonne Burwash. She is our amazing director of neurofeedback here at Mind Spa. She has her bachelor with a major in psychology and an undergrad in neuroscience. And she has her uh BCN, which means it's an international board certification in neurofeedback. So welcome, Yvonne, to today's episode.

SPEAKER_02 0:34

Thank you. I'm glad to be here.

Tina Wilston 0:36

Yeah, we are gonna be speaking all things neurofeedback. Yeah.

What Neurofeedback Actually Does

SPEAKER_02 0:40

Can't wait.

Tina Wilston 0:40

It's my specialty. I love it. Okay, so the first thing we're gonna talk about is just really broadly speaking, introducing people to what is neurofeedback. So, how would you describe it?

SPEAKER_02 0:55

I would probably describe neurofeedback as a way to retrain brainwave activity. Okay. So it allows us to make changes through the brain's own capabilities. So the brain is kind of doing the work itself, um, so that it can create more flexibility, balance, um, help to improve, reduce symptoms that maybe someone's experiencing. So it's really all that to say it's kind of a way for us to change brainwave activity.

Tina Wilston 1:26

Okay. So for everybody listening, if they're thinking about changing their brainwave activity, why would they want to change their brainwave activity?

SPEAKER_00 1:36

Yeah.

Tina Wilston 1:37

What do they what do people not understand is actually caused by their brainwave activity?

SPEAKER_02 1:44

Yeah. I think there's so many things that come from, I mean, our brains have such great capabilities in what what it does and how it responds to things. So, you know, it's very everything's very automatic. Our behavior is generally very automatic. We act based off of previous experiences, and we might not consciously be aware that, you know, oh, this thing that I'm doing is in accordance or because of the patterns that are in my brain.

SPEAKER_00 2:12

Right.

SPEAKER_02 2:12

So it's one of those things of like, okay, maybe we get really anxious when we go into social situations. Okay. We're going out and we're getting, you know, we're feeling that those nerves, maybe some butterflies, maybe we start sweating a little bit. And that's something that neurofeedback could help with too. Okay. So it would be, you know, maybe there's too much fast wave. Okay. Your brain's running a little too quickly and it's contributing to this anxiety and this nervousness. Okay. Right. Um, so with neurofeedback, it can help us to retrain those waves so that if there's too much fast wave, we can reduce that.

Tina Wilston 2:50

Okay. So it's not about slowing the fast wave down as much as it is of taking the fast brain wave itself and creating less of it. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 3:02

Okay. Yeah. So it has to do with the volume of it. So if you think of like when you're turning the volume on the radio up versus you're turning the volume on the radio down, that's can kind of how we think about brain waves as well. We want to turn, if the fast wave, the volume is turned up, we want to kind of turn it down a little bit, bring it to a more balanced level. And when I say balanced, this is kind of a lot of the work that we do is in comparison to individuals from what we call a normative database. So it's basically we're comparing your brain waves to people who are, you know, same age group, um, you know, same hand in it, like left hand, right hand, individuals who, you know, have no prior diagnoses or are considered to be um, you know, well performing, um not diagnosed with anxiety. No, no priority. Yeah, no prior diagnoses medically or psychologically.

Tina Wilston 3:56

Okay. Yeah. And so we'll get into that a little bit later about how the the Q E E G works. But basically, the way that neurofeedback works is looking at people's brain waves, seeing maybe which brain waves are are the volume is up too high, yeah. Which certain brain waves the volume is down too low. And then neurofeedback can train to bring up what's too low and down what's too high.

SPEAKER_02 4:24

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So we're just trying to create balance, create some flexibility that can help. So in these social situations, as the individual's brain is able to lower that volume in the fast wave, they might notice, oh, you know, I can tolerate this a little bit more. It's not as distressing. Okay. You know, I feel a little bit better about going into these. Maybe it was to an extent of they were avoiding social situations. Okay. And through neurofeedback training, they might get to a point where, oh, I don't avoid it anymore.

Tina Wilston 4:57

Okay. So they're able to, so they're able to change their behavior as well because it feels they feel less anxious in the situation, less feeling the need to like avoid it. It's more manageable. Okay. Amazing.

Talk Therapy Versus Brain Training

Tina Wilston 5:11

And so how would you, if somebody was asking, why would I do why why would I choose neurofeedback over talk therapy? Uh, because actually what I didn't say before is that you also have a master's um in uh counseling psychology. So um you're also a registered psychotherapist qualifying at the moment. So how would you sort of explain either how they're they're different and also how they work together?

SPEAKER_02 5:39

Great question. Um I think there's a couple different ways of like how that works. So a lot of the ways we go about talk therapy is from a very top-down process. Okay. Meaning we're kind of focusing on the thoughts that the individual is having and how that relates to their behavior. So it's understanding, okay, why am I having these thoughts? Where are they coming from? Where when we combine it with neural feedback, and neural feedback could be thought of as more of like a bottom-up approach where we're kind of getting deeper into as you might say, like the root of what's happening. Um, so we're kind of with neural feedback going from okay, we we want to see how we can change these patterns to alleviate some of the experience of these symptoms. So, not so much of how can we understand them, but how can we change it?

SPEAKER_00 6:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 6:35

So that would be a really great example of how they can work well together simultaneously of doing the neurofeedback to kind of target those inner patterns, those um deeply ingrained behaviors and experience of symptoms to change that through training. And then simultaneously, we can talk about okay, where are they coming from? What's what's causing these thoughts to be present? How can we maybe readjust or redefine that narrative? Yeah.

Tina Wilston 7:10

One of the things that I've seen in practice is sometimes when you're doing talk therapy with someone, and maybe you're using a cognitive behavioral therapy model where we're trying to understand how their thoughts and their behaviors and their emotions sort of impact each other and and how they're feeling. That when we try to do something what we call a cognitive restructure, so change the thought pattern, it gets really it's really stubborn. The thought pattern just like on an intellectual level, they'll know I shouldn't think this catastrophic thought. Like we go social anxiety, I go to this party, I say the wrong thing, everybody's gonna hate me. Yeah, I'm never gonna have any friends again. And and from a talk therapy model, we might explore that thought and we might, you know, measure how distressing is it and what's a more balanced thought and all that. And people could do that, and then they'll come up with the more balanced thought, but that automatic, everybody's gonna hate me, I'm gonna lose all my friends, persists. And what I've seen with neurofeedback is if they do neurofeedback training at the same time, because it helps with um like neuroplasticity or flexibility in the mind, is they're actually like, oh, when I use this strategy, I can actually change it now to the more balanced thought. Yeah. Whereas before I felt like there was almost something getting in the way, not letting me change my thoughts.

SPEAKER_02 8:28

Yeah, yeah. It's like you kind of get stuck in the thought, and that's a really good point of like we can like intellect, like logically be like, I understand that like maybe this is an unhelpful thinking pattern. Maybe I'm not gonna lose all my friends if I say they're like, maybe it's not like all or nothing, yeah, but it doesn't change the way I'm feeling, yeah, and that overwhelm and that pressure. Yeah. Um, and that's exactly where neurofeedback can be helpful of giving the individual more capacity to shift that and actually allow that restructuring of the thought to hold. Yeah. Because it's like, oh, I'm not feeling the physical experience of that as much. Right. And it's kind of giving more capacity to organize it.

Tina Wilston 9:18

And something you're speaking about, and another way for people to understand it, is that is our nervous system response, right? Is that when we're anxious, our nervous system kind of goes into fight, flight, freeze mode, and that neurofeedback can actually help bring our baseline calmness of our nervous system, can bring it to a calmer level, right?

SPEAKER_02 9:37

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's actually, as you're saying that, it made me think of something I saw recently of our nervous system doesn't necessarily care about what we're like how we're thinking about it, it cares about safety. Right, right. Right. And it's that same idea of like we can try like that's where we can get stuck in talk therapy or with like a traditional cognitive behavioral approach, is we can think about it and try to rewire it in that way, but we might not be able to have it stick because our body is feeling so dysregulated. Yeah.

Tina Wilston 10:09

Yeah. Yeah. It I always the thing that I always tell people, and and it's it's a very unfortunate reality, but we are wired for survival, not happiness. Yep. And so we have to work so hard. That's why, you know, the pursuit of happiness and why it's actually really hard is because everything in our entire systems are wired first for safety and security. Yeah. And our brain doesn't know the difference between a scary email and a lion. Yeah. Which is kind of crazy if you think about it. But for how long there's been email around is such like a tiny blip in history compared to lions being threats to us. Yeah, absolutely. It'd be nice if we'd learn like a different response to that type of stress. Like our frontal lobe turns fully on into problem solving mode instead of shutting down and going right into like our emotional, our emotions.

SPEAKER_02 10:58

Yeah. Which is such a good point too, because that's where like so many other things come in with like neurofeedback in terms of like there's another process where like our brain, all of our behaviors or how we act are automatic, and they're automatic based on frameworks or experiences that we've had in our past. Right. So throughout our life, we've learned that in these situations, this is the appropriate response. Because often when we're responding in a certain way, we're not going into it consciously thinking, okay, you know, this email is going to like create like a full body reaction. I'm going to, you know, start like the rumination, the thought looping, getting really nervous about it, or you know, catastrophizing thinking, oh my gosh, the world is ending. Right. Right. We don't go into it thinking, you know, that's what's gonna happen, or that's gonna be the response to it. It just happens.

SPEAKER_00 11:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:50

Without our permission. Yeah.

Tina Wilston 11:52

Which can be really annoying. Very annoying and and and oftentimes confusing too. People are often confused. So, like, why is this bothering me so much or why is this stressing me out so much? I think I uh I remember reading once, but I I'm so bad with remembering the details, except that I know that humans believe that their lived experience is so much more conscious than it actually is. It's actually the majority of the decisions that we make are unconscious, and therefore the the behaviors that we engage in. And anybody who's ever been trying to change a habit can testify to the fact that like I was doing, I I was doing the habit I'm trying to break without thinking about it. I was just like, I lit that cigarette up and didn't even like I wasn't thinking, go get your pack of cigarettes, open it. Like it just, it just I'm puffing a habit before I even thought about it.

SPEAKER_02 12:42

Yeah. And you know what? That actually relates really well to the actual process of neurofeedback. Okay. Because you're not consciously thinking about your brain changing.

SPEAKER_00 12:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 12:53

You're not sitting there watching the show or listening to the audio tape, thinking, oh, yeah, I'm I'm actively changing to change my brain. That's actually very counterintuitive to training. It can actually work against you in that way. So it's again, it's one of those things, it's very subconscious. Your brain in those moments when you're doing neurofeedback is doing the work for you, and you are kind of sitting there as an observer.

Mind Spa Step By Step Process

SPEAKER_02 13:23

Okay.

Tina Wilston 13:23

So it's more passive than active. Exactly. So let's back up a second. Yeah. And let's talk about like beginning till end, what the process is like in doing neurofeedback here specifically at MindSpa, because we are gonna get into later about how a lot of different clinics have, and and us actually, we have a lot of different technology and different modalities for doing neurofeedback. But just walk us through what somebody would expect if they reach out to say, you know, tell me more about neurofeedback. I want to see if this is a good fit for me.

SPEAKER_02 13:55

Yeah, like the process that we have at MindSpa. Exactly. Um, okay, so the first step is to do an intake. Okay. Um, oh wait, except there's also a 20-minute consult, right?

Tina Wilston 14:07

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:07

Yeah. So there is the option of some people want to jump into the intake. That's totally fine. If you're confident and you know, you know all the things that you're gonna do. You're doing your research, you know, you've done your research, you know all the things with neurofeedback, and you're confident, like, okay, this is the step I want to take, you can jump right into the intake. No problem. Um for many people though, we're gonna do a 20-minute consult. Okay. So um it's just a brief meeting with either one of the technicians or myself to kind of review, okay, what is neurofeedback? Um, any questions that you like the individual might have as a client about what that looks like and what they can expect from that. Um you talk about price and time commitment and all that stuff.

Tina Wilston 14:49

So they go in eyes wide open before.

SPEAKER_02 14:51

Yeah, we're kind of going through all the things so that there's, you know, no surprises along the way and they kind of know what to expect. And also whether or not neurofeedback is gonna be, you know, the right fit. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:03

Um, with that said, from my experience, there's not many people who couldn't benefit from it or at least make an attempt at trying it. So um that would be like kind of the initial step. Then it would be the intake. Okay. So the intake is about an hour. Um, and it's just about gathering background information, giving me more insight as to what their life has been like, what is their day-to-day like, what are like their habits.

SPEAKER_00 15:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:31

Um, what are their presenting concerns, or what are they coming in with? What are they hoping to see improved or changed? Um, and then we together kind of outlining, okay, these are the goals. This is what we want to focus on with neural feedback. Right. So that's kind of that intake process.

SPEAKER_00 15:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 15:47

We then move into the QEG, which is a quantitative electroencephalography electroencephalography. Okay. Um, so you can also call it just a brain mapping. So this is where, again, it's scheduled for an hour. Um, we are mapping out your brain. We're recording your brainwave activity. Okay. So we do this with your eyes open, eyes closed, at a resting state. So you're not doing you're not doing anything. Yeah. Um, we're just trying to see, you know, like we were talking about earlier, we're mapping out where in your brain there might be volume turned up, volume turned down, trying to see the balance between the different areas of the brain. Um you look a lot at the different hemispheres of the brain. Exactly. Right? Yeah. Yeah. That balance, we we call it sort of like asymmetry and coherence, but we're looking at um how the different areas inter hemispherically, how things are communicating, if there's too much communication, if there's not enough communication between these different areas. Okay.

Tina Wilston 16:48

Yeah. Because you don't want too much and you don't want not enough. You want it nice, yeah. We want some Goldilocks, like right just right. Okay. Yeah. And so so just to help people understand too, when they're coming in for the intake, that can be in person or it can be online, right? Um, and so they can get familiar with the the space if they want to, or for the convenience of their own home if they want to. And you're just trying to gather like information, find out the the background information and what we're looking for in the QEG, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:20

I usually describe it to people when we get into the call of or if they're in person. Um, it's kind of just like a chill interview.

unknown 17:29

Okay.

Tina Wilston 17:30

You have a lot of questions.

SPEAKER_02 17:31

Yeah, it's just a lot of like just question answer. Um, if they maybe don't know the answer to something, that's okay. We can circle back. So just get it allowing me to get to know them a little bit more so that when I go into creating the neurofeedback plan, I have all the information that I need to make the best decision for them specifically.

Tina Wilston 17:53

And and then with the QEEG, when they come in, they're often going to be in a different space, usually, um, because we have more like interview rooms and we have our neurofeedback rooms. So they'll go into one of the neurofeedback rooms. And we're gonna show some images of this as well, but everybody gets to wear like a very fun hat, very snug little like a swim cap. Like a swim cap. Yep. Yeah. And uh and it's got a bunch of different holes in it that allow you to actually. I know that some people get a little bit nervous because it's a syringe, looks kind of like a needle, but it's not.

SPEAKER_02 18:30

It's not, it's just how we insert the gel into each of the holes on the cap.

Tina Wilston 18:36

Right.

SPEAKER_02 18:36

Um and that's really what allows us to make a connection with their brainwave activity. So that gel that we're inserting is acting as like a bridge in a way, yeah or like a conductor. Yeah. So it's allowing that's what's kind of allowing us to make connection with the brainwave activity in the brain. So you get to wear a beautiful hat for about an hour. Um and we record, yeah, with eyes open, eyes closed, and you're kind of why is that important? Why record eyes open, eyes closed? Because the brain is showing up differently depending on you know experiences. Um, it can show us a lot related to sleep.

SPEAKER_00 19:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 19:28

Um, it can show us a lot related to possible like trauma as well. Um, levels of alertness, so um, you know, how awake you're feeling at one moment versus the next. So sometimes what we can see is when we're seeing a lot more um activation in the eyes closed, it can actually tell us, okay, maybe there's some challenges with regulating levels of alertness. Okay. Um, so going from like so if their eyes are closed, they're like falling asleep, which is actually healthy. Yeah, it's showing that like there's a lot of drowsiness occurring. Yeah. And that is also something that can be associated with trauma too, right? You can imagine for someone who's experienced trauma, um, when they close their eyes, that might not be feel safe.

Tina Wilston 20:19

Okay. So you'll actually see them get more activated with their eyes closed. Yeah. And so, and and if I understand correctly, once you're looking at the QEG after the fact, and we're gonna show images of it, because it's really cool. You see pictures of the brain and different colors to see what's too high and what's too low, you can it'll it'll look very different, very often eyes open versus eyes closed. Like the same brain, it'll actually show very different pictures sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 20:46

Sometimes sometimes yeah, I would say it's usually most of the time, it's actually we're kind of looking for them to be somewhat similar. Okay. It's when they're different, and that's I would say where it's important that we're doing an eyes closed, because that's giving us that insight of as to like level, like energy levels, um, sleep, possible sleep disorders, um, trauma, um, emotional regulation. So when we see that big difference between like with the eyes closed compared to the eyes open, that can kind of be a cue of okay, you know, like is there is there something else here as well? Okay.

Tina Wilston 21:22

Yeah. And so now they've done the the QEG, uh a thing, it's a really important thing for people to know, prepared in advance. I know that you prepare each individual coming in, but just anybody listening knows you take that cap off, your hair is an absolute disaster. Shouldn't have plans afterwards unless you can go home and take a shower, right?

SPEAKER_00 21:41

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:42

Or bring a cap. Yeah, your hair is gonna be full of gel.

SPEAKER_00 21:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:45

Um, we do have a towel that we give you to try to get the most of the gel out. Um, but it's gonna be there. It does, however, it comes out very easily in the shower. Just yeah, just in the shower. Um, it's like water soluble, so it's yeah, it's really easy to clean out, but it is there. So I usually suggest them like if you can do it on a day where you don't have anything after or like you don't have to go back to work, yeah, that's ideal.

Tina Wilston 22:11

Ideal.

SPEAKER_02 22:11

Um, is it tiring? No. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I think some people find it can be a little bit straining on the eyes just because you're kind of looking at a focal point. But we're not, at this point, we're not training the brain. So it shouldn't be, aside from the fact that you're sitting there, um, and that could be part of why you're coming to the mind spot. Because sitting for an hour makes you tired. Yeah, sitting there and staring at one spot is objectively tiring. Yeah. Um, but no, there's not, we're not actually training the brain or doing anything that should make it tiring. Okay. Can you tell me about the staring at one spot? Why is that important? Yeah. So when we're recording the brainwave activity, we ask you to look at a focal point that's eye level or below, because the um the cap or the electrodes in the cap can pick up on eye movement activity. Okay. Or also muscle tension is a really big one. So if you're someone who's like clenching your jaw, we are going to be monitoring and having you try different things, whether you give your like massaging your own jaw, um, leaving your jaw kind of like open a little bit so we're not getting that tension with eye movement. We have you looking at that focal point so your eyes aren't moving back and forth or blinking. Okay. Um, of course, when we're recording, I'm like, okay, I don't expect you to sit there and stare at a dot for 10 minutes straight. Right. Because also if you tell people don't blink, they're gonna start blinking. Yeah, yeah, Tina, is that something you do? Um, yeah, it's hard. Yeah. And on it, like I've done it myself, and it it is genuinely like I'm the same way, but I'm the opposite. I close my eyes because it's also important that we're not moving our eyes when our eyes are closed. Having that back and forth. Me too. Yeah. It's really hard not to move your eyes back and forth. So it's just like, well, whoever's running that session, whether it's a technician or if I was to do it, we're gonna give you some reminders.

Tina Wilston 24:07

Okay. Um because you can see it on your end. Exactly. And you can guide, you have different instructions that you can give people to help them.

SPEAKER_02 24:14

Yeah, to help alleviate some of it. Sometimes it's people just have an underlying um level of tension that maybe we cannot get out of the data. Okay. Um, that's something that we are still able to point out to you when we're looking at the maps, though, after the fact. I can show you, okay, see these little spots. They usually, if it's tension, it kind of shows up above the ears a little bit. I can sometimes point out this is, you know, related to the tension that we weren't able to reduce. Okay.

Tina Wilston 24:43

Okay. And so that's done. We leave after that. And then what's your process? Now, what do you do? You've got the reading from the brain, you've got the interview, the answer to the interview questions. What's your next step?

SPEAKER_02 24:58

So, next it takes about two weeks. So that's usually the standard we tell people is like two weeks between your mapping and when we're gonna go through it. But during that time we're editing the data, okay. What that looks like is we are combing through both the eyes open and eyes closed, and we are selecting pieces of data that we call sort of like clean, meaning there's no, you know, no muscle tension, no blinking, no eye movement. Sometimes we get like air bubbles in the electrodes. Okay. Um, making sure we're taking like not taking that either, so that the data we are using is good, like consistent, reliable data. So you manually manually do it. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Cause we want to make sure that the maps that we're producing are accurate.

SPEAKER_00 25:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 25:45

Yeah. And then we know if there is an underlying tension that just simply cannot be removed. We know that that's there and we can point it out. Okay. Yeah. So we're going through manually editing the data, and then from there we put together a report. Okay. So we're putting taking the images from the data analysis, and we are putting it in a report that I go through with the client. Okay. Um, where I can explain to them, you know, okay, this is where the volumes turned up, turned down, and that's where any recommendations for neurofeedback are going to come into play. Uh because you put together a treatment plan in the remote. Exactly. Okay. Yeah. And that's where there's so many things that go into that in terms of like, okay, I take the interview, like the questions from the intake and the information that was given. Um, I take the brain map itself, and then I also take the research. So I'm kind of tapping into each of those different aspects to figure out, okay, based on all of this information, what's gonna be the most effective, efficient for this individual. Right.

Tina Wilston 26:55

Now, one of the things that when we we uh had the joy of getting to go to Chicago for that conference, um, one of the things that they talked about there was the importance of uh looking at the the map, looking at the brain map, and looking at what symptoms people want to actually work on, um, and making sure that the treatment actually focused on the parts of the brain and the symptoms that lined up because sometimes you can see something in the mapping that looks a little suspect, looks a little bit uh problematic, let's say something's too high, something's too low. Yeah, but they actually have no symptoms associated with that, and we don't necessarily want to treat it then if it's not a presenting concern, right?

SPEAKER_02 27:43

Yeah, it's not necessarily part of their goals and what they're looking to improve on, then it's probably and I'll explain that to them of like, okay, the reason, like this is kind of why we're doing or why I've recommended this type of neurofeedback. And you said this was your goal. This is your like this is your main goal. Um, and yes, I see that we are noticing some patterns over in this area, but that doesn't really relate to what we want to focus on. Right. Um that's not associated with our main goal. Um, maybe down the line, if there's something in there, like as we were going through it and understanding what that means, you were like, oh, maybe that it could be something. We can for sure come back to it. Yeah. Um, that's totally that's that's absolutely okay. Um, but right now we kind of want to focus on your main goal, and that's why we're gonna go over here instead.

Tina Wilston 28:36

Have you ever had it where someone does uh an intake, they choose their goals. Um, then you look at the cue and you give that the and the or the brain mapping. So Q, Q E G, brain mapping, sorry, those are all the same thing. Yeah. Um, when you're looking at the results of that and you tell them, you know, with what we see here, you are likely experiencing these symptoms. And those symptoms weren't things that they talked about in the intake. Have they ever said, Oh, I never really thought about that as like a problem, but now that you say that you see it in my map, that is a problem. Is that something I can actually fix?

SPEAKER_02 29:14

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. That's happened where they're like, Can I change my goal? And I'm like, 100%. Okay. 100% at this point in the game, yeah, we can change it, we can make adjustments. Um, there's no problem with that. Same thing with like sometimes there's certain patterns that we might see where it's a very foundational part to how our brain functions. Okay. Uh, for example, having like a high background alpha, which has it's very important for like processing and information integration and the brain like regulation itself. Yeah. So we want to have a good background alpha. Um, so sometimes when I see that maybe some of the symptoms are experiencing, yes, they associate with other patterns and that might have been the focus, but we might want to actually start there because it's gonna create more balance within the brain first. So sometimes it's more important to stabilize or balance the brain before we get into specific targeted areas. Okay. And I'll explain that to them. And at the end of the day, you know, it's the it's their choice. Like if they want to focus somewhere else, that's okay. Yeah. Um, but I'll kind of give them information of like we may want to focus here first. Right.

Tina Wilston 30:24

Because of X What's And that's where the research search piece comes in. Yeah. So you said two, the you said something I'd love to, we're gonna go back to it in two seconds about alpha. You were talking about alpha. So I think we should talk about the different brain waves so people if we decide to reference them again, people understand what they mean.

SPEAKER_02 30:40

So there are so many. Um, so the ones that we focus on at the blind spot are delta, theta, alpha, beta, and high beta. Okay. Okay.

Brainwaves Explained From Delta Up

SPEAKER_02 30:54

Um, we always kind of go from slow wave to fast wave in like how I'm or at least for me, like in how I'm explaining them. So delta would be our slowest wave. Okay. So our brain kind of functions in speed, so frequency of like how fast or slow it's working. Um, it's never only slow, it's never only fast. It's always a little bit of each wave, but depending on what we're doing, one of the waves could be more dominant. Okay. Right?

Tina Wilston 31:23

So they're all there all the time. But we can have, yeah. And in in certain states of mind, we would have one of them being having one more dominant than the others.

SPEAKER_02 31:32

Okay. So for example, delta wave, it's our slowest wave. Um, that would indicate, um, I don't know how in depth we want to get with this, but in a one-second period, we might have half of a wave to three full waves within one second. So they're very drawn-out waves. It's very slow, right? It's gonna look a little bit more close to the line, these waves, versus we go up to theta, it's gonna be a little bit quicker. We're gonna see a little bit more of those waves within. We'll provide an image so people can kind of see what they've done. We got images so you can you can see an illustration, it'll make probably a lot more sense. But yeah, with Delta, as an adult, for example, we really only produce Delta as a dominant wave during sleep, during deep sleep. Yeah, that is. So Delta is really important for um consolidation. I don't know if there's another word we want to use, like consolidation of learning overnight. So, how our brain is able to absorb and um retain information that we've learned. So that's why sleep is really important for um, you know, learning, yeah, for for for kids, for adolescents, for you know anyone who's in school, sleep is really important. Yeah. Uh, because it's when your brain is kind of taking all the information that you've learned that day and really absorbing it. Um, it's really important for like memory, maintaining good memory. Um, it's also very important for with like dementias, okay, right? Because if we're not getting good sleep, we might be at higher risk for certain types of dementia.

Tina Wilston 33:13

Okay. You said something though before. Um Delta, we only produce it um asleep as adults. Yeah. Tell me about that.

SPEAKER_02 33:23

So when you're first, we're gonna go way back when you're first born, yeah. So that's pretty much all you're like. I mean, they're sleeping most of the time, right? Infants. So their their brain is really only producing slow wave, like at all times. Okay. Right? And then as like a child, like they get very fast.

SPEAKER_00 33:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 33:45

Yeah. Um, their brains are like sponges, right? They're constantly, you know, absorbing. Um as they get older, they start to produce more fast wave activity. So it's not only slow wave. Okay. Right? So, and then I I believe it's as we're getting to early adolescence around 12-13, is where it's kind of like that's almost like our not cutoff point, but that's where it starts to produce similar to what an adult would be. Okay. Of like Delta mainly only being during sleep.

SPEAKER_00 34:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 34:19

Yeah. Yeah. Um, so that would be where that comes from. And yeah, so Delta's mainly, I would say it's primarily focused on like sleep, memory, uh, learning. Okay.

Tina Wilston 34:30

Those types of things. But sometimes you will then somebody will come in and they are overproducing delta during their waking hours. Is that right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that can happen. Yeah. And then what will that what what would they feel? What would they notice? What would be the symptom that they'd be describing to you?

SPEAKER_02 34:48

Well, it could be difficulty with learning. Okay. Um, or memory, depending on where it is in the brain, it can mean some different things. But, you know, I would say a big part could be a sleep issue. So maybe they're not getting good quality of sleep. Okay. Maybe they have some form of like sleep disorder.

SPEAKER_00 35:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:08

Um, but bottom line is like there's something with sleep that could be off. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Something with energy and fatigue. Memory. Yeah. Fatigue.

Tina Wilston 35:19

Yeah. Possible sleep. So you might recommend to speak to their doctor. Yeah. Because I could see sleep apnea potentially showing up that way.

SPEAKER_02 35:28

Yeah. Sleep apnea is actually one that can show up when the eyes closed is more um, is showing more levels of um too much or too little, like the volume. Okay. Then the eyes open. That's where sleep apnea is one that can come up with that.

SPEAKER_00 35:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 35:44

Yeah. So what's the next one? Or did you say everything you wanted to about Delta? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, we're good. Um, the next one is Theta. Yeah. So faster. This is a little bit faster. It's still considered a slow wave. Um, this is kind of, you can think of it as like the bridging between being awake and asleep. Okay. So it's kind of like that twilighty zone, like maybe like daydreaming. A really great example that I've always used is if you drive, you may know, but when you're driving and you almost kind of like zone out. Yeah. You go into a different world and you get to your destination, you're like, Did I stop at the stoplight? Yeah, you're like, you're like, what just happened that whole drive? I just like arrived at my destination and I don't, I don't really remember much of it. Um, that can be when your brain is more in theta. So zoning and that, and that can be, you know, with ADHD. Okay. Um, that's sort of like zoning out or like dissociation, um, difficulty with attention focus. Okay. That can be when there's too much theta. Okay. So theta is it's very, it is very important for like intuition, creativity, um, with just like that like deeper level of relaxation. Um, but again, same with any of the other waves, when the volume is turned up too high or too low, that's where it can contribute to some of the unwanted symptoms.

Tina Wilston 37:11

And if I understand correctly, like a good meditation session ideally gets you into theta and is why that is beneficial to the brain because it allow it a lot of people describe it as feeling more connected with themselves. Yeah. And when you said that your intuition sort of comes from that theta state, if you're not ever in a theta state, you might actually feel really disconnected from yourself, right?

SPEAKER_02 37:37

Yeah.

Tina Wilston 37:37

Yeah. So that's where like dissociation and different things can occur, right? And well, and and if you see that and you and it seems to present or or maybe they're describing dissociation, would we always assume trauma or and or ADHD? Or can people have dissociation, a tendency towards dissociating that has nothing to do with trauma and nothing to do with that?

SPEAKER_02 38:03

I think so. Um, I think especially now given how prominent technology is, yeah. I think more and more people are presenting with symptoms related to dissociation, right? Like I'm just gonna scroll, I'm I'm a doom scroll and I'm gonna be on my phone for hours, and then you're suddenly like, oh, three hours just went by and I didn't realize like you were fully dissociated, just kind of in on on like um autopilot.

Tina Wilston 38:29

Okay, so for anyone who's experienced, which I think would maybe be most people listening right now, have had that time of like, I meant to just check my socials real quick, and then an hour passed on reels, and I was like, where the heck did the time go? That they were likely in a theta state during that.

SPEAKER_02 38:46

Yeah, because it can be stress-related too, right? Like it doesn't have to be trauma or ADHD where it's like I've had a really hard, long, stressful day. Yeah, and I don't want to think about it, I don't want to feel anything, I don't want to think about anything. So you're just scrolling. Um, and that's where like I think there's a distinction of the different levels, like dissociation is on a continuum, not like there can be dissociation when it comes to certain diagnoses, like um dissociative identity disorder. And then there can also be dissociation just on like a you know, feeling fuzzy, feeling disconnected, kind of zoning out. Okay, it's like a spectrum. Yeah. Yeah.

Tina Wilston 39:24

Dissociation. Yeah. Okay. And so um tell us a little bit more though, of like if you're seeing excess theta, there's a specific spot. And I don't know, because I um I don't know if we can talk about this now about how ADHD shows up actually in two very different ways in in QG brain maps. But what I do know is theta plays a big role in one of the ways it shows up, but in a very specific spot of the brain, right?

SPEAKER_02 39:49

I feel like we'll be here forever. Yeah. I feel like that could be like its own part of the episode of just getting into ADHD and how that presents. Okay, so maybe we'll save that for later. Yeah, we'll get your mark that. We'll like put it in the bookmark for the next good point. Because we need to move to the next yeah, from theta, it is Alpha. Alpha, alpha. So Alpha, from my experience, what I've heard, um, learned, and even experienced, alpha is often thought of or considered one of our most, if not our most important wave. Oh. Because it is our relaxation, peacefulness, calmness wave. Okay. Right.

Tina Wilston 40:29

So we're talking about that nervous system, like baseline, whether or not it feels like your baseline is in a good place or not, alpha plays a big role in that. Exactly. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 40:39

So at a resting state, and especially when we close our eyes, alpha should be the most dominant wave. Ah. For everyone. For everyone.

unknown 40:49

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 40:50

Yeah. So alpha is very important for how we are at our resting state. Our, you know, relaxed, are we feeling safe? Are we feeling calm? It is very important for that. Again, like any of the waves, if there's too, we don't want too much alpha, we don't want not enough alpha. Yeah. That can have its own implications. Usually when it comes to alpha, that often relates to a lot of like mood dysregulation or mood um disorders. Okay. So it could be symptoms related to depression. So what do you see?

Tina Wilston 41:20

Would that be not enough alpha in depression?

SPEAKER_02 41:23

Um, too much. Too much. Yeah. Too much alpha can relate to depression. Okay. Um, but it can also go the opposite way of anxiety as well. Uh-huh. It could be both. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Not enough alpha. Um, again, this is often dependent, like where we're seeing it in the brain. Right. Um, if we were to say at the back of the brain, not enough alpha can often relate to trauma.

SPEAKER_00 41:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 41:48

Because there's a lot of visual processing and um emotional processing that occurs in the back of the brain. So not enough alpha, which is our relaxation, calm, safe wave. Yeah. Um, having not enough of it can relate to trauma.

Tina Wilston 42:02

And can you, I I think there's a really important thing about alpha right at the um yeah. It's called the parietal. We can talk about that later.

SPEAKER_02 42:11

But sort of like kind of what I was saying earlier, like the background, the background alpha rhythm. That's exactly what that is. So we want to have a dominant, like alpha should be highest in the back, back of the brain.

SPEAKER_00 42:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 42:23

Yeah. In that like occipital parietal area.

SPEAKER_00 42:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 42:27

Um, so we call it posterior dominant alpha rhythm.

SPEAKER_00 42:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 42:31

So we want alpha to be the highest um most dominant in the back of the brain. Without being too high. Yeah. Yeah. There's like a specific range we want it in. It's it gets into the nitty-gritty details of it, but there's sort of a range that we're looking for. Um, but it is important that we have that because that's going to, again, it might relate to trauma, it might relate to processing, um, information integration, how we're able to regulate.

Tina Wilston 42:58

And this is where if you hear the symptom and that intake uh meeting that you do, and they talk about some traumatic events in their life, and they talk about um their mood, and then you see that uh uh reflected in the QEG mapping, it lines up perfectly. You're like, that is an area we'll definitely want to target.

SPEAKER_02 43:19

Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. And that's a very important area because a lot of um brain stabilization comes from from there. So it's often maybe if that's present somewhere where we would want to start. We kind of think of it as the hub, right?

Tina Wilston 43:32

That's the the way we kind of think about it. It's kind of the central hub of the brain, is sort of it's a good way to think of it. Yeah. And so um next, what's what's after alpha?

SPEAKER_02 43:43

After alpha, we have beta. So now we're getting into fast wave activity. So beta important for um more active attention focus. Right now, we're probably using a little bit more beta because we're actively talking and thinking and engaging. So we're probably neither one of us slip into high beta or theta. Or yeah, either one. We just start zoning out and we have probably more beta. So we're Actively engaged. Okay. Um, again, too much that can start to go towards more of like symptoms of anxiety. Um, depending on where it is in the brain as well, it can go towards like insomnia.

SPEAKER_00 44:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 44:24

So someone who maybe like lots of thought looping or uh racing thoughts can't fall asleep. Um that can sometimes be what we we note there. Generally, too much beta too can be connected to like a general sense of like overwhelm, um stress.

Tina Wilston 44:41

Okay. Yeah. And so we want we want beta because we want to be able to engage, but if we are creating it in excess, then we could feel feelings of like agitation.

SPEAKER_02 44:55

Yeah. And that actually goes the same for high beta as well, which is the next one. Okay. They kind of tie in together quite a bit.

SPEAKER_00 45:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:02

So um I would say the main difference is high beta as like a standalone, like just as we're producing it, let's say like regularly, um, it's going to be more like, okay, stress, as maybe's been talked about in previous podcasts, isn't always a bad thing. Some level of stress can be a positive thing. Um, and that's where high beta comes in. So when we are experiencing stress, that is normal for high beta to be more dominant.

SPEAKER_00 45:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 45:28

Um, it's when in And we want our bodies to be able to like get into high beta because it's very important for our survival. Yeah. And like higher order processing. Like if you're working on a really difficult like math problem, yeah, we're probably gonna need a little bit more fast brain wave. Fast brain wave. Okay. Yeah. We need a little bit more of that like effortful focus. Okay. Yeah. But when we produce too much beta or high beta, generally it's a similar meaning. Okay.

Tina Wilston 45:58

And so uh an and another thing, just I guess for people to understand, although we can't get into all the intricacies of it, but what's nice about the brain map is it not only tells us what we're overproducing and or what the volume is turned up too high or too low, but where in the brain it is too high or too low. Because we can have a certain brain wave happening too high in the left hemisphere and too low in the right hemisphere, which creates also a pretty significant imbalance.

SPEAKER_02 46:27

Yeah. And that can have implications too, right? Depending like which one is increased and which one's decreased, um, it can relate to like certain symptoms or experiences versus if it's the opposite, it could mean a very different thing. Yeah. So it's um noticing what that looks like.

Tina Wilston 46:44

Can you get a little bit deeper into the weeds a little bit about that the looking at the communication between the two hemispheres of the brain? Because that's another thing that in the report and in the QEG brain map that we address with people. Right. So what what are you looking at there? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:00

So there's two different ways that we're kind of looking at the um

Asymmetry And Coherence Made Simple

SPEAKER_02 47:04

intercommunication. So one is asymmetry, which is looking at um like quantity. Is there too much or too little communication between the different areas? And when I say different areas, I mean like on the cap, each one of the electrodes or holes on the cap. We're looking at every single possible connection between every single Okay, that's a lot of permutations. Yeah, yeah. It's like you could have one electrode connecting to multiple different other electrodes, showing that there's either excessive activity, like there's too much connection between the two, or there's not enough.

SPEAKER_00 47:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 47:41

So the idea is like when we're looking at the maps, when you see no lines, no blue lines, no red lines. That's a good thing. That's a good thing. Okay. So red lines would be like there's too much connection between them. Okay. Versus blue lines is there's not enough.

Tina Wilston 47:54

What symptoms tend to be described with is it is it easy to do that, or it really depends on which it really depends on which and where and which also like which wave.

SPEAKER_00 48:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 48:06

Um, a very classic one when it comes to asymmetry though is with alpha. Again, alpha is one that like it it comes up so often, but when we see asymmetry in alpha, often coming from the prefrontal, so like the forehead area, yeah. Um, that often signals to either anxiety or depression. Okay. Yeah. And it again, I want to actually clarify this is not diagnostic. Oh, right. Yes. Let's be very clear about this. This is can't diagnose. Yeah, it's not diagnostic. So that when I say anxiety, depression, I don't mean, okay, diagnostically, that's what it means. It would be symptoms connected to that. So low mood, low motivation, low energy, or you know, hypervigilance, irritability, um, you know, stress, over feeling overwhelmed.

SPEAKER_00 48:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:55

So that type of distinction is something that we might see. Um, there's other ones too where it could be attentional, depending on whether we like where we see asymmetry. So um, yeah. Okay. And then you said there's two. So there's asymmetry. So the other one is coherence.

SPEAKER_00 49:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 49:12

Um, so they're kind of so coherence, we're looking at, I think more of like the quality of the communication.

SPEAKER_00 49:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 49:20

So we're looking at how similar are the signals from the different sites. Okay. So same idea. We're looking, and when I say sites, I'm referring to one of those holes, electrodes on the cap. On the cap. Okay. Yeah. So we're looking at how similar are the connections between the different areas.

SPEAKER_00 49:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 49:38

Are they what we would call hypercoherent? They are too similar, doing too much of the same thing. Okay. Or are they hypocoherent? They're not similar enough. They're not doing the same thing. Okay. So again, it's it's kind of like this Goldilocks situation of like we always want to be somewhere in the we want, yeah, we want to just write, like just in the middle. So this one as well is red lines and blue lines. And the idea when we're looking at the maps is like no lines. Okay. Um, that's kind of like the ideal for lack of better words. But um a nice way I kind of like to think of coherence is with like the game of telephone.

SPEAKER_00 50:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 50:14

So um most I I feel most people probably know how play game is, yeah. But hypercoherence would be starting and ending with identical messaging.

SPEAKER_00 50:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 50:26

You know, there's every single word is exact. It's perfect, it's everything's the same. Hypocoherence, blue line would be starting and ending, they're nothing alike. Okay. Okay. There's, you know, the message, it's broken up jumbles. Yeah, it's all jumbled. There's different words in there that shouldn't be there. That type of idea. Okay. Um, so co like what we would be looking for is we're not looking for it to be identical, to be, let's say, perfect, but we're not looking for it to be a jumbled mess either. We just want one or two words. Yeah, we want we want some some level of uh coherence there. So that's kind of a nice way I like to think about it because I find it really makes it more concrete. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So we're kind of looking to see some level of similar similarity. The other way we can see it too is like when you look at the raw EEG. So that would be like when we're recording your brain, like on that initial session.

Tina Wilston 51:26

And basically, if you're looking at just a squiggly line, maybe we can show a picture of what raw EEG works like. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:31

We're just looking at the squiggly lines. Hypercoherence would look like the lines look identical. Okay, they genuinely, like they look like just repeating the exact same thing. Yeah. So that would be like hypercoherence.

Tina Wilston 51:43

Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:43

Hypocoherence would be like not.

Tina Wilston 51:46

They look completely different. Yeah. Okay. And ideally, we want them to look relatively the same with a few little differences here and there. Yeah. Okay. Some level of coherence. Yeah. And so we and you'll go over all of this with people and their results. You'll let them know what they're overproducing, underproducing, where, you'll show them the images of their uh brain mapping.

SPEAKER_02 52:08

Yeah. This is all in the report. And I always like let them know before handy, like they do get a copy of the report after the fact. Um, because it is a lot of information. Yeah. It is a lot to absorb in in within an hour. Yeah.

Tina Wilston 52:22

Well, especially if they haven't listened to this episode and know all this stuff already. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. It can it can be a lot to to look at. Yeah. And so, okay, so you're doing the the feedback, you're letting them know what's going on. And then at this point, you've already done the research and done your due diligence to figure out a treatment plan for them, which usually what we call them protocols. Um, so we'll be choosing certain uh brain waves to focus on and certain areas the brain to focus on. You collaboratively make sure you let them know this is why they get a chance to say, yes, that sounds like a good idea, or potentially say, actually, that's not the symptom that's the most disturbing to me. It's this other symptom. And then you can kind of rework it from there. So once we've like come to a decision, this is the treatment plan. Um, tell us a little bit about what goes what is already universal to most treatment plans, because there's a certain number of sessions and frequency that's kind of universal to everybody, right?

SPEAKER_02 53:20

Yeah. Yeah. So more generally, and and this is actually something that I'll say in that initial consult or in the intake of on average, it is to

Sessions Needed And Ideal Frequency

SPEAKER_02 53:30

be expected you're doing between 20 and 40 sessions. Some people do more, um, most people don't do less. Okay. Um, but yeah, 20 to 40 sessions is kind of what's to be expected. And that's focusing on one protocol. Oh, right. So if they were to do a different one, that's an additional, right? Because the brain takes time just as it's taken your whole life or you know, as long as it to up till that point to get to where it is. And these patterns are ingrained, right? Yeah. And as like the brain is plastic, it has the ability to adapt and change, but it takes time. Yeah. You know, it's like going to the gym. You don't, you know, if that's a something that's important to you and you want to change your lifestyle and um feel healthier. Feel healthier and stronger, stronger, all those things. Um, you don't go once and then that's, you know, it's not a quick fix. Okay. And it's the same idea as with neurofeedback. It's not a one session type of idea. You know, generally we're looking at a chunk of session. So 20 to 40 is the range that I give everybody at that initial um consultation or intake session. Um and it really is important. I always say I'm like repetition and consistency.

SPEAKER_00 54:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:46

So you it's expected at minimum one session a week. Okay. Yeah. So if you, if you were like, oh, I would like if you're listening and you want to do it, amazing. I love that. Um, if you have a trip because we're coming into summer, yeah, you know, you may not want to get started. Get started if you're gonna be gone for two, three weeks. Yeah. Right? Because that's going to interrupt those initial sessions, and that is the most critical. The t initial 10 sessions is the most critical period where we really rely and need that consistency and repetition of sessions.

Tina Wilston 55:22

And you said most people start with one, or sorry, you have to start with at least one. Yeah, but the most common is Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 55:28

So our most common type of neurofeedback um is generally I like best case scenario, two sessions a week. Okay. For those first ten at and that's like at a minimum. Yeah. Yeah. Um, obviously, there's flexibility that we can work with. And for someone, they're sick. Yeah, if they're sick, they need to cancel one and they only end up doing one. That's that's okay. Um, or if it's someone who they really want to try their feedback, but they can only commit to once a week. Okay, that's not, it's not the end of the world. Like we can work with that. But I premise with you might not notice results as quickly. Right. It might like the timeline could be extended. Yeah. Right. Because the idea is we're having a little bit more of like a mass practice in the beginning so that your brain is getting that repetition and learning.

Tina Wilston 56:16

Right. Because 10 sessions in five weeks versus 10 sessions in 10 weeks. So they'd expect it to be potentially slower. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 56:24

So it could be that like they m if they're doing um, they're starting off with one timeline in like increased and potentially depending on the person, again, like I can't guarantee like everybody's different, but it could also mean that like um additional few sessions. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Tina Wilston 56:42

And so uh so we set the the treatment protocol, we let them know how frequently they're gonna come in. Um, now they're in. What's happening? They show up, they're in our waiting room, they're waiting for their first neuro session. What happens? Walk us from there. Yeah, okay. There's different options. Okay. Right. But we'll go with traditional because we're gonna go through at some point like all of our neurofeedback options. So let's just do like a traditional traditional type of neuro.

SPEAKER_02 57:13

So you come in. Um, with traditional, what

What Training Feels Like In Room

SPEAKER_02 57:18

happens is you're gonna one of the technicians are gonna lead you to one of the tech offices and they're gonna walk you through what's to be expected. Okay. So there and like answer any of your questions that you might have of like, okay, what does this entail? Um, I think a big question that does come up for a lot of people is like, am I gonna feel it? Right. Um Are you zapping my brain? And the answer is no, you're not gonna, you're not gonna feel anything. No sensations. Exactly. So with traditional neurofeedback, the idea is we are placing electrodes on the scalp for where we want to either increase or decrease that volume. So back to that volume with the brain waves. If there was, let's say the volumes turned up on that fast wave activity, there's too much of that beta. Okay, maybe that's contributing to some symptoms of anxiety. And our goal with the training is to turn it down.

SPEAKER_00 58:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 58:06

So we're gonna place an electrode on the area of the brain, uh, or like on the scalp where it is turned up. So let's say it's frontally. We're gonna put an electrode up here. Okay. Um the they're gonna be sitting in a nice comfy chair. Yeah. We've got weighted blankets, we got weighted animals, we got whatever you need. Um, we're gonna have you get all comfy. Same thing. You want to be mindful of like tension as well. Um, depending on where the electrode is placed, blinking and stuff might come into play as well. That's usually if it's more frontal to like towards where the muscles of the forehead can. Yeah. Um, but once we have you, we have the electrodes sticking on, and they stick on with just like a paste. Okay. So it's not the gel situation for this one. It's for cleanup. Yeah. For our single and double channel, it's not um the full gel setup. We do have a different type that is involved. But for this one, it's just a paste that we stick the electrode on. Um, and there's a couple of other electrodes that go on the ears or possibly on the head, depending on what the protocol is. But for the simplicity of this, we have the one on the head and then one on either ear. The ear clips, um, they're like a ground essentially, because we are working with electricity. We have a ground clip and then a reference. The reference is basically um trying to kind of like filter out noise. So there's electrical activity happening around. Yeah, filtering out noise, um, muscle tension, blinking, trying to minimize the impact of that. So that's what that function is. But the main one we're focused on is the one that's on top.

unknown 59:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 59:46

So once we've got that all set up, where the technician is setting up their computer to put in the parameters of what we're training. So they're putting in, okay, this is um the area we're training, and these are the frequencies or the bandwidths that we're doing, like the brain waves. Okay. So we're trying to reduce fast wave activity. Basically, what we're setting is every time your brain is effective in reducing that beta, they are rewarded with a visual feedback. So where the client is sitting, they have a TV in front of them and they're watching Gray's Anatomy. Okay. First one that comes up. Yeah. Gray's Anatomy. Yeah. Um, when their brain is effective in reducing that beta or high beta, they are rewarded that they can watch their show.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:30

It's clear. Um, you know, there's it's playing, there's different effects that we can do. But when their brain increases that way that we're trying to decrease, then their their vision is impeded in terms of the the screen will change. Okay. So bubbles will come on the screen, you can't see your show anymore. Um, it'll pause, um, it'll zoom in, like it'll shrink. Okay. So you can't see it as well. And the idea is, and connecting back to what we were saying near the beginning, your brain is subconsciously learning to make these changes to reduce the beta in order to receive that reward. Right.

Tina Wilston 1:01:08

Reward being seeing the screen more clearly. So you'll be guiding people because it's not an active thing that you want them to be doing, and that in fact, if they try to make the bubbles go away, that could actually make more bubbles come, right? Especially if you think about if high bate is the fast brainwave and it means it's associated with stress. If I'm feeling annoyed that I want the bubbles to go away, I could actually just put more bubbles there. Yeah. So it's about learning how to like breathe, relax.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:40

Yeah. And it it does actually, I find, help um instill a lot of self-awareness in general as well, just this process of engaging in the sessions. Because part of it is I'm having you check in with yourself, try to notice. I don't want you to force anything, but observe, be aware when are there more bubbles on the screen? When are there no bubbles on the screen? What were you you notice? Like, oh, I just, I just zoned out for like a good few minutes and realized that I couldn't see the screen at all. Right. Um, and that's where the technicians come in too of like they're there watching um and they're noticing, you know, oh, maybe they're like we can give them cues of, hey, you know, I'm seeing that maybe there's a little bit more tension. Can we maybe like roll the shoulders back, maybe give yourself a quick like jaw massage, um, maybe just like do a little neck stretch so that they can, you know, get back into it. Cause that also us identifying that um unconscious behavior can help bring awareness for them. Right. So they learn it as well.

Tina Wilston 1:02:43

So there's almost like two ways that self-awareness develops by yourself or you just happen to notice, oh, the bubbles are all there. Oh, I just noticed I was zoning out or I was stressing out about something, my mind wandered to something stressful. Um, or we can if if because we we're I I remember reading there was a book title once. It was like learning how to break the habit of being yourself. Like we are so habituated to how we are, who we are, how our brain works. Sometimes we don't even notice it's happening. And then not only the screen will bring your attention to it, but the technician will be there as well, drawing your attention to it to help develop more awareness on the technician screen, they're looking at your brain waves in real time where we have the electrode.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:28

So we can see, oh wow, we just got a bunch of slow wave. Yeah. Did they are they zoning in out? Okay. Are they if it goes into delta too? Are they drowsing? Right. Yeah, it's like, are you asleep? You're like, hello, wake up. Right. Um, we can see that. Yeah. So that's also a cue for us, and like why we're watching is seeing we can give them cues of like, hey, you know, I'm noticing like maybe there's a little bit more slow wave. How are you feeling?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:55

Okay.

Tina Wilston 1:03:56

Amazing. Yeah. And so the session concludes, and let me know what to expect in the sense of. So I go to session one, let's say on Monday, I'm scheduled to come in on Wednesday. So I'm coming in for my second session. There's an extra step now, right? Because we're gonna be checking in with how they were feeling.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:18

Yeah, yeah. So with the first one too, to to kind of add is like we're measuring. So we use a measuring tape to measure your whole scalp to make sure that we put the electrode on the right spot. Yeah, because we don't have the cap anymore.

Tina Wilston 1:04:29

That's what the cap helps us do is guide all the spots to the right spot on your brain. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:34

So with this traditional one or two channel training, we're measuring to make sure that we're getting make that we're putting the electrode on the right area of the brain.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:44

Um on the second session, there's a check-in aspect. And this isn't necessarily too because I think often people can get the idea of when we're asking, oh, have you noticed that like any changes or anything happening? It can often put in the idea that maybe they should have. Okay. And that's not necessarily the case. We're not looking for, oh, well, you should have noticed something at this second session or even the third one. But it's just something that we we want to check in with you because maybe there's been something that's happened outside of the clinic that's important for us to know. Right.

Tina Wilston 1:05:16

Maybe you know, there's a we've heard of people leaving and then something bad, stressful happens right after the session. We kind of want to know that.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:22

Yeah, exactly. So we when we're checking in at the beginning of the session, and that's every session following. After the first session, every single one following, we're asking, okay, how have things been since you were last in? Even if it was two days ago. Yeah. Um, how have things been? Have there been any changes related to neurofeedback or not? Um, often with initial sessions with the traditional neurofeedback, maybe there's some fatigue after, right? Because it's you're working out your brain. It can be tiring. Yeah. And that's important for us to know. If you're noticing any level of fatigue, we want to know that because we want to make sure that we're not training your brain too hard. Again, it's a Goldilocks situation. We want to have that difficulty level just right where it's optimal for your brain to be learning.

Tina Wilston 1:06:05

Right. It's actually very, very interesting because actually, when you look at how kids learn at school, there's There's a reason why they sort of introduce new material and then repeat, repeat, repeat. Right. And then in the when you switch to the next grade, they always do a bit of a repeat from the year before and then attach the new learning onto that. So it's somewhat similar.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:26

Yeah, exactly. It's that the repetition is really important. Um, and that's where too, like we um having two sessions within the week, it gives your brain the repetition that especially early on that it needs. And then okay, maybe we're 10, 15 sessions in. Um maybe we can go to once a week. Okay. Depending on where that individual is at in the training. Okay. And that's where every 10 sessions I, because t uh technicians are running the day-to-day neurosessions training, um, I meet with everybody every 10 sessions to check in with them. Okay, how have you been feeling with the training? Is there any question, lingering questions that you have or anything you want me to know? Um, any concerns or um yeah, any any lingering um observations or things that maybe you didn't expect or yeah.

Tina Wilston 1:07:20

What would ever cause you to potentially do another brain mapping?

SPEAKER_02 1:07:26

So if it's been a year since the last one, um that's kind of like a standard, like best practice. If it's been a year since your last mapping, we want to do another one. Okay. Um let's say somebody's

When To Remap And Change Protocols

SPEAKER_02 1:07:41

done, I would say between 30 and 40, around that 30-40 mark of sessions, and we might want to do another one to see, okay, we've seen some good progress. Let's see what the maps look like. Do we want to continue on this path? Do we maybe want to shift it? Okay. Because with the brain, too, as it changes, it can sometimes uncover other patterns that have been beneath the surface.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:07

Right. So we might see some new emerging patterns that weren't there previously. And it's like, okay, well, we've seen improvement in this area, but now this other pattern has kind of emerged. Maybe we we want to go in that direction.

Tina Wilston 1:08:17

Does that mean symptoms too, in the sense of so the people could say these are what my negative symptoms are, those are now resolved, but I have these new symptoms that I didn't have to do.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:29

I usually find there's symptoms still related to the initial concerns, but it's showing up in a different way. Okay or symptoms that didn't get uh fully addressed with the first protocol. The first protocol addressed the focus of what we were looking at, but maybe there were some lingering things that didn't um weren't improved with that first.

Tina Wilston 1:08:48

Because there could be three different things going on in the brain contributing to one set of symptoms, and you can get partial resolve on the symptoms, but not complete resolve, and then we might change the protocol.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:59

Yeah. I mean, like it could sometimes be that there's like a new symptom that comes up where it's like, okay, I'm feeling, you know, my anxiety is reduced, but now I'm just like really tired.

Tina Wilston 1:09:08

Yeah. Now, what are your thoughts? Because one of the things a lot of people come into therapy for is actually that they have this issue where they have both depression and anxiety. However, they're rarely experiencing them at the same time. It's almost like whenever my depression feels better, my anxiety feels worse. Whenever my anxiety feels better, my depression feels worse. I know that there's a lot of people potentially listening that have that issue. And uh, from my experience, and again, I haven't seen everybody in the world. So there could be people out there that have had better luck with medication, but my personal experience with clients has been medication often just can't solve both problems. It just has them constantly back and forth between the two sets of symptoms.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:50

Yeah. I've had people who they'll be taking a medication for one, yeah, and they're like, it's great, like I'm feeling this is improved, but my other thing is way worse. Way worse. Yeah. So then we'll use the neurofeedback to kind of target in that other area. And often that is helpful. Okay. And the idea with medication is, you know, often the goal is to taper off or reduce the medication. So it's like, okay, can we do the neurofeedback? Start addressing it in this area, and then we'll loop in your doctor or like you go and talk to your doctor, right? Because I can't make recommendations about medications. But you can go talk to your doctor and be like, hey, I've been doing this thing, I'm feeling a little bit better. Can we start to taper?

Tina Wilston 1:10:29

Right. Because you've seen that a lot with ADHD if I if I understand correctly, where people come in, they're on their ADHD medication, it's not quite doing the full trick. We do neurofeedback and then they'll say, I'm feeling over medicated now. I feel like this dosage feels like too much now.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:44

Yeah, exactly. And that's where it's like sometimes we notice not a plateau, but people will start to notice, like, wow, it was really good. But then suddenly it almost had like a re like I like noticed something negative, yeah, of like, oh, I had like a headache or I was just really tired, which normally that hasn't been happening. Like they've been, it's been very positive up until then. Yeah. Um, and that's where it's like, okay, could it be that we're at the point with the neurofeedback where it's interacting with the medication? Okay. And that's where I say, okay, you know, I wonder about possibly talking to your doctor about how we can move forward with this. Yeah.

Tina Wilston 1:11:18

See if that switch there can get us back into the right place. Yeah. So that's actually, I think, a question that a lot of people can have is can I be on medication? Do I have to go off of it? All that type of stuff. And ultimately, if people have sought out neurofeedback and they're on medication, it's because there are symptoms that the medication is not quite dealing with, or there's side effects from the medication.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:40

Side effects is a big one. Okay.

Tina Wilston 1:11:42

So

Medication Fit Motivation And Measuring Change

Tina Wilston 1:11:42

it brings a lot of people in.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:44

Yeah. I find that for a lot of people, it's just like, I um I just don't, I don't want to be on it anymore. I just don't feel like myself. Yeah, and they're like, I want to get off of it, but I don't know. And they're like, and I heard about this wonderful thing, neurofeedback. And I'm like, yes, absolutely. Absolutely. But yeah, you can absolutely do neurofeedback when you're taking your medication. That's another thing that I take into account when we're doing the QEG and I'm doing the um treatment protocol, is considering what medication you're taking and what effect does it have on the EEG. Okay. So that let's say your medication increases beta, and then I'm like, oh, we want to decrease beta. That is counterintuitive. Right. Because then I'd be doing one thing with the neurofeedback, and your medication's doing the other thing. And it's just they're not gonna, we're not gonna get anywhere. Okay.

Tina Wilston 1:12:35

And so then that's when we then we'd recommend talking to the doctor.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:39

Or I'll try and be like, okay, maybe there's another pattern that is relates similarly, and I'll kind of explain we don't want to do this route because your medication is doing the opposite of what we would want to do, but we can target your brain in a different way where this pattern also connects to that. We might see improvement, and maybe you can talk to your, like, if you're finding that the medication isn't um working for you, or you're wanting to to reduce that, you can have a talk, like talk to your doctor about that. Okay. I think one big thing is there needs to be like um, I want to say like a buy-in of like you need to want to be here. Okay. I find so it kind of goes in with this concept of like learners and non-learners, yeah, a little bit. Of I find people who maybe don't want to be here, or um maybe there's some skepticism, which is totally fair. I know like neurofeedback isn't something that's totally well known. Yeah. Um coming in with a little bit of skepticism, if you can have an open mind, yeah, that's great.

Tina Wilston 1:13:44

Like you can't be decided it's not gonna work for you already because you can no SIBO affect it.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:48

Exactly. Like coming in with the mindset of like, yeah, this isn't gonna work, but you know, I'm gonna do it anyways. Um, or you know, maybe someone else is wanting you to do it, that's great. I'm glad that you're open to trying, but there needs to be some level of engagement, right? Because even like part of it is you're watching a screen. Yeah, your brain needs to be open to receiving the feedback. Right. Um, and if you're kind of not really giving the attention that is required, yeah, you're not gonna see the effects that you'd be hoping for. And that's actually where it can be challenging with with kiddos, is because a lot of the time they're kind of not paying attention. So it's our job to be like, okay, like let's bring your attention back. And like we're like redirecting them and trying to remind them, hey, let's look at the screen. Hey, let's look at the screen.

Tina Wilston 1:14:39

Which is one of the reasons why we chose to use like Netflix shows or TV shows to help the little ones. Yeah, engagement is much better. Yeah. Yeah. Now, um, one of the other things that um I know is an element to it is isn't there one med though that you can't do training with? I thought benzodiazepines interfere with learning. Do I have that right?

SPEAKER_02 1:15:04

Yeah, it's the one medication from what I know of like, I don't know that I would say like you can't do it at all. Okay. But it's definitely harder.

Tina Wilston 1:15:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:14

Yeah.

Tina Wilston 1:15:14

They might have to do more sessions.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:16

Yeah, it's a lot more challenging. The brain is more resistant to it. Yeah.

unknown 1:15:21

Yeah.

Tina Wilston 1:15:22

And the the other thing that you said about kids, because and and that self-awareness, because what we've noticed, right, is that people that are already very self-aware, when you're asking them what you notice that's different, they are ones who will be like, I noticed this and I noticed that. And we do have some people, particularly younger ones, that might say, I'm not noticing anything.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:41

Like, I don't know.

Tina Wilston 1:15:42

I don't know. I I'm not I remember once working with someone and they're like, nope, I'm not noticing any differences. And I was like, okay, maybe we stop. And they're like, no. And I was like, oh, that's that's an interesting reaction.

unknown 1:15:52

Okay.

Tina Wilston 1:15:53

Yeah. Um, but uh I think sometimes with kids in particular, you're looking for feedback from the parents as well. Because um, again, with a more calm nervous system, if you're not noticing that you're freaking out about things you used to freak out about, that just feels like a non-experience. Like this thing happened and I was kind of like, whatever.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:14

Yeah.

Tina Wilston 1:16:14

And so I'm not gonna be like, oh, that's different unless I literally had the exact same event happen a week ago and I freaked out. Then the exact same thing happened a week later and I was fine. Then I might rarely that's not, yeah. But parents would be like, I've seen you freak out 50 times over something just like this. Yeah. And this time you're just kind of like, oh, that's fine.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:33

Cool as a cucumber.

Tina Wilston 1:16:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:34

Yeah. I do find that's a that's a big one. Like, um, checking with parents, or even if it's adults, I'm like, ask your you know, ask your partner, ask your partner, ask your roommate, ask your friend, ask your coworkers. Like, hey, I mean, like if you're comfortable with it, yeah, you know, asking the people who are in your immediate, like in your daily life, um, because often they see the change. Yeah. And that's a lot of people do say they're like, oh, I was like, maybe like I was noticing some change, but when I was talking to so and so, they were like, Oh, wow, yeah, like night and day difference.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:06

Like I've seen that like XYZ, like all of these different changes, like more um resilient, more like a greater capacity. This situation, you were just like, uh, okay, it is what it is, or like ability to focus and organize information. It's like, or even get heightened and calm back down pretty quickly.

Tina Wilston 1:17:25

Cause that's one of the regulations that we see people where they're like, they get heightened and then they just can't bring themselves down very quickly.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:32

Before people who maybe don't have people that they can talk to or ask about changes that they've noticed. We also do send out um outcome questionnaires before, like early on in the training, and then we'll send them again later to measure as another way of measuring, okay. Initially, you reported this, this, this, this, this on this questionnaire. And now, same questionnaire, this is your outcome. Very different. There's a pretty good difference there. I'm like, how to like does that feel accurate? Um, and I do try to prompt people of like, I don't want you to look at the day-to-day difference. I want you to look at where you were at at the beginning. Right. And that is where like journaling could be helpful too, if you feel that maybe you're not going to be able to remember or recall. Yeah. If you write maybe writing down some like jot notes.

Tina Wilston 1:18:21

Yeah, because when we're feeling bad, and I think anybody who's ever um experienced or been diagnosed with, let's say, depression that comes

Noticing Progress Without Overthinking

Tina Wilston 1:18:28

and goes, when they're feeling good, it's hard to actually remember how bad they felt. And then when they're feeling bad, it's actually hard to remember how good they felt. And so, and and ideally, neurofeedback is a very gradual change that feels very natural and very you because it would actually be very jarring if we did a treatment and all of a sudden they felt like they were handling things differently. That would actually cause distress. Oh my gosh, yeah. Even if it meant I was just calmer, I'd be like, what's wrong with me? Why am I so calmer? The brain doesn't work like that. Yeah. Yeah. And so ideally it's a slow, gradual, maybe sometimes hard to notice at first. But if you go from before I started neuro to now, then you go, oh wow. Yeah, actually, over time it's been quite a change. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Well, I think we're gonna close it up here for now till our next episode. So thank you very much. Thank you. It's fun.