Neurofeedback, first applied as a management tool for epilepsy in the early 1970's, is a safe, non-invasive, drug free training program with long term effects. It can restore your brain to its natural state of balanced function.
Different types of neurofeedback training can help you:
- Strengthen attention, focus, learning, memory, creativity and intuition
- Gain control of behaviors and emotions
- Stabilize mood and resolve past traumatic experiences
- Improve appetite and sleep
- Deal with chronic pain and fatigue
- Help in the rehabilitation of head injuries
- Mitigate seizure activities and migraines
- Help you to perform at your "peak"
In virtually every area of our lives, we are able to improve our performance when we get clear and immediate feedback about how we are doing. That is one of the key reasons why athletic performance has shown such dramatic improvements recently—sophisticated technology has enabled the athlete to gain a much greater degree of information about all aspects of physical performance, and this allows for sharpening of skills.
The same sort of technological sophistication now enables us to directly alter the functioning of our brains to improve performance. Neuroscience has shown repeatedly that the brain is capable of enormous change or plasticity; the brain is amazingly adaptable. Advanced EEG biofeedback technology provides instantaneous (real time) information to the brain about how it is functioning along with continuous hints or cues about how to make adjustments toward improved functioning. And repeated studies have shown that our brains are able to use this information to re-regulate its function.
Though the technology is quite complex, the training activity is simple, painless, and non-invasive. Sensors are placed on the scalp and EEG activity is transmitted to a computer and amplified by special hardware and software. You listen to music (auditory feedback) and watch interesting graphics (visual feedback) which is provided instantly, so that you see and hear representations of your brain in action. Your brainwaves control the progress of the music or graphics. The goal is to reduce or limit certain types of brainwaves and increase others. As your brain reorganizes itself based on this instantaneous information, it develops increased resilience and flexibility.
Ordinarily, we cannot influence our brain's activity because we lack awareness of it. However, when you can see the changes in this activity on a computer screen a few thousandths of a second after they occur, you gain the ability to influence and change this activity. The mechanism of action is similar to every other form of learning or training. Neurofeedback is a form of training or exercise for the brain, assisted with a very sophisticated technology, and guided or directed by knowledge gained through the advances of neuroscience.
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