Natalie Baker (14:40)
I love that you're touching your head with your fingers because you're absolutely right. So what is neurofeedback? How does the brain receive that feedback and rewire itself? Which is a great question. I should just start by saying that the world of neurofeedback can be very confusing for people because that term is really explaining a process, not the technical pieces of a device. And so basically, neurofeedback is an extension of biofeedback, only now, instead of getting skin temperature change. And so I'm going to do deep breathing to reset my stress response, which is biofeedback. Neurofeedback is really about monitoring brain waves and then giving feedback when the brain is in maladaptive patterns. The history of neurofeedback is basically that as computers got to be the speed of the human brain, you could create a more and more sophisticated neurofeedback system that actually can give real time. So when people explore neurofeedback, they'll learn that there's two basic clinical systems, and I'm talking about sort of clinical grade neurofeedback, as opposed to the new consumer products that are like headbands that you can put on. So in the world of neurofeedback that can impact adhd, there is the first generation, which was the design was you needed to do a brain map, so you would take a sort of snapshot of which brainwaves are maladaptive. And then the trainer sets protocols to basically nudge that brain out of those maladaptive patterns and into adaptive ones. And so that kind of neurofeedback's done in office with a trainer who has advanced training in basically brain tweaking for just a basic way of saying that. And then what you notice over time is that with adhd, you're better able to focus, focused, you're emotionally more settled, you're sleeping better. And then at some point you'll decide to, to stop the training. And then there's the, the latest generation of neurofeedback, which is the system I use, and it's fully automated, so it's purely giving feedback to that brain millisecond by millisecond about what it's doing. That's maladaptive. So going to your point of like pointing to your head. Yes, we put EEG sensors on the head. So that's just to collect the electrical activity of the brain. It's sent into a computer that's looking for what's called turbulence, which is when the brain is about to change states, it does a particular kind of electrical dance. And so this software, just to give you an idea of how quickly that brain is operating, it takes data 256 times per second looking for turbulence or state change. And when it registers state change in that millisecond, it interrupts music that you're listening to. And so with neurofeedback, you use either visual feedback or auditory feedback. And the reason why auditory is the best is because that limbic brain, that part of the brain that produces these maladaptive patterns that are so frustrating in adhd, that part of the brain uses auditory feedback to note change in the environment at all times. So even when we're sleeping, we can be listening for change because that part of the brain is in charge of survival. And a big part of what we're working with, with these maladaptive patterns is we're working with the stress response, the fight, flight, freeze energy, which the brain is supposed to do only when there's immediate danger. We need to punch it, we need to flee the situation and we need to play dead. And then we're supposed to then come back into a state of regulation. But what happens with the brain is the brain likes to use its energy efficiently. And so it'll take little cues from the environment and go, oh, now it's like, then, okay, I'm just going to keep doing that habitual pattern. And that's really what we call symptoms, is when the brain is stuck on autopilot doing these maladaptive patterns. So going back to what the system is doing, you Know when you're doing a session is it's looking for turbulence, which is state change. When that happens, it stops the music you're listening to, which cues that automatic functioning brain, pay attention to yourself. And so in the same way that if you're having lunch with a friend and you didn't realize, you were totally lost in thought, and then your friend calls your name, and you, in that millisecond, recognize everything, right? You recognize, I was totally lost in thought, didn't hear a word she said. But now I have a choice. Do I want to go back and, and chew on those thoughts some more, or do I want to be present with my friend and have this lunch we're having? And so that's what happens for your automatic functioning brain every time that music is interrupted. It pays attention to everything. And so if it's doing something, that's maladaptive, right? So it's going into the scanning hyper arousal, right? That and it's sitting in a safe room. The brain is going to go, why am I doing that? I'm going to pivot back to being calm and focused because that's appropriate for the here and now. And so during a neurofeedback session, your brain gets this feedback over and over again. So it can pivot to be in alignment with the here and now. But the actual more profound thing that happens. So a session is 33 minutes. And people can do it in an office environment or they can do it at home, and particularly with adhd. I always recommend to my clients, if they can, to do it at home because multiple family members can do it. And we know that ADHD is often passed down. That's part of the neurodivergent piece of it. And so when the session is running for those 33 minutes, a person can be reading a book. They can have their eyes closed, focused on their breathing, they can be on their phone, although I don't recommend that, because I want people to really be aware of what's happening in their bodies. So felt experience and noticing, shifting from being dysregulated to being regulated is really important to me. And I can talk more about what, when you have adhd, what does that feel like? But at the end of each session, there's a whole series of sessions I encourage people to do. And the bigger thing that's happening when you do brain training over time is that the brain is learning to focus, function differently. And so this is really the key thing, is that we want that brain to have the opportunity to learn a New practice. And this new practice is come into the present moment, gather your data from the here and now, then you'll make a better decision, right? You'll use your energy more efficiently and you know, you'll have a better outcome. And the brain is designed to process information, right? There's two big things the brain does. It processes information, it minimizes the use of glucose, the main food of the brain, and it tries to minimize pain. And you could say that those are the kind of the core things that the brain is always trying to do. So the really great thing about neurofeedback is we're basically giving that brain the opportunity to fine tune itself based on the way it's designed to function. And so once someone's done sort of a foundation series of sessions, their brain has learned that I'm going to use the present moment to gather my data and then I'm going to make better decisions. So if I need my focusing brain waves right now, I'm going to use those because I'm in a safe environment. I don't need to be in that fight, flight or freeze energy. And so the cool thing is the brain naturally starts to change. And when it's really learned to do this practice, that's when we see symptoms shifting, like, oh, wow, I was able to just like organize the schedule there. I wasn't frustrated. I could actually follow through. Right. That's the kind of things people report when that brain has really learned to do that practice on its own.
