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What Is Neurofeedback Therapy with Lisa Cramer - E67
31 Plays7 days ago
Trouble falling asleep, battling brain fog, or struggling to keep your mind sharp as the years pass? For many, the quest for better sleep and mental clarity turns into a frustrating cycle of quick fixes, medications, and dead ends - especially as stress, age, and life's routines get in the way. This episode uncovers how modern brain training technique, neurofeedback, can help break those patterns, support lasting cognitive health, and even boost your daily performance. You’ll learn the science behind optimizing your mind and how easy, research-backed steps can make a difference, straight from someone at the cutting edge of neurofeedback.
Lisa Cramer is a Board-Certified Neurofeedback Specialist and QEEG Analyst with over 24 years of clinical experience in mental health. She is the founder of Mind Body Neuro of Illinois and Mind Body Neuro of Colorado, where she leads interdisciplinary teams in implementing evidence-based neurotherapy protocols for complex neurological and psychological conditions. Lisa is a strong advocate for integrating EEG-driven modalities as frontline treatments for traumatic brain injury, concussion, degenerative brain disease, chronic pain, mood dysregulation, and cognitive decline. She is dedicated to global education and standardization, advancing the adoption of neurofeedback, photobiomodulation, and neurostimulation in mainstream mental health care.
“As they continue to train each session, the brain figures out sooner and sooner and sooner, and then it starts to show up in regular life.” - Lisa Cramer
In this episode you will learn:
- What neurofeedback is, how it helps retrain brainwaves, and its uses in both healing and performance.
- Why sleep quality is vital for brain health, how neurofeedback can support better sleep, and the science behind it.
- How neurofeedback is used for children, adults, and athletes to improve focus, memory, and overall mental function.
- The ways EEG brain mapping creates a plan for personalized neurofeedback sessions and what happens during training.
- How neurofeedback supports recovery from concussion, anxiety, and cognitive decline, and its potential role in aging well.
- How to choose the right neurofeedback provider and why getting a baseline EEG may benefit your long-term health.
Resources
- Connect with Lisa on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mindbodyneuro/
- Get in touch with Lisa on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisa-cramer-lcpc-bcn-qeegd-l-02304174
- Learn more about Mind Body Neuro: https://www.mindbodyneurotherapy.com/
This podcast was produced by the team at Zapods Podcast Agency:
Find the products, practices, and routines discussed on the Alively website:
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Transcript
Understanding Brain Patterns and Efficiency
00:00:00
Speaker
When you're happy, that's and a rejuvenating and sustainable place. It's not tiring. When we're struggling, stressed, those take energy away. So what happens is when the brain starts to learn these new patterns and they make us feel better, it's more efficient.
00:00:17
Speaker
So it allows that to continue.
Health and Wellness Role Models
00:00:22
Speaker
This is the Home of Healthspan podcast, where we profile health and wellness role models, sharing their stories and the tools, practices, and routines they use to live a lively life.
00:00:36
Speaker
Lisa, it is great to have you on the Home of Healthspan today.
Meet Lisa - The Neurofeedback Specialist
00:00:40
Speaker
Before we get into all your work and everything you do, how would you describe yourself? Well, I'm a lively humanitarian. I'm a mother of adult kids and a partner and a social person who loves adventure.
00:00:56
Speaker
Okay. One thing that you didn't include that ah you know I know you as is ah neurofeedback specialist, right?
What is Neurofeedback?
00:01:06
Speaker
And I think for our listeners, it might be helpful to just set the table on what is neurofeedback.
00:01:15
Speaker
So neurofeedback is ah way to train brainwaves to get stuck patterns to release and that helps reduce symptoms.
00:01:28
Speaker
I'm a mental health professional, right? Under that humanitarian umbrella. And I found neurofeedback in like that era and in that era and It's a way to add to mental health approaches that really makes a remarkable difference.
Applications of Neurofeedback
00:01:51
Speaker
Okay. and And so is it, we think about healthcare care that a lot of times in this country, healthcare care is truly sick care. It's, hey, once things are wrong, we put this in. And with neurofeedback, is it only use or helpful in response to when things are going wrong or cause I think I've seen, and maybe there's not the same stuff like Kirk cousins or other quarterbacks and athletes, Steph Curry will use it to help train.
00:02:21
Speaker
And so it can also be an optimization like, Hey, I'm here, but I could really. Okay. Yeah, absolutely. It's absolutely an optimization, um, technique. In fact, a lot of people will come in for peak performance type goals.
00:02:37
Speaker
Um, as well as repair and healing and and, you know, improvement for function. So they can go hand in hand. um the optimization piece is why i think this is such a good fit for your show, right? Because as we grow and age and move into, you know, different phases of our lives, different stressors impact us differently, right?
00:03:04
Speaker
And so the optimization piece kind comes into play in all kinds of areas with, you know, daily function, Like sleep trouble, it's wonderful for sleep.
00:03:16
Speaker
It helps get rid of the I wake up within five minutes of 1.07 a.m. m every night. Or I can't get my brain to shut off and fall asleep.
00:03:28
Speaker
That I hear so many 40s, you know, your old folks struggle with that. And then we know older folks, right, elderly, that sleep is really fragmented. And and if you can't sleep, you're not filling your bucket.
00:03:42
Speaker
Let's dive into that sleep
Addressing Sleep Issues with EEG
00:03:44
Speaker
bucket, right? So if you're using neurofeedback for sleep, so I think about like CBT is something used a lot of times for people with insomnia. What does neurofeedback, what what does the the treatment, the process, so someone comes and says, hey, I'm having a really hard time staying asleep or I wake up in the middle of night and I can't fall back asleep.
00:04:04
Speaker
How does neurofeedback get used or help them in those situations? Yeah. Well, so neurofeedback, the way we approach it starts with recording your brain rhythm to see what's going on. So your EEG, your electroencephalogram is your brain rhythm, like EKG is heart rhythms.
00:04:23
Speaker
And so it starts with a very non-invasive recording where you just, the biggest invasiveness is the scoopy gel that gets put in your hair. um And you just sit for 10 minutes, eyes open as still as you can and eyes closed for 10 minutes as still as you can. And we record the activity that's going on with this cap and this gel and that's wired to an amplifier that is,
00:04:51
Speaker
makes your teeny tiny brain waves law loud enough or large enough for software to record. And then i clean out, you know, physiological stuff, yawns, muscle tension, I blink pulse, anything, those are normal human things.
00:05:09
Speaker
But with the software, I can kind of remove those from the data and see what's going on with your brain waves. So insomnia often has some signature, we call biomarkers, orre patterns that are very common with a specific complaint.
00:05:28
Speaker
And so we can often know before they tell us, are you having trouble falling asleep? Or you having trouble with staying asleep? Are you moving through the stages of sleep to get restorative symptoms?
00:05:44
Speaker
sleep patterns, you know, that, so you wake rested and all those things. So the the EEG is the starting point and it tells us lots of information. And it can do that even though your troubles are at night when you're trying to sleep, but in, you're presumably not in the middle of the night doing this. You're right in the middle of the day coming into an office, doing the EEG.
00:06:07
Speaker
And even at that point in the day, you can see, Oh, your brain waves are at this kind of thing. It's that's getting in the way. Right. So for example, there are patterns that are prominent when there's a lot of over arousal in a person's system and their nervous system and in their brain. And so it depending where those are in the brain, so if they're at the vertex, which is kind of like the unicorn horn spot, it's where the baby soft spot, the last soft spot to fuse is like, we call that the vertex. If those are showing us
00:06:41
Speaker
very fast over arousal waves or what we call hyper excitability. That makes it very difficult for the person's muscles to truly relax. So when you're sleeping, if the branch hits the window, your partner might roll over and not hear it or wake and go right back to sleep. But you might be then, oh, now I'm awake for two hours.
00:07:03
Speaker
Because you don't have the rhythms that help you stay into the sleep cycles. I assume things like that would impact your HRV, your heart rate variability. There there are a lot of other biomarkers outside the brain that it's having the impact on the body because you're not getting that deep rest, that ah balancing the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems. Yeah, really true. You know, we talk about light sleep, deep sleep, and r REM sleep.
00:07:29
Speaker
And those are the stages we need to move through continually. So we ideally have... four to five cycles of moving through all those stages in the night. That's why we get come up with seven to eight hours because it takes that long to get through.
00:07:44
Speaker
And your deep sleep is when your brain bathes, basically, you know, cerebral spinal fluid is pumped through, we remove toxins and dead cells and waste, and really give new nutrients, and you know, all this stuff.
00:08:00
Speaker
So that's important for like, longevity, sharpness, all that.
Importance of Sleep Stages and HRV
00:08:05
Speaker
then REM sleep is where you consolidate learning that happened during the day and how you process emotions. That's why where dreams are so crazy, right? Like there can be really out there, but that's your body doing that for your brain, doing that for you. So yeah, so we need all that. And the HRV is a great indicator. That's heart rate variability. And I know you've talked about that on your show before, but that's that flexibility in between almost your heart beats,
00:08:35
Speaker
To shift gears and the more flexibility, the healthier, right? We say. So if you're really stuck and you can't shift gears, that HRV score is going really low, right?
00:08:47
Speaker
So it it does impact all that. So you initially, you come in you're doing an EEG to get that baseline. Right. But I guess that's not the neurofeedback. That's just getting the baseline of data. Then there's some treatment or activity after that. So once you have this baseline, then you identify an issue.
00:09:08
Speaker
What's the next step?
Training the Brain with Positive Reinforcement
00:09:09
Speaker
Right. So we take the data and we come up with what's called a brain map is the slang. It's a QEEG, quantitative electrocephalogram. That's our report that guides our treatment, right? And and our brain training.
00:09:23
Speaker
So neurofeedback is the training. And that is the traditional path of neurofeedback is and a learning paradigm. It's positive reinforcement.
00:09:34
Speaker
So someone would come in, they'd they'd have one to five sensors on their head. And they're watching a screen and a video, a show, a game, something along those lines, or listening to something, sometimes both.
00:09:49
Speaker
And if their brain's going in the direction we want, so say we want the hyper arousal waves to be lower in power. The screen will stay bright, the video will flow smoothly, the sound is crisp, you know, and there's no stutter to the the buffering, so to speak.
00:10:05
Speaker
If the brain goes back to the patterns that are causing trouble, which it does, the screen looks like a shadow comes over it from the outside or covers the whole thing. And the sound may get quiet or this the video doesn't flow smoothly.
00:10:21
Speaker
And without having to try, your brain, not your mind, but like your brain will want to get back to that thing it was engaged in. It's a pleasure-seeking organ, right? So it won't, wait, what happened to my show kind of a thing. And it will try all kinds of brainwaves and patterns and rhythms to see how do I get that back?
00:10:41
Speaker
And so the positive reinforcement is the bright screen or the clear sound. And over time, it figures it out. What's really cool is even the first session, you see as we're watching data on the screen and we can see their monitor, right? So we can see how dark or light it is.
00:11:00
Speaker
The brain by seven, eight minutes starts to figure it out. And so we can tell by both numbers, but also the screen stays brighter longer, right? Or the sound hasn't disappeared.
00:11:11
Speaker
So... As they continue to train each session, the brain figures out sooner and sooner and sooner. And then it starts to show up in regular life. And this translates, I mean, it it translates maybe to better sleep, but I guess to higher performance, because i there's a show on Netflix, Quarterback, that each season follows different quarterbacks. And the very first season, it was, one of them was Kirk Cousins, and they had him in the car with something strapped on his head watching this video. It must have been this.
00:11:41
Speaker
That, yeah I mean, for some listeners, maybe too young to remember, like when you had the antenna and you're having to try to get the signal in, like it's your brain basically doing that. Okay. And so yeah you're training to to get at a certain frequency.
00:11:57
Speaker
And then I guess repeated training on that and it learns, hey, this is a good thing. Without you thinking about it in the middle of the night, you're able, your your brain just like goes into those good waves or...
00:12:09
Speaker
Right. Well, so think about ah when you're happy, calm, peaceful, content, whatever you want to call it it in your good space. That's a rejuvenating and sustainable place. It's not tiring.
00:12:24
Speaker
Right. When we're struggling, stressed, hypervigilant, angry, any of the things that drain us. those take energy away. So what happens is when the brain starts to learn these new patterns, and they make us feel better, it's more efficient.
00:12:43
Speaker
Right? It doesn't drain us. So it allows that to continue. So as it generalizes, these brain changes in the brain patterns generalized to your regular life, we then work to get them more robust, like so first they're subtle, right? So maybe it didn't take you as long to fall asleep.
00:13:02
Speaker
Or maybe You did wake up, but you were able to go back to sleep again. Right. But then we we want a more robust and consistent. So we're seeing it most nights. We're seeing it.
00:13:13
Speaker
Maybe I only took me 20 minutes, which is a normal, healthy span to fall asleep. Right. Not two hours. Right. And then when it's really robust and consistent, we wean to see what does it hold.
00:13:26
Speaker
Okay. And so is this, is this like a weekly treatment and then you go down to monthly? and What does it look like in terms of frequency in the weaning? Yeah. Well, so each session this runs 45 minutes to an hour ish.
00:13:38
Speaker
um And then we really want twice a week, three times a week is actually ideal, but most people just can't schedule wise, but twice a week, we get really great results. It's, you know, it's just like, if you're going to go to the gym and work on your biceps once a week, you might make little gains.
00:13:55
Speaker
But you're going to get frustrated. And if you miss a week, you're two weeks out. So twice a week is really needed, especially in the beginning. That consistency in the beginning really sets the stage well.
00:14:06
Speaker
So yeah, I mean, that's kind of what it looks like. yeah How long it takes depends on what we're working on. And what I found in the EEG, how serious, how long have you struggled with something?
00:14:17
Speaker
You know, if it's been lifelong, and I'm ah talking to 58 year old, we have some work to do. We've talked mostly about sleep and we've talked about optimization without getting specific to what
Optimizing Cognitive Function in Aging
00:14:28
Speaker
that means. But it where else could this or would this be useful for people?
00:14:35
Speaker
So the neat thing about this field, neurotherapy, which and just means there's lots of different types, is that it really is perfect for aging healthily.
00:14:46
Speaker
right? Like moving into your later stages because cognition pieces, so clear thinking, memory issues like those tip of the tongue or my word finding is falling off and I'm noticing.
00:15:00
Speaker
um Difficulty acquiring new knowledge. Like have you ever known an older person who can't figure out the new remote for the TV, right? It's just baffling to them.
00:15:11
Speaker
Or, you know, other types of learning that even we do all through our whole life. But so those pieces are great fits for this. The memory stuff is often has to do with brain patterns, deficits in areas that help control memory.
00:15:29
Speaker
And we can like prime that engine again and get that. back up to speed and then brain fog, executive function, trouble, those things, you know, are, are good responders.
Neurofeedback for ADHD and Learning Issues
00:15:41
Speaker
So cognitive stuff. What about for children, your children that may have, whether it's, ADHD or it seems like just watching when these quarterbacks would use it, I assume it's to better learn the playbook or remember in the real time. So for a child trying to be better in school and consolidate those memories and the the learning, is it is there an age that's too young to do this or what does it look like for children?
00:16:08
Speaker
Well, yeah, there is in the sense of they have to be able to pay attention. Right. um But we've done four and five, not super often, but you can do little. but But a two and a three would be really, really tough.
00:16:21
Speaker
um Never mind, because they're going to want to get up and down and spin around in the chair and do all the funny stuff. But we love working with kids, actually. And it's its one of my favorite things is the children and the families that are struggling with emotional meltdowns.
00:16:35
Speaker
because it disrupts the whole house, the whole family. And it gets in the way of school learning. And it gets in the way of the social development with friends and peers. And usually they've tried, think they've tried everything.
00:16:48
Speaker
you know They've tried meds, they've tried their pediatricians' recommendations, they've tried behavioral plans. you know So, yeah, and actually the kids respond really well because their brain is so plastic and they haven't had 40 decades of experience, you know, 40 years of experience and stuff to cement patterns in their head.
00:17:06
Speaker
So they they can dial it in in maybe fewer treatments or or faster than maybe an adult that you're saying, hey, we we're having to override a bunch decades long patterns. You're like, you've only been doing this a couple of years. we can kind of override and and train it faster.
00:17:22
Speaker
Yeah, for the most part, you know, the more severe things like a severe autism spectrum case, those take a long time. Seizure can take a long time. It works, but it takes a long time.
00:17:37
Speaker
And head injury, bit bad TBI. and that's my other kind of focus is I do a lot of concussion work.
Recovery from Concussions
00:17:45
Speaker
So that like Kirk Cousins thing is my he's my hero, right? Because he's in the NFL.
00:17:50
Speaker
Well, he was, you know, In the eye. Yeah, he still is. I mean, he got put in the game last weekend. Oh, yeah. Well, so, yeah. like And he would do it every off-season. As soon as they were done, he'd start again.
00:18:01
Speaker
That's awesome. And, I mean, you you brought up the the concussion and TBI. My understanding is therefore there was a long time that we thought concussion, hey, you need to rest the brain. You need to do all this. and's And it's actually the exact opposite. Like, you need to be doing stuff like this to engage it.
00:18:15
Speaker
That actually repairs it faster. Is that correct? Yeah, well, within up to symptom. Right. So bringing back activity. Now they say within 48 hours, you know, with bringing in very gradual return to activity, whether it's just a walk or, you know, it depends what, how severe the injury was.
00:18:39
Speaker
But yeah, because you're not letting things get so dysregulated and unwired, let's call it. But yeah, the and the, the neural for the mental health portions of concussion is amazing.
00:18:53
Speaker
As well as pain, you know, people suffer with years sometimes of daily pain from a concussion that they've never been able to get it go get to go away. And it works. And for people that want to do this, right? So you have a practice in Colorado.
00:19:09
Speaker
i actually have two. So I'm in Illinois outside of Chicago and in Colorado outside of Denver. Okay. Yeah.
Using Neurofeedback at Home
00:19:15
Speaker
And then when I saw it, kurt because he was doing it with his phone in the car, are there at-home devices or are they not that trustworthy?
00:19:23
Speaker
There are. My kind of approach is that I want to make sure what we're doing works before I would oversee home training because i can see and make adjustments in the office first.
00:19:38
Speaker
But there are we do have several clients that train from home with, you know, they have a smaller type unit. It's not quite the medical grade quality of what we have in the offices, but it does the trick when they've already are on a good path.
00:19:52
Speaker
I mean, is it similar to like physical therapy of, Hey, you need to go to the physical therapist and you learn the exercise and you do a certain number and then they kind of give you the exercises to do at home. And you can, if you needed to go three times a week or better, but you can only drive into the office once, maybe the other two you could do there. And each week you're still going, but you're getting those extra sessions in.
00:20:10
Speaker
Yeah. Cause you know, some people live two hours, so I'll have them come in for just like a week and a half or two weeks. We call them an intensive. And they so they work with us every day or sometimes twice a day until we really know we've dialed in what protocols work for them. And then they can do as much as they want from home and we can see what's going on either either live during the actual session or I can review data and make sure they're still on the right track.
00:20:36
Speaker
And then, you know, as progress comes, they wean down to less sessions. You know, sometimes there's additional once in a while we will redo the EEG. to make sure we're on the right track, um that the changes are sufficient. But most of the time, the person's report is really what we go by.
00:20:55
Speaker
If they're really doing great and they feel great, awesome. Yeah. And you talk about the the protocols. So it's not ah everybody's getting the same treatment. So you it may be the same process of the video going dark, but I guess what you're trying to reinforce and reward may be different kinds of waves or what what is the variability there?
00:21:17
Speaker
Exactly. Yeah, it's really unique to each person because we're going off their EEG and nobody's are the same. And you could you could have two people walking with the same exact complaint.
00:21:28
Speaker
but their brains will look really different or the brains look alike, but they have different issues that they want. Right. So the protocols are the lessons, right? And so most people do two to three protocols in a session and they're targeting not only areas that go with the dysregulation, but the, these teeny levels down to a 10th of a of an amp, you know,
00:21:55
Speaker
Like we're working on amplitude training, it might be, well, we need to drop from 12 to 11.8 for this person, but that person, it was fine, you know. So it's very individualized and it should be. So if you go somewhere and they're like, well, we'll start you here and they haven't done any EEG and they they're like, well, we start everybody here, you your radar should be up.
00:22:17
Speaker
Cause it's your brain. You want to guess.
Common Uses of Neurofeedback
00:22:21
Speaker
I mean, speaking of the coming in ah initially, know, what are the top five reasons people come in or you would recommend you're like, Hey, this is someone like, sure. Everybody could get some benefit from it, right? Like even these NFL quarterbacks are already the top. They can get a benefit from it.
00:22:38
Speaker
But here in terms of greatest impact for someone who's going to invest this kind of time of money, what would those, concussion or some insomnia, you know, what are the things? Well, concussion for sure.
00:22:50
Speaker
um Because if you don't intervene, your brain, we we have a saying, what fires together, wires together. So if you have damage and you your brain is repeating things and that are causing symptoms and you don't intervene, they can grow into other trouble.
00:23:08
Speaker
So concussion, anxiety is of different sources, the number one thing that comes in the door. And that impacts sleep, it impacts social life, it impacts your career, it impacts your relationships, right? So anxiety is number two, learn a lot of learning. We do a lot of learning work, ADD, ADHD, dyscalculia, dyslexia, processing speed issues.
00:23:32
Speaker
um So that's great for kids and and teens and even adults. but um And then would say we are seeing more of like cognitive decline.
00:23:44
Speaker
Older folks that are like this, they are not liking where their memory is, or they're already diagnosed as a starting mild cognitive impairment.
00:23:58
Speaker
And they want some help with that. um So that's a big one. You know, other things are peak performance. Right. But the one of the biggest ones in my friends and family are tired of me hearing hearing this from me, but is if you are trying medications for mental health.
00:24:19
Speaker
Get your EEG done first. Because it tells us a lot what meds might be contraindicated, what might be a better fit, you know, or is there something else going on like underlying seizure activity that you don't know about?
00:24:35
Speaker
And then we really have to be careful with meds. So that's a big one,
Tailoring Mental Health Treatments
00:24:40
Speaker
I would say. And to have a baseline EEG is good for all of us because you'll have it as you age and you can compare.
00:24:46
Speaker
So barring you know a head ah a head injury or a very severe illness, your EEG is pretty stable. That's a really important point because i I think about it a lot, especially for female hormones of like, hey, you know don't wait until your 40s when things are feeling funky because you don't have a baseline. you know Do it at 18, do it at 20 to get a baseline of here's when I'm healthy what I look like so I can know yeah over time if I'm getting out of balance. I assume for all of us, it's similar with an EEG of if I only come in when I have a problem, I don't know what...
00:25:19
Speaker
right looks like for me. So almost like that health healthy visit is a great place to start. Yeah. I mean, we try to push, yeah if your kids are playing sports, right, get a baseline EEG, maybe one in junior high and then maybe one each year in high school, especially if you're playing football, lacrosse, soccer, hockey, you know, the big the big impact sports.
00:25:41
Speaker
Because you have a baseline then to know what is, how do I get back to? What level should I be getting back to if you have a concussion? And for that, assuming you know a listener is not in Illinois, not in Colorado, how would they go about identifying and finding in their area reputable ah practitioner to to
Finding Certified Neurofeedback Providers
00:26:01
Speaker
go work with?
00:26:01
Speaker
That's a really important question. So we have a couple of professional associations that help us, um that hosts like the board certifications. So there's two a minimum of two board certifications in the field. One is board certification for neurofeedback.
00:26:18
Speaker
And the board that does that is called bcia.org, Board Certification International Alliance.org. It's a mouthful. But they have a directory. So you can go in and say, find a provider, put in your zip code or a city state.
00:26:32
Speaker
And it's for global. It's all over the world. so they, you know, it's an international certification board. The other one is IQCB.org, International QEEG Certification Board.org. And they also have a directory to find a provider.
00:26:51
Speaker
And that's also global, right? And you really do want someone who's done that due diligence. It's a lot of hours. It's a lot of study. It's a lot of mentorship and and a huge exam for each of them.
00:27:04
Speaker
And it's, you know, the neat thing is the field as a whole is super collaborative. And I found you could talk to somebody in any corner of the US s and they're like, oh, yeah, I know somebody, you know, and help or they can review cases with you and.
00:27:19
Speaker
The consultation and collaborative piece is beautiful. It's really ah powerful piece. So, yeah, and this is, i am looking these ah organizations up. just so I got the the second one, but the first one, BCIA, or is it something? Yes.
00:27:36
Speaker
BCIA.org. Okay. They're both.org. Okay. Yeah. Fantastic. I will have to check them out and go get my baseline before anything more happens to this old brain of mine.
00:27:48
Speaker
Well, Lisa, this is fantastic. I guess, looking forward, what areas are you most excited about kind of on the frontier of this space that we're just learning about or new developments or coming about?
Challenges in Neurofeedback Research
00:28:02
Speaker
You know, this is broad, but I am excited about it. Research has been traditionally difficult, partly because it's hard to do the gold standard, which is a random controlled trial.
00:28:15
Speaker
Because you the technician or the practitioner is looking at data as the person is training. So it's hard to blind them. Right. There are some new methods that are coming out but because there were studies that debunked this.
00:28:30
Speaker
But when you have you have to do an individualized protocol. You can't take one protocol and say, okay, we're going to work on depression and we're only going to do this. These bandwidth ranges for everybody. You can't do that because their brains are so different.
00:28:45
Speaker
So it makes research difficult. But there have been some really cool studies coming out that are able to do it randomly. And have a control group. It scares me a little bit on the control because it maybe it's I'm not creative, but the control I would think is you just randomize both for the practitioner and the person.
00:29:05
Speaker
what sign But back to, you know, the Hippocratic O, first do no harm. You could be training them to do worse brainwaves that are like really unhealthy for them. So that scares me.
00:29:18
Speaker
I agree. and And, you know, some there's a lot of different fields that we can't do research like that because the control is, you know, troublesome. Or if the variable group proves healthy, you know, or helpful, they have to offer it to the control group after.
00:29:37
Speaker
Right. There's some ethical guidelines like that for research.
Lasting Benefits of Neurofeedback
00:29:42
Speaker
But, um you know, things like, is it as, you know, there's studies that show ADHD one-to-one, methylphenidate, right, which is one of the traditional medications, versus neurofeedback training.
00:29:55
Speaker
The outcomes were the same, both effective. The difference is if you take the methylphenidate away, the child's back to where it was, right, he or she If you take the neurofeedback away, they're still there. And actually, there's some outcomes that show four to six months beyond stu your training, you will continue to see improvement.
00:30:18
Speaker
So even post training, you're done, you're not going to the office anymore, you're still getting benefits in its building. So that's that's a difference. They got a medication free or medication limited.
00:30:30
Speaker
I mean, I know which one I would want. Yeah. Yeah. And if I was a parent of a little one now ah struggled with that, I'd want to try, you know, so. Absolutely.
00:30:40
Speaker
Well, this is, uh, you've, you've given me a lot to to think about, do some research on my own and, and go act on, um because this is something I've seen, I've heard about, but I've never personally experienced.
Consultation and Resources
00:30:53
Speaker
And it sounds like something, you know, it's, it's a great place to get a healthy baseline. So I'm looking forward to doing it for people who want to, to learn more about it, learn more about you, where can they find you? What should they be doing?
00:31:09
Speaker
The website is mindbodyneuro.com and that can get you to either Illinois or Colorado. um You know, if you're interested in jumping in and you you mentioned, you know, you heard it on this podcast, like we offer a 10% discount for any of the people come that way. But there's also just information on the website. If you are uncertain, we do, you know, a free consult so people can call and and plan that it can be in person or zoom.
00:31:38
Speaker
And or you just need help finding a provider. I'm happy to do that, too, and help you navigate those those directories and such, because there there's people all over the world. But you really want someone who's got put in the work. Right.
00:31:51
Speaker
Well, thank you so much for this work and for bringing it to the attention of our listeners and everybody you work with. I. I think a lot of people think about health and and fitness and it'll be very physical. But to me, the far scarier thing losing your mind, right? Like I've had grandparents with Alzheimer's and other things. And it's a very scary thing, and regardless of what your body may feel or look like with your mind not being there. So having more tools in the arsenal to get ahead of that, to stay that off, to to delay it is incredibly important and impactful. So thank you for the work you're doing here.
00:32:29
Speaker
Yeah, I'm happy to be here. And it is, it's something you can do. I'll do it for the rest of my life, right? To keep everything sharp and it's good stuff. So thank you. Thank you for joining us on today's episode of the Home of Healthspan podcast.
00:32:44
Speaker
And remember, you can always find the products, practices, and routines mentioned by today's guests, as well as many other Healthspan role models on Alively.com. Enjoy a lively day.