Video Games For Your Brain!

By Alan Brandis, Ph.D.

Neurofeedback is a technique in which we train the brain to help improve its ability to regulate all bodily functions and to take care of itself more effectively. When the brain is not functioning well, evidence of this often shows up in the EEG (brain waves, or ElectroEncephaloGram). By challenging your brain, in much the same way that you challenge your body in physical exercise, we can help your brain learn to function better, and be more under your control.

Training your brain with Neurofeedback can be helpful in managing attention and concentration (how well you can persist at a task, even if it’s not very exciting). It can also improve your sleep patterns, by teaching you to relax better at night. When you sleep more efficiently, you feel more awake and are more efficient during the day. It can help with anxiety and depression, and with syndromes like migraine or chronic pain.

This is the Dots Game. When building Beta strength to enhance attention, the yellow circle “eats” dots through the maze faster as Beta increases, goes faster when Theta waves are suppressed, and the dots get bigger when high-Beta is suppressed.

Neurofeedback training can help you manage your negative emotions. Emotions may feel like “the real you,” but your brain has a lot to say about how you feel and react. If the emotions are out of control, training can help you learn to keep them manageable. If they aren't there---as in lack of empathy, for example---that is trainable, too.

By placing three or four electrodes (one on each ear, and one or two on your scalp), we can obtain real-time data on your brainwave functions. We can screen for, and reward, Beta waves (15-25 cycles per second) for better attention and memory functions, or Alpha waves (4-10 cycles per second) for better relaxation and reduced stress. The Neurofeedback “video games” actually provide real-time feedback to your brain, rewarding you for increasing the strength of the desirable brain waves, and rewarding you for suppressing the undesirable brain waves.

This is the Highway game. The highway recedes into the background (as if looking back from a car). The green bar grows bigger and “paints” the highway when Beta is strengthened, while the boxes to the left and right indicate the strength of Theta and high-Beta. Highway stripes are made when Beta fills the highway and the other frequencies are suppressed.

Beta training is a non-drug approach to helping kids and adults with Attention-Deficit Disorder, with or without hyperactivity. Alpha wave protocols have been used for years to promote relaxation and stress reduction. They have specific benefits for cardiac patients, alcoholics and drug addicts trying to stay sober, and those suffering from panic attacks or phobias.

Finally, there are some specific problems where Neurofeedback training can be helpful, such as in cases of seizures, traumatic brain injury, stroke, and autism. In these instances the training does not so much get rid of the problem as it simply organizes the brain to function better in the context of whatever injury or loss exists.

Once you accept the possibility that Neurofeedback might be effective for you, the next question you might ask is: “Will this training change who I am (or, who my child is)?” If a child who is known for his temper outbursts receives Neurofeedback training, and the rages subside, he is certainly different - but the parents would say, “We have our real son now.”

Your worst features should not define you as a person. The training brings you closer to who you “really” are, in that it allows you to think and behave more in alignment with your core values. That is our experience, and the experience of hundreds of clinicians who use this technology. And because this training allows your true self to emerge, others may notice the changes in you even before you realize that you feel different.

In order to reach a specific objective, the training usually continues for a specific number of sessions. If there is a loss of optimal training effect after completion, due to stresses in your life, a few booster sessions may be recommended. However, just as concert pianists practice more than the rest of us, rather than less, Neurofeedback Training can be used without limit to enhance performance. This “peak performance training” may be of interest to professional athletes, corporate executives, and performing artists.

Drawbacks to Neurofeedback are that insurance companies usually do not pay for it, and that it requires a significant time commitment (up to three or four times a week to begin with) as well as a financial commitment. However, it is usually very effective in situations where medication must be avoided or where there is a strong preference against it.

Please click here for an article about our neurofeedback training with a boy who has ADHD, and the test results that demonstrate its effectiveness.