Heart-rate variability therapy for anxiety is a bit like the tail wagging the dog. But it’s surprisingly effective. Here’s how it works. Heart-rate variability (HRV) means how much your heart beat speeds up and slows down. You may feel that it beats faster only when you run or when you’re scared, but actually, a much [...]
December 22, 2011
A first-year student at the local university contacted my husband early this fall, referred by his neurofeedback therapist in Toronto. He’d just gotten started on neurofeedback and desperately wanted to continue, but now he was too far away to go to appointments. He wanted to know if my husband could do the therapy for him. [...]
June 21, 2011
Yesterday I posted about the anterior cingulate gyrus. And no, I’m not an expert, I’m just a blogger. But if you want to read from an expert, go to Wikipedia. Trust me, my version’s easier. Today, we roll up our sleeves and explore the posterior cingulate gyrus. Ahem. Let me rephrase that. Some of my [...]
June 20, 2011
My husband has just returned from a one-week conference on using EEG (neurofeedback) to treat developmental and learning disorders. I picked his brain on a four-hour drive to IKEA yesterday. There’s nothing like being behind a steering wheel to make people talk. So I’ve got enough information to put together a blog series about Asperger’s [...]
August 15, 2009
We’re not really supposed to talk about this. Yet with so many Asperger (and ADHD) kids doing neurofeedback now and eliminating their neurological difficulties, we end up at a place that hasn’t been defined yet. Post-Asperger syndrome. Or Post-ADHD. Post-Tourette’s. What happens when you remove the Aspergerism from a person who has been Asperger since [...]
March 30, 2009
We saw the doctor at the neurofeedback clinic over (Canadian) Thanksgiving. He said good work etc., but we need to shift the focus onto heart-rate variability. HRV involves using a breathing belt around the waist and a pulse monitor on the finger, instead of electrodes attached to the head. The computer presents two graphs: one [...]
December 20, 2008
We are hardly remembering to do neurofeedback and heart-rate variability training now. Occasionally we squeeze it in on a weekend. Phasing out the meds has been a breeze so far. We are now at 1/8 dose and should be off everything completely next week. We haven’t seen much to be concerned about. I pronounce the [...]
November 28, 2008
So then, what is this neurofeedback thing? In five sentences: The brain produces several overlapping patterns of electrical wave currents. These change as the brain grows from babyhood to adulthood. Normal wave patterns produce normal brain activity and behaviour. Abnormal brain waves (too high or too low in certain categories) produce abnormal brain activity and [...]
November 20, 2008
I was going to call it “Breakthrough Day.” We had been told that by around 60 hours of neurofeedback training, we should start seeing some results. Controlling brainwaves is a lot like riding a bike. A lot of nothing happens, just floundering around, till suddenly you’re up and balancing and moving forward. It was like [...]
November 7, 2008
Neuroplasticity is one of those words to have in your lexicon when you need to impress. It means the brain is play-dough. We can mold it and reshape it. Don’t believe me? Over the past 20 years, research has debunked a lot of the myths about the rigid brain. Remember when you learned back in [...]
January 7, 2012
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