Author Archives: Tamera

Health Problems and Adverse Childhood Experiences

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In her phenomenal book, the deepest well, pediatrician Dr. Nadine Burke Harris writes about the link between childhood adversity and physical illness. She notes that children who have had a significant number of adverse events in childhood are more likely to be referred to a doctor for ADHD, have impulse control problems, asthma, and to suffer from a myriad of other physical symptoms. As adults, these children are more likely to be obese and suffer from cardiac problems, and they face as much as a 20-year reduction in life expectancy due to health-related concerns.

The connection between emotional trauma and physical problems that Dr. Harris has based her practice on was first popularized through research done at Kaiser. Kaiser’s team of researchers developed a 10-question list of potentially traumatic experiences people may have experienced prior to age 18, called the ACE scale.  Dr. Harris expanded upon the ACE test, because it does not capture all the types of traumas that children might experience, and integrated the use of those scores in her clinic in an impoverished area of San Francisco to improve physical and mental health. Dr. Harris found that a multi-modal approach to wellness helps improve outcomes for her patients and can help both children and adults.

It is interesting to me that Dr. Harris expanded upon the ACE test to include questions relevant to her patient base, because I have wondered more than once whether many people are experiencing the coronavirus pandemic as a trauma. If so, then it makes sense to nip any potential long-term problems in the bud through stress reduction techniques. The obvious steps are the ones will all know about but need reminders to do:  eat nutritious food, move our bodies, and sleep.   Other tools, though, can help, too, such as meditation or mindfulness practices, breathing practices, and body work (acupuncture, Reiki, massage, etc.). Certainly, going directly to the nervous system and calming it through neurofeedback would be an amazing benefit.  Neurofeedback cannot fix a crazy world, but it can help us respond to it in healthier ways. (I work with individuals age eight and older.)

If the link between emotional and physical health interests you, I strongly encourage you to read the deepest well. If you’re not a reader or don’t have time, Dr. Harris provides an abbreviated version of her story through a Ted talk, which you can access here.

If you’re curious about your own or a loved one’s ACE score, here is a copy:

For each “yes” answer, add 1. The total number at the end is your cumulative number of ACEs.
Before your 18th birthday:

  1. Did a parent or other adult in the household often or very often… Swear at you, insult you, put you down, or humiliate you? or Act in a way that made you afraid that you might be physically hurt?
  2. Did a parent or other adult in the household often or very often… Push, grab, slap, or throw something at you? or Ever hit you so hard that you had marks or were injured?
  3. Did an adult or person at least 5 years older than you ever… Touch or fondle you or have you touch their body in a sexual way? or Attempt or actually have oral, anal, or vaginal intercourse with you?
  4. Did you often or very often feel that … No one in your family loved you or thought you were important or special? or Your family didn’t look out for each other, feel close to each other, or support each other?
  5. Did you often or very often feel that … You didn’t have enough to eat, had to wear dirty clothes, and had no one to protect you? or Your parents were too drunk or high to take care of you or take you to the doctor if you needed it?
  6. Were your parents ever separated or divorced?
  7. Was your mother or stepmother:
    Often or very often pushed, grabbed, slapped, or had something thrown at her? or Sometimes, often, or very often kicked, bitten, hit with a fist, or hit with something hard? or Ever repeatedly hit over at least a few minutes or threatened with a gun or knife?
  8. Did you live with anyone who was a problem drinker or alcoholic, or who used street drugs?
  9. Was a household member depressed or mentally ill, or did a household member attempt suicide?
  10. Did a household member go to prison?

If your total of ‘yes’ responses is four or greater, you are among those at higher risk for health problems.  A high score does not mean that you definitely will have health challenges, because this scale does not include protective factors that will build your resilience.

 

 

 

Remote Training is Possible

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Neurofeedback requires placing electrodes on the scalp to record brainwave activity and reward the brain for shifting.  Because of this, most people think that this must be done in an office setting. It CAN be done remotely, however.

Until the outbreak of coronavirus, most people who used this option either lived too far from a practitioner to commute regularly or required so many sessions that in-office training wasn’t financially feasible.  Now, however, the world of neurofeedback has shifted, and remote training is gaining in popularity.

HOW IT WORKS

There are many approaches to home training. If you would like to train with me, you do come to the office for an initial brain map and training plan (I keep my office clean. You can read about steps I take here).  During that appointment, you learn how to attach electrodes and where to put them on the scalp, and you receive the equipment you’ll need for home training.

After that, we schedule online appointments. I oversee how you are placing electrodes, setting up the equipment, and running sessions.  There is, of course, a learning curve involved in this, but thousands of people around the world are doing it, and so can you.  You’re never on your own unless you feel confident and want to conduct sessions on your own.

If you would like to know more about this option, please reach out.  I can conduct consultations online or in person, and I do not charge for consults.

Stress Reduction for Students

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With a new school year beginning, many of us are worried about our students’ mental health and well-being.  A small study from Yale University and reported in Science Daily found that a combination of SKY breath meditation, yoga postures, social connections and service activities resulted in benefits in six reported measures of well-being. These measurements were: depression, stress, overall mental health, mindfulness, positive affect, and social connectedness.  Interestingly, the study found that the combination of activities resulted in better results than the internationally known Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program.

The study, though small, underscores the idea that there is no one single means of creating well-being. How we breathe, move, connect, and care are each an important component of overall health (I would personally add sleeping well, eating well, and spiritual practices to this list).  You may find the Science Daily article here and a site about SKY Breath Meditation here.

 

Stress Reduction Live on Your Computer Screen

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Several years ago, an acquaintance introduced me to the live bear camera at Brooks Falls in Katmai National Park, Alaska. This motion-activated camera broadcasts events at the falls, which usually includes multiple bears sunning themselves and fishing for the salmon that are flinging themselves up the falls.  Because the camera moves to catch activity, the camera sometimes points downstream and away from the falls, which then becomes audible but not visible.

Being in nature is known to relax our nervous systems and create a sense of well-being.  When you cannot escape from your home or office but need a moment to escape and relax, check out the bear camera at   https://explore.org/livecams/brown-bears/brown-bear-salmon-cam-brooks-falls.  See if it doesn’t add a bit of relaxation to your day.  I find the sound of the falls and the antics of the bears to be as calming and mesmerizing as watching flames flicker in a campfire.

I encourage you to start with the bears and the waterfall sounds, but know that Explore.org also has many other live-action cameras capturing the activities of animals around the world.

COVID-19 Stress and Neurofeedback

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It’s almost a cliché at the point to say that we are living in uncertain and uncharted times, but it is true.  As a result, many, if not most of us, live through days of stress, anxiety, worry, depression, fear, boredom, and just plain discombobulation. A day or two of that as part of the ups and downs of living with a new virus that we’re still trying to understand is fine. We can roll with it.  But, what if almost every day is a rough day? What if you’re not rolling with things well?

There are many little tools that can help, and I’ll write another post in a few days with a list of things you can do to cope better with the new normal of ups and downs.

For now, let’s focus on a big, long-term solution:  neurofeedback and its ability to calm the nervous system.

Back in the late 1960s, before we used the term neurofeedback, a UCLA neuroscientist named Barry Sterman was experimenting with brain-based biofeedback training on his laboratory cats. He found that he could get the cats to relax using his biofeedback technique.

Shortly thereafter, NASA approached him and asked for toxicity testing on rocket fuel, because some of the astronauts in the Apollo program were having what they thought might be reactions to the fuel. Dr. Sterman agreed to help and injected his cats with rocket fuel (I know!). All the cats had seizures as a result, and many died. However, some cats survived, and those lived didn’t have seizure onset nearly as fast as the ones who died did. Dr. Sterman quickly realized that the cats he’d done brain training on were the ones that survived and had delayed seizures.

The realization that brain training led to relaxation and survival resulted in Dr. Sterman experimenting with one of his graduate students who suffered from epilepsy and was willing to see if brain training could help. It did.  From that, neurofeedback for humans was born.

Think about the lesson from this:  brain-training on cats led to such a huge relaxation response that they survived being injected with rocket fuel.

Imagine what can be achieved with humans, especially after over 50 additional years of research and experimentation.

Neurofeedback calms the nervous system and helps create a relaxation response. Relaxation, in turn, creates a cascade that results in less worry and a greater sense of well-being.

Right now in particular, if you are feeling miserable and want to change your response to the world around you, neurofeedback is an excellent option.  Relaxation happens within a few visits, and long-lasting results are achieved within a few months.

I’m doing my best to keep coming to my office a safe and low-stress experience.

Only a few people throughout the entire day are here, and I have my appointment times spaced so that you and I would be the only ones in the office. I’m sanitizing all door handles and surfaces people touch after each client leaves. I’m using air purifiers that cycle through the office air pretty quickly. I’m not accepting clients who are cavalier about physical safety.

Obviously, no place is perfect, but I had someone who is medically fragile tell me last week that he thought my office was the cleanest space he goes. I took that as a high compliment.

If you want and need to relax, give me a call or email tamera@brainshapellc.com, and we can chat about whether neurofeedback makes sense for you.

 

 

What is a Neurofeedback Session Like?

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If you come in to my office for a consultation, you get to see first-hand what neurofeedback in my office looks and feels like, but many people are maintaining a COVID lockdown or are still in the planning stages and want to know without reaching out. I get that and thought it might be helpful if I described what to expect, especially because not every practitioner conducts sessions the same way. Here’s what sessions are like with me;

The Logistics.

I offer:

Twice Weekly Sessions, at a Minimum.  Just like you can’t go to a gym once a week and expect to see fast results, once weekly sessions are an incredibly slow way to achieve results, so I ask clients to commit to twice weekly appointments.  When someone feels an urgency for faster results, I am willing to see people up to five days a week.  I have, on occasion, even had people come twice daily for sessions.  This level of intensity, however, is neither necessary nor desirable for most people with busy lives.

One-Hour Sessions.  If you work with me, each session lasts up to an hour. In that one hour, it’s my goal to offer 40 minutes of actual brain training. The remaining time is for set-up and clean-up, as well as sharing feedback on progress made.

It is also important to note that it is not necessary to do anything special before a session. People come in to my office and train wherever they are that day.  If a person is tired, the computer software adjusts to reward the tired brain. If they are well-rested and ready-to-go, the system also matches that.

The Experience.

Neurofeedback should always feel comfortable. Training your brain should NOT be a no pain/no gain proposition.  The most negative thing that happens with my trainees is a feeling of fatigue some—not all—people get, usually when first starting out with sessions.  Almost all my clients look forward to their sessions, in large part because they are so relaxing.

Most people enjoy the process.  I offer both auditory and visual feedback, with the visual feedback being movies or video clips. It doesn’t matter what someone is watching; it just matters that there is something on the screen to provide feedback. This is especially appealing to teens and children who think they’re simply being given additional screen time, when the truth is that their brains are working hard to earn the reward of the video playing.

It’s also possible to play simple games to earn feedback rewards for the brain. I use games sometimes, but most people eventually find the games to be tedious. Although they’re not in my office for entertainment purposes, I see no reason to make the process unpleasant.

Neurofeedback is not invasive.  I do not offer microcurrent neurofeedback, which is not actual feedback and works by applying electrical charge to the scalp in the hope of “resetting” brain function (some people do; it’s just not part of my philosophy of practice).  This means that nothing I offer is invasive.  Electrodes are attached to the scalp using either conductive paste or gel, depending upon your choice of using a cap or individual electrodes. These electrodes simply listen in to the brain’s electrical energy patterns; they do not zap.  Both the paste and the gel come out with soap and water, and the paste is easily removed/concealed after training with a simply cotton ball and rubbing alcohol.

Neurofeedback is a team process. I know how to operate the equipment and how to decide where and what to train, but you know your body best.  Therefore, we work as a team, with you providing feedback that helps direct the training process.  You are empowered and not just a patient.

My goal is to offer each person a safe and comfortable environment in which people can train their brains in an effective, non-invasive, and pleasurable way. If this interests you, or if you have questions I didn’t think to answer, come and check it out. Consults are free and truly no-obligation, and I’m offering both in-person and online appointments.

 

Overwhelm, COVID-19, and Interpersonal Neurobiology

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Dr. Curt Thompson is a Falls Church-based psychiatrist who has written books on the topics of shame and the connection between neuroscience and spirituality. He also is a frequent speaker around the country, and almost all his work centers on interpersonal neurobiology.  In our few professional interactions, I have found him to be exceptionally kind and caring.

It just came to my attention that Dr. Thompson had written a blog post a couple of months ago about social distancing, online connections, and the fatigue that comes from not being as connected to others as we normally are during this time of COVID-19.  I recommend that you take a few minutes to read it, as he hits on key concepts that underlie our fatigue, including anger, fear, and lack of movement. He goes beyond explaining to offer some simple yet effective antidotes.

Although his ideas are universal ones for those of any faith or no faith tradition, Dr. Thompson comes from a Christian perspective.  As with so many things in life, I encourage you to take what works and leave the rest. You can find his article here.

Addressing Fear: Life Unlocked

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A coach I know recently recommended to me the book Life Unlocked:  7 Revolutionary Lessons to Overcome Fear, by Harvard professor of psychiatry Dr. Srinivasan S. Pillay, and I, in turn, want to recommend it to you.

Dr. Pillay uses brain science to explain the structure of fear in the brain, and he does so in ways that are approachable for a layperson, which makes this more than a simple self-help book. He also offers suggestions for addressing and potentially overcoming the fear that exists in so many of our lives.

Among the topics he addresses are:

  • How fear registers itself in the brain in ways that we do not notice.
  • How hope can be an antidote to dread.
  • How to transcend fear of success.
  • How to shift deeply engrained habits of mind that create fear.
  • How fear affects attachment in relationships and how to address it.
  • How fear underlies racial prejudice, how to become aware of it, and how to undo it.
  • Trauma, fear, and the impact on the body.

The book is full of insightful and helpful bits of information of the sort that you’re likely to find yourself underlining and coming back to reread. One that struck me and gave me a WOW reaction was, “People who experience childhood trauma are six times more likely to develop chronic fatigue syndrome as adults.” I could have quoted several dozen equally interesting pieces of information that he shares with readers.

The book, though detailed and interesting, is merely a starting point for addressing fear and not a book that offers a fix for everything that ails everyone.  His one seemingly universal suggestion is to meditate.

This summary is a hasty one, and I encourage you to check out the book for yourself if the topic of fear interests you or applies to you (as it does to most of us).  I have a copy in my office library that I’m willing to share with past, current, or potential future clients.

Television and the Brain

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Every few months, someone asks me about screen time and their children.  The question is usually related to video gaming.  However, watching television also shifts brain-wave function.

If you’ve ever sat down in the evening to watch just a little bit of television, only to emerge from a trance-like state hours later and chalk it up to fatigue after a long day, you’re not alone.  However, that sense of fatigue and inertia comes from the television itself.  All screens refresh themselves several times per second, creating a flicker.  This flicker of the television is a form of entrainment, or forcing the brain into a different electrical pattern.

Since the late 1960s, we have known that this entrainment very quickly shifts a person from an alert, beta state into a daydreamy or meditative alpha state. That meditative state makes it hard to get up from watching television and do the next thing you planned to do with your day.  It’s not just you feeling lazy; it’s your brain downshifted.  It’s just one more reason, on top of studies showing a correlation between hours of television watched and negative health impacts, to monitor and perhaps reduce the number of hours a day watching television.

Here is an interesting article from a woman who gave up television altogether for a month.  It’s not a journal article, but the author’s experience is interesting, and her writing is an easy read.

Brain Gadgets

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A colleague of mine shared a blog post today from a nationally known website in which the author was touting the amazing benefits of his company’s brain gadget.  The article was mostly fluff, yet the author simultaneously was making huge claims about treating wide variety of mental disorders. It was frustrating and disheartening to me, because I knew the inventor/original distributor of this device, and I knew that person if still alive would be disheartened to read all that hyperbole for a device that is really quite good, yet not that unbelievably good.

It seems to me that there are an increasing number of similar advertisements created under the guise of information sharing rather than blatant advertising.  How does one know which of these brain-entrainment devices are worth trying and which are pretty much useless?

To be honest, I’ve fallen for a few of these pitches, especially if my fellow neurofeedback practitioners start to sound excited, too.  Here are a few of the warning signs that a brain gadget might not be worth your time:

No content.  If you find yourself reading something that has lots of impressive-sounding language, yet you cannot quite put your finger on the point, that’s a warning sign that the inventors are trying to sell you something without proof that it does what it claims to do.

Overstating benefits. If you find yourself reading about benefits that are so amazing, they’re almost too good to be true, beware. They might just be untrue.

Authority posturing. If you find yourself leaning toward a brain gadget that claims to be FDA registered and yet it’s for sale to the general public, start wondering. Meditation and relaxation tools do not need to be registered; it’s done for marketing purposes to impress potential buyers. This is often done with neurofeedback equipment to make it seem more professional, but really, the end result is often simply a more expensive product that does the same thing that more reasonably priced units provide.

Too cheap to be true. Tinkering with the brain requires know-how, and even if the gadget itself is simple and not that expensive to make, the intellect and time behind the creation have value and ought to be reflected in price.  Cutting-edge brain-entrainment devices certainly are less expensive than ever before, but there comes a point when a device is simply a toy that thinkers rather than a powerful tool that shifts.

It’s kind of a jungle out there these days.  Entrepreneurs are trying to find ways around the time and effort that people put in to neurofeedback training, either at home or with a professional. So far, there really are no hacks that achieve that goal.  I use brain gadgets to loan to clients for use in between actual brain-training sessions, but there are no short-cuts; these devices are helpful but no replacement for EEG or HEG neurofeedback.

 

Generosity is Our Natural State

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Sometimes, a journal article reaches my desk that’s worth sharing, even though it isn’t directly brain-related.  The title from a Science Daily summary of the study says it all: “People try to do right by each other, no matter the motivation, study finds.”  The research was done at Ohio State and published in the journal Science Advances, and it shows that people are basically generous in nature.  In the midst of 2020, this seems like a good reminder of what the optimistic among us already believe.  You can find the study here.

Reopened!

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As of June 1st, the office is re-open and accepting new clients.

We have taken reasonable precautions to make the office safe for people to be here.  Our two primary steps have been disinfection and reduced interpersonal contact.

The neurofeedback equipment has always been cleaned between clients, and we are now disinfecting surfaces that people might touch, such as chairs, faucets, and door handles.  We have also installed three air purifiers to capture airborne droplets that may contain viruses.  We ask that you wash your hands upon entering the office and not to come at all if you feel unwell.

Reducing contact with others in the office has required bigger changes, and the result is that the office will be quiet and empty when you arrive. We are limiting the number of people in the office to one trainee and one additional person, whom we ask to arrive no more than five minutes before appointment time.  In addition, my colleagues continue to work from home doing tele-health, so they and their clients are not coming and going.

While here, social distancing can occur.  Neurofeedback involves close contact to place and remove sensors, but just for a few minutes.

Finally, I have increased spacing between clients to give the air purifiers time to fully cycle the air in the room and to improve social distancing.  This means that my overall number of appointment slots is reduced, but right now, I do still have room for new people.

If you have been considering doing neurofeedback, now is a low-key time to try it.  Don’t hesitate to reach out.

 

A Lifetime of New Neurons

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For most of the 20th century, accepted knowledge in the world of neuroscience was that the adult brain did not grow new brain cells.  That could have changed in the 1960s, when scientists found brain cells growing in monkey brains, and then in human brains.  However, as science sometimes goes, rather than accepting the findings of the scientists who tried to publish their discovery of brain cell growth, called neurogenesis, the scientific community destroyed the reputation and careers of those who tried to bring their discovery to light.

After that, it took until the late 1990s before someone again brought forward evidence of neurogenesis.  Now, it is accepted that an area of the brain called the hippocampus grows new cells, and that cell growth occurs throughout the lifespan for those with healthy brains.

A study from 2019 that was published in Nature Medicine and summarized in Technology Network’s Neuroscience News and Research shows that there is some neurogenesis through at least the ninth decade of life.  This is true even in the brains of those with Alzheimer’s Disease, though the rate of growth is significantly diminished.  You can read the summary here and the study itself here.

Executive Functioning Tasks in the Brain

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Executive function in the brain—broadly considered to be things like working memory, transitioning from one task to another, impulse control, and decision-making—has long been believed to occur in a part of the brain called the frontal cortex.  Now, research that will be published in the journal Cortex this July and recently summarized in Science Daily, revealed that executive function behaviors involve a part of the brain called the inferior frontal junction (IFJ) and that the IFJ is, in turn, part of a network for executive functioning.

Researchers made this discovery through observing the workings of the brain of a woman who had a rare pattern of damage from a stroke in which the same parts of the brain in both hemispheres received damage.

Fortunately, near this region is among the first places on the brain that neurofeedback practitioners began training some 40 years ago, which means that this discovery does not significantly alter or undo the work of most brain trainers.

You can read the Science Daily summary here and the Cortex abstract here.

 

Reopening Safely

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As Northern Virginia moves closer to re-opening, I have been looking at how to reopen my office to new clients in ways that keep everyone as safe as possible.  There is no one magical step that can assure office safety, but each step adds additional benefit, and the cumulative effect of multiple methods hopefully will be enough to reduce dramatically the chance that my office is a vector for disease.  Here are some of the steps I will be taking:

Hand Washing.  I have always washed my hands between seeing each client and as early as February started requesting that clients coming to the office do the same as they arrived.  This practice will continue; everyone who enters the office suite must immediately wash hands. Hand sanitizer is available as an additional step, but experts say that hand washing is most effective.

Surface Disinfection.  We have hospital-grade sanitizing wipes on hand, and I will be washing down my work space, door handles, and sink handles after each client departs, so that surfaces are clean for the next person.  I have always cleaned headphones and other devices with rubbing alcohol in between clients and will continue that practice.

Air Filtration.  HEPA filters capture particles down to .3 microns, and most viruses are an average of .125 microns.  However, viruses don’t fly through the air on their own. They are normally in droplets of moisture coughed or sneezed, and those droplets are more than .3 microns.  There has not been time yet for air purification system companies to have conducted independent testing to prove that their products capture droplets containing the novel coronavirus.  Common sense, however, suggests that the added benefit of air purification will make the space cleaner.  I have purchased two air purification systems from a company that does a good job of explaining the benefits and possible limitations of air filtration. You can access their blog here: https://www.alencorp.com/blogs/articles/air-purifiers-and-coronavirus .

Spacing Appointments.  Brain training appointments will no longer be back-to-back.  I will be separating each new trainee by 30 minutes to allow the air filtration to process the air in a room and to allow time for additional surface cleaning.

On-Time Arrivals.  Before, it was no problem if people arrived early to the office for their appointment.  One could simply grab a beverage and sit in the waiting room.  Now, I am asking that even if one arrives early, he or she should wait until no sooner than five minutes before an appointment to come into the office suite.  This limits the amount of contact time and potential encountering of other trainees.

Limited Attendance.  Before, it was not a problem to bring spouses, siblings or others into the office space.  Now, I am asking that attendance in the office be limited to the trainee plus one other person.  If this is not possible, I ask for advance notice to make accommodation.  In addition to limiting guests in the office suite, my two office mates are able to offer tele-health appointments and, at this time, do not have plans to return to face-to-face appointments any time soon.  Therefore, there will be no more than three people in the suite at the same time.

Moved my Seating.  I normally sit next to trainees to monitor their progress during sessions.  Now, I have moved to a chair that is approximately six feet behind the training desk, where I can see what is happening and remain at a distance.

Cancel if You Feel Unwell.  Brain training while sick has never been a great idea, so I have never charged for missed appointments due to illness.  Now, I am emphasizing the point more.  If you feel unwell, I will be asking that you cancel your appointment until you feel better.  It is difficult to discern without testing the difference between the novel coronavirus and other similar viruses, so please just stay home.

As things progress, these steps may evolve or change, but this is what I am aware I can do right now to make my office space as safe as possible in these unprecedented times.  Feel free to contact me if you have questions or are interested in a consultation.