One of the questions I’m often asked during consultations is whether a person can continue taking medications during brain training. The short answer is yes, but the longer answer to that is nuanced.

The first and most important thing to keep in mind before addressing the issue of brain training and medications is that no one should be going off or skipping medications that their doctor has prescribed unless they are working with that doctor to do so. Period. That means, don’t stop using your medications abruptly just because you want to do neurofeedback.

If a person decides to do neurofeedback while taking prescription medications, it is important to work with their prescribing doctor and learn about the signs of over-medication for whatever product they are consuming. Often, those who use neurofeedback find that they need to reduce the dosage or eliminate their medications. It is not my job, nor is it within the scope of my practice, to advise when and where to start lowering medications. Only a physician should be doing this, which is why I am rather adamant about the issue of over-medication and talking to one’s doctor.

All those caveats aside, from a neurofeedback perspective, using medications while doing brain training is fine. My neurofeedback software is set up to train a person’s brain right where it is at the time one arrives for training. This means that the brain is receiving feedback as it is in the moment. A medicated brain gets trained where it’s at, and an unmedicated brain trains where it’s at in any given moment, too.

Let’s say that I set the computer system to reward the brain 80% of the time. It is going to train 80% of a medicated brain’s state, just as it is going to train 80% of a fresh, morning brain or 80% of a tired-at-the-end-of-a-long-work-day brain. The brain is going to receive a good workout, but the workout is customized to meet the needs of a fresh, tired, medicated, or unmedicated brain. That’s part of the beauty of the software.

There is one caveat to this, and that is a category of medications called benzodiazepenes. They are quite a powerful class of drug, and they often overpower the gentle teaching tool that is neurofeedback. It’s still possible to get results if one is using a benzodiazepine-class medication, but whether those results “stick” depends upon the person’s individual physiology, as well as dosage and whether a person is taking it daily or only as needed. Again, do not change what you are doing without doctor approval, just know that with benzodiazepenes in the mix, it’s a trickier call as to whether neurofeedback will be as helpful and calming as you’d wish it to be.

The bottom line is that it is just fine to do brain training while taking your prescription medications as prescribed, but keep your doctor informed.