One of the questions I frequently receive is how neurofeedback training progresses and what that’s like.  The short answer is that it varies by person.  The longer answer is that although each person experiences neurofeedback slightly differently, for most people, there is a common pattern.

The Normal Pattern

Most people begin to notice changes somewhere between six and ten sessions.  I like to use an exercise analogy here in that if you were to start a regular exercise habit, you’d find that it takes several weeks to start to notice muscle definition, greater endurance, etc.  It’s the same with neurofeedback.  Although changes are probably happening at the cellular level right away, you don’t really see the differences for a while.

In fact, when changes do start to be noticeable, many people are not sure it’s from neurofeedback.  They will tell me that things are shifting, but that it could’ve just been a good day at work, or something they ate, or the benefits of finally getting some down time.  And, that’s fair.  Our lives are too complicated to know with 100% certainty what caused any one change.

Over time, though, people will begin to realize that the changes are starting to be longer-lasting.  Results string out for more hours at a time, or more days a week.  Eventually people doing brain training realize that their changes must be coming from neurofeedback, and that gets exciting.

The excitement carries most people over through the routine part of training, when no new changes are happening, but training must continue to occur to ensure that those new energy patterns in the brain “stick.” Most neurofeedback practitioners believe that this is a learning process for the brain, and that learning needs to be ingrained.

Toward the end of training, the number of sessions tapers from two or more times a week to once a week or less.  This is to ensure that the training is long-lasting and that there is no back-sliding. By this time, some people doing training tell me that they have a hard time remembering what things were really like before training. This is okay, because they’re just happy with their results.

Other Possibilities

This is the normal course of training that lasts around 40 sessions.  It can vary, though. Sometimes, people begin to experience results as soon as the first training session.  This may be the start of a long-lasting shift, but it can also be a bit of a novelty effect, in which the brain responds extremely strongly to training, and no session after that will ever have the dazzle of that initial, amazing shift.  I personally don’t like it when this happens, because even though the brain’s energy patterns may shift just like the person wants, it doesn’t come with the fanfare of the opening session, and that tends to discourage people and make them want to stop, even though sticking with it would help them reach their goals.

That said, some lucky people who do neurofeedback get results almost immediately, and they stick well.  These individuals end up needing far fewer sessions than the average person, so they save time and money.  Most of the time, people who get fantastic results are doing other things in their lives, such as eating clean, sleeping long enough (a rarity in Northern Virginia!), and pursuing other interventions such as acupuncture, counseling, spiritual work, or chiropractic care.

The opposite of an immediate shift can also happen, meaning that it may take far longer than 6-10 sessions to begin to see results. When that happens, it’s important to understand why. Sometimes, it’s because a person may have a diagnosis that makes training challenging, such as autism.  Sometimes, it’s because the trainee is using certain medications that make progress with neurofeedback challenging.  Sometimes, it’s because the trainee hasn’t committed to regular training.  And, more rarely, sometimes we just don’t know why.

For the vast majority of people, the regular trajectory of slow and steady results is what’s desirable, and what happens. To explore more about how neurofeedback might unfold for you, give me a call and set up a consultation.