Are you looking for any alternative treatment for your conditions like anxiety, depression, or ADHD? Have you ever heard about any other alternate treatment method?
In case, you have heard about Neurofeedback you must be wondering what exactly it is? How it really works, and whether it can help you or not? Let us therefore try to discuss about it in brief manner.
What is neurofeedback?
Nowadays in the field of healthcare, “Biofeedback training” has become a growing trend, where people need to be hooked up to various devices to take measurement of different aspects of body functions to check how all these processes are going on in real-time.
Neurofeedback is a specific form of this biofeedback training, which consciously monitors the changes in brain wave activity with the aid of training programs. There are different ways that this can be done based on the method your practitioner chooses. The purpose of neurofeedback is to help dysregulated brain wave activity, consistent with the symptoms you are experiencing, to come back within normal limits so your symptoms become better.
Following are few benefits of Neurofeedback training.
1. Overall brain health
There are many types of mental heath problems or medical issues that can cause structural changes in the brain and dysregulated brain wave patterns. Being able to help the brain recover from those changes helps aid neuroplasticity. A heathy brain can aid in being able to easily recall information, increase focus and increase creativity.
2. Improved memory
Researchers have found that neurofeedback may improve our memory due to increased neuroplasticity.
Various studies have proven with the help of neurofeedback training, people may be better able to focus, concentrate, remember dates, names, more details, and easily remember previous conversations or events. In many cases, this kind of training can offer effective cognitive improvements and increased neuroplasticity.
3. Improved sleep
It has been observed that people who have undergone neurofeedback training have been able to achieve much better sleep. With better sleep patterns, people tend to experience more energy and increased cognitive performance.
Often people are not able to get proper sleep due to fast moving brain wave activity, which does not allow them to have proper sleep.
4. Reduced ADHD symptoms
Those experiencing ADHD symptoms may have an increase in slow brain wave activity often known as theta. In ADHD, a common presentation is for a person to have too much slow wave activity (theta) and decreased fast wave activity known as beta, which helps a person more present when engaged in a task.
Researchers have found that with neurofeedback training this condition can be reversed.
5. Reduced anxiety
Usually, anxiety is related to symptoms of racing thoughts, feeling antsy/agitated, and also experiencing sleep disturbances.
This is often reflected in our brain map, which shows an excess of certain fast-moving beta waves. Anxiety can also show up in brain maps as a decrease in calming frequencies like delta (sense of groundedness), theta (relaxed on the beach with a margarita), or alpha, which is relaxed but alert.
Neurofeedback training can increase alpha waves and reduce anxiety levels.
6. Improved depression symptoms
Depression symptoms can manifest differently when brain mapping is done. Depression is commonly seen when a person has too much slow brain wave activity such as theta, or areas of the brain that are communicating too much slow activity. This may also result in irregular sleeping patterns, and deficits in cognitive abilities such as focus, concentration, working memory, etc.
Neurofeedback training can have significant beneficial effects for patients with major depressive disorder.
Few side-effects of neurofeedback
Following are a few mild side-effects, which have been reported during neurofeedback training offered by any certified professional.
- Feeling of fatigue
- Disoriented feeling
- Anxious
- Agitated/irritable
- Headaches
However, according to researchers all side effects reported are most often temporary, which is likely because of a person being new to neurofeedback training, training perimeters are too difficult to achieve, or excessively long sessions of training rather than neurofeedback treatment itself.
Laila Azzahra is a professional writer and blogger that loves to write about technology, business, entertainment, science, and health.