What is Neurofeedback Anyway?
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What is Neurofeedback Anyway?
I get asked that question several times a week .Hi, I’m Dr. Randy Cale, a licensed psychologist in New York and Florida, and having a neurofeedback practice, I get lots of inquiries because parents, individuals, they’re reading about the effectiveness of neurofeedback and blown away by some of what they’re reading. Because neurofeedback is a technology that actually changes very gradually in incrementally the way the brain works. There’s no forcing, there’s no coercion, so they’re interested, what is neurofeedback?
So, I explained it in this way, neurofeedback is a form of biofeedback, now often, that’s not helpful right. What is biofeedback? biofeedback happens when we take a signal that the body, in the case of neurofeedback, the brain is emitting, that is below the level of conscious awareness right. We don’t perceive it, we read that signal and then, we use amplifiers to make it significant enough that we can read that.
Biofeedback and Neurofeedback
And with biofeedback and neurofeedback, when we’re wanting that signal to go down, for example, in a case of brain waves, we might want them to if we have a high theta, in the case of anxiety or ADD and we want that to come down. we then read that brainwave and when it by its own natural course drops just the tedious amount in the course of daily functioning right. We read it, we reward the person who’s doing neurofeedback so they get a tone or they get an increase in brightness, there are various ways we can reward the brain for that, and over time, the brain puts together these reward signals and understands that that’s the direction we want to go in.
Now, the brain will not move against itself, it will only move in ways that feel better, that’s why we don’t have side effects with neurofeedback, and why when there is significant change that tends to be sustained and that brain actually gets better and better over time. So, let’s go back to what is neurofeedback, it’s a form of biofeedback, there’s nothing put into the brain, there’s no coercion, there’s no signals, there’s no electrical impulse, there’s no risk then, very very little this people get tired sometimes, they get headaches but that’s the sign.
