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Mar 3 18

Pneuma – What Is Neurofeedback

Sarah Probst

Neurofeedback is simple.

Your brain is locked in the darkness and learns how it is doing through your senses. Neurofeedback is simply the process of capturing brain-wave activity through electrodes on the scalp, and feeding that information back to the brain through your senses. Neurofeedback shows your brain a reflection of what your brain is doing. Once your brain can see itself, it can correct itself!

Your brain can detect dysfunctions in itself and correct itself accordingly when it receives the feedback information. We are not really sure how the brain “knows” how to correct dysfunctions, but it seems to come pre-packaged with a hardwiring that defaults toward peace, calm, mental clarity, focus, regulated sleep and an elevated mood. Apparently, our brains are smarter than we are!

How Does Neurofeedback Work Infographic

One common example of our brain’s need for feedback is when we are singing. Let’s say you sing into a microphone, but your ears don’t work so your brain can’t hear what is happening. It would be very difficult for your brain to sing on pitch. But, if you can hear properly, and you have a voice input in your ear, as the sound of your voice travels through the microphone, is amped and then fed back to your brain through your ears, your brain is then able to evaluate the feedback and somehow it knows how to correct your pitch. It is the same with neurofeedback. Brain waves are translated into visual, auditory, and tactile inputs. Those three inputs provide your brain with a reflection of its own activity, and somehow (we don’t really know how exactly) but somehow the brain corrects itself.

Without feedback such as in cases like paralysis, deafness, blindness, etc., the brain malfunctions. This feedback loop is crucial in order to prevent us from harming ourselves, falling over, running into walls, singing off-key, and billions of other human scenarios. Just like the brain knows to instantly move our finger off of a burning stove when the nerve feedback information is received, the same is true when the brain receives a reflection of its own dysfunctional brain-wave activity. Somehow, it knows how it should behave, and defaults toward safety, elevated mood, focused attention, regulated sleep, and peace (to name a few).

Young Portland girl touching a hot pot on a stove

Neurofeedback Results Speak for Themselves

Our Neurofeedback clients show significant improvements in PTSD, anxiety, depression, ADHD, sleep disorders, autism, learning disabilities, attachment issues, dissociative disorders and a lot of other mental health issues.

With pervasive mental illness in society, it is wonderful that technology has advanced in recent years to the extent that we can radically correct many brain-based illnesses. That is Pneuma Christian Counseling’s vision for Portland. Neurofeedback is a non-invasive, alternative approach to behavioral health and brain functioning.

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