Neurofeedback or "Brain Training" for ADD

To make a long story short, I was recently diagnosed with ADD at the age of 40. So, I don't know, is that what's been wrong with me this whole time?

Apparently, so!

I started taking Adderall and it honestly changed my life. Unfortunately that feeling of clarity, like you can do anything and everything super efficiently and effectively, does not last forever because our bodies build up a tolerance to the drug and it takes more and more of it to produce the same result.

Fast forward a year and I have discovered a way to retrain my brain. The means to create new neuropathways, in other words, a method to producing more effective ways of processing information. I'm absolutely fascinated with the possibilities and I'm looking forward to results. What I will learn is that EVERYTHING effects your brain waves and how we receive all of this information, makes all the difference.

Syncronistically and as a side note, my friend Shaye Hudson wrote this on Facebook today and it resonated with the self work that I'm trying to do in order to grow and change and become the best version of myself that I can.

"Golden Nugget: I don't believe in the "law of attraction," I believe in the "law of resonance." Many people believe that all they have to do is to "think positive" for a few minutes and things will go their way. That is "magical thinking" and highly ineffective. What they are forgetting is that it is their habitual mindsets, belief systems, and subconscious and emotional conditioning, that mostly directs one's focus and overall energetic state. You set up your experience, relationship to yourself and the outer world with your dominant beliefs, attitudes and emotions(mostly when you are being you in your natural relaxed state) that leads to specific choices and actions. People then resonate with varying degrees states of thinking, feeling and being. You must resonate on all levels continuously and habitually to arrive at a new preferred destination."

Back to the point, Neurofeedback is also called EEG Biofeedback because it is based on electrical brain activity. Neurofeedback is based on self-regulation. It's literally sending electricity to areas of your brain that need rewiring to function optimally.

Neurofeedback addresses problems of brain dysregulation. These happen to be numerous. They include the anxiety-depression spectrum, attention deficits, behavior disorders, various sleep disorders, headaches and migraines, PMS and emotional disturbances. It is also useful for organic brain conditions such as seizures, the autism spectrum, and cerebral palsy.

How does it work?

How it works is this, electrodes are applied to the scalp to listen in on brainwave activity. The therapist processes these signals by computer, and they extract information about certain key brainwave frequencies. (All brainwave frequencies are equal, but some are more equal than others...) They show the ebb and flow of this activity back to the person, who attempts to change the activity level. Some frequencies they wish to promote. Others they wish to diminish. They present this information to the patient in the form of a video game. The patient is effectively playing the video game with his or her brain. Eventually the brainwave activity is "shaped" toward more desirable, more regulated performance. The frequencies targeted, and the specific locations on the scalp where they listen in on the brain, are specific to the conditions they are trying to address, and are very specific to the individual.

Sounds like a sci-fi thriller, doesn't it? I asked my therapist jokingly, "Are you going to make me like Lucy, able to use 100% of my brain?' "No, not quite", she replied.

In the film Lucy, during the final scene, she reaches 100% optimal use of her brain, she then is no longer in physical form, she disappears before your eyes, she's just isn't there anymore, she is everywhere. Pretty deep, right?

Anyway I digress, back to my neurofeedback therapy. I am way too easily distracted. My ADD is clearly, still fully active.

Yesterday, was my first session and my therapist needed a map of my brain, a starting point if you will, so we can see where I'm at. What I didn't realize and I should have, is that it's probably best to get this brain map done when I'm not on my Adderall. Oops, as it turns out, my brain on drugs, looks relatively normal. So next week, I won't take my medicine and we'll see what it looks like next time she hooks me up...to the MACHINE! (insert maniacal laughter here)

I plan on documenting my experience and progress here on my Steemit blog, so let's check in again next week!