Brainfeedback's Blog

Quite often I get asked questions about Alpha Theta Training with Neurofeedback

Generally this is how I explain it to people:

There are brain Waves with different Names:

When we ‘hook your brain up’ with a device that measures its electrical activity, what we see in that measurement is this:

Waves:

The waves have different amplitudes (highs and lows) and frequencies (highs and lows/second).

On the basis of amplitude and frequecny – we can see that there are at least 4 major types of waves

Types of brain waves:

Beta Waves

Beta waves are the highest frequency brain waves that occur between 12 – 30 Hz. They are the most common found brain waves and are abundant during ordinary wakefulness, with eyes open.

These waves are most prominent when a person is attentive, concentrating, planning or performing a task. They are also seen in anxiety state

Beta activity is also seen in access when people are under influence of benzodiazepines and barbiturates.

Alpha Waves:

Alpha waves frequency is between 8 to 12 Hz. They are associated with state of awake state when a person is relaxed. They are also found in states of free association, meditation and in people who use cannabis.

Theta Waves:

These are 6 to 10 Hz waves and are associated with REM sleep or light sleep state. These waves have also been found in people under hypnosis and in advanced meditators.

These waves are considered important in creativity, memory processing and important in accessing deep unconscious states.

Delta Waves:

These are 1 – 4 Hz activity waves that are most prominent in newborns and are associated with deep dreamless sleep. In ordinary people maintaining consciousness is lost during Delta activity. However, very advanced meditators show delta activity during deep states of Samadhi.

‘Different Minds’ and  Brain Waves:

From another perspective – Alpha and Theta waves are considered to be states of mind – when we have a greater access to the unconscious mind.

As compared from the conscious mind, the unconscious mind is considered to be more autonomous, non-thought-dependent and the ‘iceberg’ below the ‘tip of the iceberg’ – that is the conscious mind.

Functions of the Unconscious mind:

Many brain functions that happen autonomously and independent of volition are thought to be in the realms of ‘unconscious mind’.

These involve:

Learning, Breathing, autonomic functions such as heart beat, digestion, growth, survival, memory and so on.

Habits, addictions, emotional and psychological traumas and other habitual patterns that come out of unresolved and ‘forgotten’ experiences are also thought to be ‘stored’ and coded within the unconscious mind.

I like to think of the unconscious mind as the ‘collective unconscious’ that includes archetypes, collective cultural and biological heritage of species.

Basically it includes every thing that we are not conscious of.

Whether there is a mind like this or not – is another debate.

But we do get an idea and as sense that there is a certain greater and deeper intelligence within the mind/brain/body complex that makes it possible for us to function in a coherent and sane way.

And the roots of that intelligence seems to go deeper and farther than what we can comprehend as the functions of ‘the conscious and thinking mind.’

So what does Alpha Theta training of the brain do?

It gets the brain to access – those ‘deep and unconscious resorvoirs’ of intelligence within the brain/mind/body complex.

Alpha theta training puts you in touch with a state of the brain that is associated with the unconscious mind – while the brain is conscious – and relaxed – and awake.

What do people say after an alpha theta training session?

‘It was Reealy Good’ – is often a comment that I hear, after the training session is finished and people sort of ‘come out’ from the ‘deep state’ (another name for alpha theta brain wave training with neurofeedback).

Some days or weeks later,

I hear the the comments such as:

• ‘my brain seems to be working in a different way’
• ‘I don’t need to make lists anymore, things just come up to my mind, when I need them’.
• ‘I seem to be functioning in a totally different way – I do things that I didn’t do before’.
• ‘I don’t know what it is – but there is something that is happening in my brain and I just do things more easily’.
• ‘I am sleeping much better, I am not restless anymore, I feel more refreshed’.
• ‘I seem to have more energy and positive outlook on life.’
• ‘Something has changed in me…and it’s good’.
  

It is often at this point of Neurofeedback Training that many people ‘click’ and ‘get it’ that something is actually happening in their brains through neurofeedback training.

They no longer feel skeptical or think that it was something else that changed their way of functioning. They begin to understand that Neurofeedback is a training – just like physical training.

And there comes a time – when one starts to realise and see – that all that training is actually paying off in no uncertain and intangible ways.