According to the Anxiety & Depression Association of America, depression and anxiety are the most common mental health illnesses in the United States. In fact, 40 million people in the United States are diagnosed with an anxiety disorder every year. If left untreated, both mental health disorders can impact parts of the brain responsible for regulating emotions, rational thinking, and overall cognitive function. Moreover, anxiety can make your brain hold onto negative memories and put you in a constant state of fight or flight.
At Peak Brain Centers, we focus on training the brain to create healthier neural pathways that promote emotional regulation and help mitigate the symptoms related to depression and anxiety. Neurofeedback training also helps calm the sympathetic nervous system – The same system responsible for your fight or flight responses.
So, let’s take a deeper look at just how neurofeedback works and what it can be as a treatment for anxiety and depression.
What is Neurofeedback?
Neurofeedback training (NFT) is a holistic approach to treating brain-based conditions such as ADHD, depression, anxiety disorders, addiction, and autism. NFT works by encouraging the brain to produce healthy patterns of activity, and it aims to change your feelings and thought patterns. Additionally, NFT uses real-time EEG data from the brain, and training is administered to help patients with their impulse control, executive function, and focus.
During an NFT session, our physicians monitor your brain wave activities with sensors that make contact with the scalp, and each session lasts about 30 minutes. In addition, you are given headphones, which administer sounds or tones during the training, acting as a reward for the brain.
An Example of How This Works
To give you a better idea of how NFT works, let’s discuss some scenarios. For example, if you’re training in our chair, and you begin to have anxious thoughts, your beta brain waves will be too high, and the audio inputs will grow dim. This will cause your brain to come back to the present moment and yearn for the reward, or in this case, the sound. Throughout a session, this activity happens nearly every half second – Giving you 72,000 opportunities to learn something new.
Treating Anxiety and Depression with Neurofeedback
Constant worrying and anxiety cause an imbalance in the activities of the brain waves. When this activity imbalance in the brain waves happens, you enter fight or flight mode as your brain battles to return to your natural state. This tug and pull is what leads to constant anxiety. People who suffer from anxiety tend to have repetitive negative thoughts, leading to a chronic state of dread or fear. Thankfully, neurofeedback training can help change those patterns. Moreover, it enhances your brain’s ability to cope and learn with new stressors in your life.
If you’re experiencing symptoms of depression, then you know it’s much more than just feeling lost and down: It can physically change the structure of your brain. The brain can also experience a higher-than-normal level of inflammation when depressed. This inflammation can lead to dysfunctions in brain development, learning, memory, and mood.
People experiencing depression tend to have slow brainwave activity in the left frontal lobe which eventually triggers symptoms like lack of motivation, loss of interest in daily life activities, and fatigue. Thankfully, neurofeedback training can help improve all of these symptoms and many more!
There is a Better Treatment for Anxiety & Depression!
Negative thoughts and emotions are part of life. They are not easily avoidable, and sometimes they even take over, causing us to fall into a deep state of anxiety and depression. With neurofeedback training from Peak Brain Centers, you can learn to manage your negative thoughts and emotions instead of letting them control you! So, let us help you with your treatment of anxiety and depression! Start today when you schedule a free consultation!
