I've been changing for the past week. It's a strange feeling to be in flux, to feel your brain rewiring itself and that rewiring or regeneration suddenly taking effect. And even stranger when not only one aspect of you changes, like speech, but many or complex ones, like stamina and thinking in real time or imagination sparking to life out of the blue and increased initiation. It could be because the gamma wave brain biofeedback is effecting enough rewiring to change me permanently. Or it could be because I used my AVE device a bit more than usual last week, especially the new reading session. Or a combo of the two. Only time will tell.
Meanwhile, my biofeedback results changed their usual pattern markedly. No, I didn't rise above 1.0 ratio again — I wish — instead not only did my heart rate drop as usual during the SMIRB screen but my gamma/EMG ratio also rose. Never has it done that before. It’s usually lower while I write during SMIRB than the previous neurofeedback screen.
But I got a hint about what was happening during the screen.
Before I begin writing, my trainer sets a screen going to record my brainwaves, heart rate, skin temp, and respiratory rate. Previously, I’d always assumed she’d turned the music off because I would never hear it (when you meet all targets, the game plays and the music sounds on the computer). Well. This time I began to write and suddenly I heard a couple of notes.
(A note about the sailboat screen: the music takes 5 seconds to kick in after I meet all targets. So I have to have my muscle tension below 1.8 for at least 5 seconds, plus gamma above 1.4, to hear it. That's low EMG for an activity that engages the muscles like writing!)
Even better, I heard a note or two play several times and sometimes even whole bars. Very encouraging!
My trainer compares the neurofeedback screens before and after the SMIRB screen to gauge my progress. And there too my results went up. Improvement in increments, I said. Nice for me to be so positive, she replied. Yes, sarcasm works to get through such a draining exercise! But good results is truly the kind of prod you need to keep going.
My results (interesting thing happened: the gamma and EMGs for the baseline and 10 min HRV were exactly the same):
| Date | Baseline | HRV EC | HRV | Fdbk 1 | Fdbk 2 | Fdbk 3 | HRV |
| 27 Jun | 0.83 | 0.88 | 0.90 | 0.90 | 0.91 | ||
| 4 Jul | 0.85 30s | 0.90 | 0.91 | 0.94 | 0.898 | 0.90 | 0.84 EC |
| 10 Jul | 0.85 30s | 0.92 | 0.89 | 0.86 | 0.84 | 0.86 | 0.90 EC |
| 17 Jul | 0.91 30s | 0.97 | 1.05 | 1 | 0.94 | 0.96 | 0.97 EC |
| 25 Jul | 0.96 30s | 1 | 1.03 | 1.02 | 1.01 | 0.97 | 1.02 EC |
| 3 min | 10 min | Fdbk 1 | SMIRB | Fdbk 3 | HRV | ||
| 7 Aug | 0.85 | 0.949 | 0.95 | 0.89 | 0.93 | 0.92 | |
| 8 Aug | 1.04 | 0.99 | 0.95 | 0.970 | 0.973 | 0.99 | |
| 15 Aug | 0.95 | 0.97 | 0.98 | 0.93 | 0.94 | 0.92 | |
| 21 Aug | 0.96 | 0.94 | 0.98 | 0.91 | 0.93 | ||
| 28 Aug | 0.98 | 0.98 | 0.986 Fdbk 2: 0.92 |
0.97 | 0.934 | (EC) 0.930 |
