It's weird leaving LORETA neurofeedback training and hopping onto public transit (disconcerting too, to have the bus pull up right away) instead of driving off. I wonder if not having inadvertent highway exposure therapy will make a diff? I had wondered too if not having it before would make any diff?
Well, as to the latter question: there was no huge jump in total scores from last week to this week. Only one screen showed a big jump. That was when my trainer opened the office door for the first of two screens (screens three and four) to have me train with distractions going on. (The first two screens and last two were done with the door closed.) Last week it was 168, this week 182. Now, last week the program had crashed after I'd done about three minutes of training and so the low score I received was actually a restart. The program didn't crash this week, for once. And so I had exactly thirty minutes of training instead of the thirty and a bit of the last two weeks.
Beside the jump in score for that one screen by 14 points (168 vs 182), overall I did better. My highest scores, in screens three and four, were higher than last week’s; my last screen was higher too. I would take from that that I improved a bit in concentrating when being distracted.
This week the networks that were hit included the usual suspects plus a new one: blurred vision, concentration, executive function, failure to initiate action, hyperactive and/or agitation, low motivation, multi-tasking problems, obsessive thoughts about self, perception of letters, sequential planning, short-term memory, slowness of thought – easily confused, slow reader, and spatial perception problems.
I don’t know why the chronic pain network wasn’t triggered, for when I got to the ADD Centre, I had a headache rising up from my neck. And I was stiff. It's probably because of the nutty weather we’re having. Cold, hot, thunderstorms, muggy, on the way back down to cold by end of weekend, they say. At one point right at the end of the session, I thought the neck pain and so the headache had eased. But nope. Maybe I should eat, I thought on the bus. I did bring bars after all, a Simply bar and a fruit-and-nut bar. And look at that, they did help. Of course, they were not enough. I'd just done the equivalent of a brain marathon; it needed the equivalent of a post-marathon feeding.
It amazes me how some boys and men think they can do brain training, whether single electrode or LORETA, without eating beforehand and believe they’ll still be able to do well. Your brain is gonna go on strike if you don't eat breakfast and don’t feed it some pre-workout fuel. It seems utterly daft to me to think training will happen without eating well and regularly. But apparently a few believe in this miracle. Me, I don't like starving myself anyway. Brain training is the best excuse to eat and for — cake! Preferably chocolate.
