My brain is well trained. I did something I’ve never done before: when my three minutes of brainwave biofeedback training were up, I quit trying to fly the virtual biplane (ok, it’s technically a triplane); then in the second screen I did it again — at the three-minute mark, I stopped trying to throw the virtual dart toward its virtual target. I was tired, and I was tired of feeling the energy drain out of me, like I have been for the last several days and which I feel after the three minutes are up in the brain training screen. Maybe it’s a conditioning effect or maybe that’s the limit of active training that my brain can handle. But it’s rare for me to be able to go four minutes without feeling very, very tired by the end of it.
Still, I’m a good girl, and when my trainer pushes the time either deliberately or because of discussing things with the other office or trainer, I keep trying. And hate it. But keep going.
Not today.
I don’t know what happened.
I became an annoyed rebel.
And we discovered something, in the second screen for sure (and maybe in the first one too but less so): my brain can automatically work to fly the plane, to throw the dart. Well, hey. My brain has been retrained at C4 to drop theta and increase SMR so well, it can do it on its own while I watch. Does that mean we can go back to gamma now? I asked my trainer.
She laughed and said she’d talk to Andrea Reid-Chung, the Clinical Co-ordinator for the ADD Centre. She called me gamma girl. For my enthusiasm for gamma training. Well hey, that brainwave is whack, and my irritability and the relatively new PTSD freak out moments are returning. Gamma training counters that, or that’s my experience and theory. Probably the brain location of where it’s trained makes a diff too.
Interestingly, despite the heat and bad week, emotionally speaking, I had last week, my heart rate keeps dropping. We’re only a few beats away from starting the session at 100 or less. Amazing.
My trainer reminded me how much I pushed myself last year — too much during 2013, even during and after my staycation in March — so perhaps doing nothing but my medical appointments and meeting occasionally with friends and working on my photography when I have the energy is good for the heart. Biofeedback is moreso — essential even. But all the treatment in the world can’t effectively counter high stress or over-pushing yourself.
