Week two of new double protocol. First comes gamma then comes, uh, goes beta. I came in to week two with emotional stress, grief touched off by neurodoc. Because he’s got nothing better to do than sodden my fibres with emotional stress exhaustion. Anywho. The coming change of seasons will be affecting me soon too, and may already be upping my fatigue like it’s wont to do.
Last week, my heart was not as smooth during HRV as it was the previous couple of weeks. Peachy. And my heart rate was back in the triple digits. Peachier. But it came down and stayed down in the 90s. Awesome.
My EMG was below 2uV for the whole of gamma CZ training and above 2 during PZ assessment only. This is nice. The lower the EMG (muscle tension), the better the training.
I’d forgotten to send my brain trainer the changes I’d blogged on from the first week’s training of the new protocol. But I caught her up. I was so busy trying to remember all the good stuff for her, I totally forgot about the nausea that came on during my first PZ training. I remembered in a hurry the moment she clicked Record. The indicators became live, the virtual triplane sat on its island waiting to climb into the sky, and nausea slammed into me. Barf. No, no, not literally. But the strange feeling of brain not being stable in my skull as I began my first neurofeedback screen at PZ again almost made me call a halt. But I reminded myself that it faded last time. It did this time too. And quicker. Phew. My bad eye got a workout, though not as bad as the first week.
While she was setting the thresholds for training the different frequencies, I chatted a bit about emotional shit. I got a tad sarcastic. She said sarcasm is anger expressed in a positive way, with a humour spin. My heart rate agreed sarcasm was good. It dropped right after.
The second neurofeedback screen, which replaced inhibiting 16-20 Hz with inhibiting EMG, was as easy as last week and sort of made my head feel light again. But this week, there was an almighty pressure around my head especially my temples. I got bored. I’m going to try and figure out a way to sneak reading in to this second screen. The third neurofeedback screen had the same parameters as the first – inhibit 16-20 HZ, inhibit busy brain of 24-28 Hz, and enhance SMR at 12-15 Hz. She ran it for 3.5 minutes. Right at the three-minute mark, the colours on the computer display intensified. The yellow of the sailboat race screen became very very yellow. The fluorescent pink eye-popping. The digits marking out the time sharpened to incredible clarity. Last week, these changes happened right after screen one. But at least this week, it happened before training ended!
I was kaput after training, so much so, I just sat for a few minutes. No uptick in energy though my mind was less round and round hamster wheel like.
No problem with playing music this week, but nausea rose pretty bad about 1.5 hours after training. Just wanted to lie on the couch at home but still had to get through the TTC. Ugh.
Stairs were slow and careful while looking ahead as usual. But instead of feeling unsteady and having to look at my feet two steps from the bottom, I only had to look one step from the bottom and didn’t feel dangerously unsteady.
That strange head turning started infrequently right after training then happened more and more. Able to cross intersections looking both ways and ahead and crossing in real time sans having to slow down, consciously look and deliberately tell myself what I saw and whether I can go or not. Automaticity is so much easier! Head straightening began about two hours after.
About 2.5 hours after, awareness increased. I’d already been able to walk looking into the distance. Bad eye felt worked with that and nausea rose but my brain could take in that amount of information and allow me to walk steadily. Perception or awareness widened after that.
That night I slept better, but except for being ready to head out well in time and my head turning easier and more naturally, all the rest of the effects pretty much disappeared. Sigh.
After the new treatment, I also had one regression: I couldn’t seem to visually comprehend old streetcar steps, going up or down them. I didn’t even attempt entering the new streetcars. Shudder
