Something spectacular happened. And happened again. My heart rate dropped into the 70s and stayed in the 80s during brain biofeedback two weeks in a row. And my HRV (heart rate variability) hit 6. Six!!! Back in 2012, two was good news, and ten was the goal. So five years later, more than halfway there. (By the way, athletes have HRVs of 60 or something silly high like that. But even old people are higher than me.)
My EMG (muscle tension) was also below 2.0 uV for most of the training for the first time in months. I’ve been a bit stressed, and it’s shown up in my jaw muscles. But turns out getting Invisalign to straighten teeth banging painfully into each other has the rather nice side effect of relaxing jaw tension. (You’d think going into debt for my teeth in our universal health care system we enjoy here in delist-as-much-as-we-can-so-we-can-employ-more-hospital-admin-Ontario would counter the relaxation.) Was that also why my heart rate went down? Apparently, I have a narrow airway so maybe when these things are in my mouth, I get more oxygen. Or maybe not.
Maybe it’s doing more to ease my lower back or maybe it’s taking a new anti-inflammatory for joint and muscle pain after exercise. It contains devils claw (what a name), ginger, chokeberry, Angelica gingas, turmeric, and green tea. Apparently, Angelica gigas (dang gui) has been used in traditional Chinese medicine for circulatory health. Was there enough in my not-quite-daily intake to strengthen my heart and improve brain control of HRV??? There’s no doubt my brain is improving rapidly again; that means more resources to control autonomic functions like the heart. I still get short of breath though, so I gotta be careful not to push the limits just because I’m thinking clearer, am more alert, am improving control over my emotions — the latter only as long as I use SMR/Beta L13.5/R18 Hz audiovisual entrainment most days. And most of all, the chaos in my head really is GONE!!!
I really think that the three sessions of gamma enhancement and three sessions of SMR enhancement and two of 16-20 Hz inhibition, along with the concussion protocol of the low-intensity light therapy that kickstarted the heart improvement is most responsible and the effects are beginning to show.
Topping the amazing heart news is the miracle that happened last week during my first gamma enhancement neurofeedback screen of my brain biofeedback session. For one minute and thirty-six seconds, I was in the zone. In what psychologists call “flow” and what brain injury took from me. That sweet feeling of being so deep into a book or work that the outside world disappears and your mind and brain hum along in harmony. I was oblivious to my brain trainer’s noisy typing as I followed the virtual triplane in its swoops around its virtual mountain island. My delta-theta brainwaves that always show my brief (or lengthy) distraction as she’ll suddenly bang a key or mouse hard, stayed down and didn’t spike until at one minute and thirty-six seconds, I heard her typing like some sort of loud office cacophony. (Part of the training as you progress is to try and distract you so that your brain will work harder and you’ll learn to focus in a distracting environment.)
We both went WOW!!!
Flow IS possible for me. Disappearing into a book again IS possible for me. Sweet mother, I could weep. But am too stunned and unable to process this unreal progress. Will it happen this week?
