Data don’t lie; you can’t hide from data. Mid-August my gamma brainwaves had dropped, my ever-spinning busy brain, heart rate, and muscle tension risen. Then my Pastor helped me make a necessary decision, and all my brainwaves returned to my normal the first week of September. I learnt a hard lesson about social media and…
Tag: Brain Treatment
Gamma Brainwave Training and Emotions in PTSD and Brain Injury
Two weeks ago, my biofeedback trainer re-assessed my brain at the PZ-O1 position — left back of skull. Last week we continued gamma brainwave biofeedback training at that position and will do so for ten sessions total. And then re-assess. Relief. My gamma was unusually low last week. It finally rose to my normal above-1.0…
Seek, Ask, Bug, Nag, and You May Get Mental Health Help
Awhile ago, I was informed that I lived in the Mecca of mental health services: Toronto. There are 700 psychiatrists at the University of Toronto alone plus community psychiatrists, too few OHIP-covered psychologists and social workers, and a plethora of private-pay therapists in this city. These are in number completely inadequate to meeting the mental…
PTSD, Getting Real, and the Fakery of Being Positive
Your smile and laugh have changed, my brain biofeedback trainer told me today. They’re real, she said. It’s true, I’m not faking emotions nearly as much or using my intellect to boost them to normal levels like I used to have to. She’s known me since 2005, and I’ve gradually been able to laugh more…
Back to Gamma Brainwave Training at PZ-O1
Back to gamma, gamma brainwave training. Back to the PZ-O1 position: the electrode is gelled onto my head at the back of my skull and slightly to the left of midline. That’s the position associated with alleviating PTSD symptoms as I recall. This is what me and my neurodoc were concerned about, and I’m glad…
Time to Reconnect with Disconnection
I used to disconnect completely from the online world and computers for a week a couple times a year. I unplugged on Sundays for a long time before that and still do. But year in, year out, I used to push myself so hard I’d end up crashing and would also have to take a…
Looking Good After Brain Injury
There’s this thing that I call the ugliness of brain injury. I thought of this today after meeting my Aunt for coffee, whom I hadn’t seen since the ice storm. She was exclaiming over the physical change in me, and all I could say was thank you, I was so overcome. Let’s be honest. After…
My Brain Can Automatically Pilot the Plane
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…
Brain Injury, Denial, Perspective
I have a habit of exposing reality to people’s faces, aka, pushing their buttons, even when I’m trying not to. “Oh,” I say breezily to one person with a long-standing brain injury, “your speech is like mine used to be.” “What do you mean?” comes the astonished, slightly angry reply. “Oh you know,” I continue…