We bought a Concept II rower back in the late 1990s, the same one athletes use for training. We both used it. Me with my blood pressure that had a tendency to drop under stress from lack of catecholamines, couldn’t do much in comparison to fit and tall him. But I was progressing up levels.…
Tag: Heart
Life Before the Internet
Do you remember life before the internet? I do remember life before the internet, but I was an early adopter, so that was a loooong time ago. I used my father’s University of Toronto email account to email an American friend until torfree.net came on the scene. Then someone, I forget who, got in touch…
Watch to SmartWatch
I wore a watch since my 8th birthday until a few years after my brain injury when my skin and tolerance to skin irritation made me take it off. I figured I’d use TTC clocks (OK, hard to see after they upgraded to those screens), city clocks (where are they‽), or my Palm, later my…
The Brain and Heart Rate with Laser Therapy
Brain injury rose my heart rate to 130. My hypothalamus fix, brain biofeedback, particularly gamma brainwave training, began to drop it. It was a miracle when I first saw my heart rate drop into the double digits during a 3-minute gamma training screen. But it was low-intensity laser therapy (LILT) that dramatically improved my heart…
Thoughts on Designing Gamma Audiovisual Entrainment Experiment
I’ve tried all three of the gamma audiovisual entrainment (AVE) sessions on Mind Alive’s DAVID Delight Pro device and have enough information to start developing an hypothesis and methodology. I began this experiment because COVID-19 pandemic disrupted my weekly or three-times-a-month gamma brainwave biofeedback sessions at the ADD Centre. It soon became apparent that in…
Cold Feet, Ice Creeping Upwards
As regular readers may know, like too many people with brain injury, I have thermoregulation issues. That means I’ve run too hot for over a decade. (I write about possible reasons why in my book Concussion Is Brain Injury.) But I haven’t talked about my cold feet and the strange phenomenon of being far too…
Eyes and Heart, Neurons and Brain Connecting Again
Last year, after eye surgery, my iPhone display looked enormous. These days, it looks teeny weeny. Amazing how adaptation changes perception. I no longer get dizzy moving my eyes across a wide screen. My brain is used to the sharper-looking text and more depth in the screen colours. My panoramic vision isn’t solid yet, but…
Miracles of Biofeedback
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.…
A Stunning Heart Improvement
"Did you see that?" I exclaimed to my brain trainer after I'd finished my HRV screen. "Yes!" "It went up to 5.5!" "I know, and it was smoother." "Yeah, and I couldn't tell, but was it bigger?" "Yes, it was definitely bigger." "We should have video'd it." "I know. I was thinking where's the camera…