Integrating neurofeedback and Photobiomodulation

The coming of individualized precision medicine and a focus on sustaining wellness is making for an entirely new (and very old) way of thinking about health. I say very old since many of the ancient healing traditions are being recast in the context of our growing insights into the root causes of systemic forms of disease and impairment. Our work at Quietmind has been focused on creating a set of tools and techniques that will allow people to heal themselves and support optimal health in the most efficient and natural ways possible, e.g., proper breathing, brainwave normalization, emotional expression and photobiomodulation. I'll expand on each of these now to frame my way of working with people to resolve current and old issues they may be carrying around since early childhood or earlier.

Proper respiration has a number of dimensions including breathing rate, depth, ratio of oxygen to carbon dioxide and completeness. Paul Lehrer's work on respiratory sinus arrythmia showed that we harmonize our other bodily systems when we maintain 6 breaths a minute (BPM) with inhale/exhale =1 breath. Research sponsored by Palo Alto Health Systems with the Freespira capnometry based respiration training program shows that maintaining 40mm of O2/CO2 with the breathing rate at 6PBM can significantly altern cognitive and emotional functioning, e.g., elimination of panic symptoms after only 30 days of home-based respiration training. Our clients are showing rapid and lasting improvement of their anxiety and panic and PTSD symptoms using this method. 

Neurofeedback training offers the opportunity to gain a sense of control of our most basic responses at the level of our central nervous system. Finding new ways of responding to stimulation is not something we do entirely consciously, rather it is a process of providing the brain with information about its own activity that then allows our brain to recalibrate the level of response any particular stimulus requires. This is the core of neuromodulation training, the establishment of more efficient algorithms for how much energy needst to be expended in response to a given stimulus. The more we optimize our capacity for adaptive response we are transforming ourselves in ways that will greatly expand our consciousness and promote optimal health and wellbeing. 
​

We include photobiomodulation (near infrared light therapy) for those people who have suffered any form of brain trauma, depression, anxiety and more and more, infection with Lyme and other tick born illness. The light therapy helps to remediate the tissue-level damage caused by the disease process that depletes oxygen or increase inflammation. 


​
Of course, we must include psychological health here and this requires that we have access to the full range of our feelings and the ability to express them effectively. The work here starts with awareness of feelings and their historical and relational roots. We then work to undo our conscious and unconscious conflicts surrounding the ful and gratifying expression of our emotions and gain a deeper experience of ourselves and our capacity to connect with others. 

---