ADHD

By Anna Raab, M.A. Counseling, BCN

New Year’s Resolution: FOCUS. GET ORGANIZED. FINISH PROJECTS. MASTER TO-DO LISTS. LISTEN BETTER…

“BUT I JUST CAN’T!!!  EVERY YEAR I FAIL… I FEEL LIKE SUCH A FAILURE.  I KNOW I’M SMART; I HAVE THE IDEAS AND THE KNOW-HOW… I JUST CAN’T FULFILL MY POTENTIAL!!”

IF THIS IS YOU, OR SOMEONE YOU LOVE, KEEP READING!!!!

There is a REASON you struggle.  It’s not because you are lazy, unintelligent, or not capable.  I have treated so many extremely intelligent people who have carried the burden of ATTENTION ISSUES for years.  Most often, the burden of carrying the extra struggle, no matter how accomplished they are, has also led to a certain amount of depression or anxiety, which is usually what brings them to my office.  After doing an electrical reading of their brain we find the foundational issue is actually a traffic jam of brain wave activity.  The frontal lobe is full of excessive slow wave activity and often not enough of the fast processing waves.

The frontal lobe is responsible for our higher executive function, and when there is a traffic problem with brain wave activity not flowing as it should, untold frustrations can arise.  Attention, decision making, problem solving, memory, social awareness, motivation, planning, judgement, emotions, empathy, time management, and more can all be a huge struggle.  And it can have NOTHING to do with your desire to be better… it is a REAL issue.

I have seen so many people of all ages who have struggled with this invisible giant their whole lives, and then slowly but surely, they begin to feel their lives have become unmanageable.  Relationships have suffered, attempts at higher education have suffered or failed all together, they have stress disorders, they have emotional control issues… life is just so much harder than it needs to be, but it’s all they’ve ever known.

And, it’s not just adults.  Very often anxiety and depression are the presenting issues for children also.  Because these struggles can be masked by high intelligence and good coping skills it is not unusual for them to fly under the radar undetected.

Even if these issues have been identified and medications are employed, patients are often riddled with side effects and the aid of medication may only be enough to make the limp a little less apparent.  There’s nothing wrong with turning to medications for help, but often patients are left wanting and still feeling very incomplete.

Anyone can miss it.  I missed it myself in one of my own children.  It wasn’t until they had a traumatic accident that I began to do extensive work in their frontal lobe to help with the trauma and anxiety that ensued.  In doing so, I treated their attention disorder that I had not even detected.  They were always in the middle ground (but not loving) school, adored by teachers, happy at home… just a normal, delightful, energetic child.  However, the semester I treated them they went from average to outstanding in school.  I’m so thankful to say that as a result I had them tested last year and they are now in the gifted and talented class with all A’s, loving school.  Potential unveiled!

This may describe you or your loved one.  Does life seem harder than it should be?  Maybe it is.

If you live in the Tulsa, OK, area and are interested in learning how neurofeedback can help a loved one with ADD or ADHD, click here.

Best Kept Secret in Mental Health, Part 1

By Anna Raab, M.A. BCN, Abundant Living Neurofeedback and Counseling

Part 1: The Brain is an Electrical Organ

In this article I am going to begin to explain the mental health technology that literally saves lives.  With this tool I’ve been able to resolve suicidal depression, anxiety, ADHD and so much more.  I have been able to see healing where only the word treatment or coping had been used before.  I am so excited to explain what it is, how it works, and what it can help.

Most people are familiar with biofeedback, right?  With biofeedback a person can learn to control heart rate, body temperature, muscle tension, and other physiological process for which we are usually unaware. Well, with Neurofeedback we can actually learn to regulate our brain wave activity.  That’s right, our brain waves can be trained to normalize.

Most people aren’t even really aware of what our brain waves do, much less that they can misbehave.  But the reality is that our brain is an electro-chemical universe and the patterns of electrical activity have everything to do with our human existence and experience.  There is enough electricity in our brain in our waking moments to light up a small light bulb!  Our brain has an estimated 100 million Neurons and 100 trillion connections.  That’s a lot of traffic!  We are electrical beings!

All these neuron connections are carrying impulses of electrical activity ranging from very slow to very fast electrical currents.  These currents are measured in cycles per second called hertz.  From slow to fast these waves are called Delta, Theta, Alpha, Beta, and Gamma brainwaves.  In the waking state all types of activity are working together to accomplish all the tasks of brain processing.

I love metaphors and because I’m a musician I love this one.  Just like a chord of five notes resonates when certain notes are played, electrical patterns also seem to resonate best when in certain relationship to each other.  The reason a chord of notes resonates is because those notes are an exact ratio to another and hence those sound waves resonate and sound beautiful.

On the contrary, if we hit a sharp or a flat it can ruin the whole chord and we hear dissonance because a soundwave is “misbehaving” and is either too fast or too slow and creates discord with the other waves.

Something similar is true with brainwave activity. According to Neurofeedback research and databases that show normal brainwave activity in humans, brainwaves need to operate in a certain relationship to each other in order for optimal brain processing to occur.

When there is too much or too little of any type of electrical activity a type of disharmony can emerge and signals do not resonate and operate the way they need to for optimal effectiveness.  ADHD is a common disorder that has been shown to commonly have a theta to beta ratios that are too high, hence causing a slowing of the electrical traffic and causing symptoms.

Understanding the brain as an electrical organ is the first step in understanding true mental health. It’s not all in your head, but it is all in your brain.

Best Kept Secret in Mental Health, Part 4

By Anna Raab, M.A. Counseling, BCN

In my last three articles I’ve been able to explain some of the key aspects of Neurofeedback Therapy.  I’ve brought to the forefront that the brain is electrical, that brain wave balance is at the foundation of mental health, how brain wave activity can be mapped, and the basic concepts of how Neurofeedback can normalize brain wave activity to lead to reduction or resolution of mental health issues.

In this edition I would like to use the foundation of what I have explained and now begin to apply it to specific mental health issues that Neurofeedback can help resolve. I will begin with one of the most well researched applications of Neurofeedback which is ADHD.

ADHD is marked by failure to pay close attention, making careless mistakes, poor listening, lack of follow through, inability to sustain attention, misplacing items, being easily distracted, having difficulty filtering out external stimuli, and forgetfulness. Hyperactive symptoms include fidgeting, roaming around, restlessness, loud or obnoxious behavior, being driven as with a motor, and excessive speech.  In addition, some individuals may also have symptoms of impulsivity which include speaking before thinking, impatience, interrupting, and intrusive behaviors.

There is much debate about ADHD, whether it is over-diagnosed, if it is just a “boy-thing” that will be outgrown, or if it’s the inevitable outcome of asking kids to sit still for hours on end.  All of these thoughts are valid and understandably confusing.  From my vantage point as a Neuro-therapist, however, I can definitively say ADHD is clearly illustrated in client brain maps and has very real signatures of abnormal brain wave activity which I have seen consistently in hundreds of client maps, and has been well documented in QEEG research.

As I explained in part 2, the brain map illustrates brain wave activity in the cerebral cortex (the outer layer of the brain) a little bit like a traffic map.  All the major types of brain wave activity are shown in terms of how the client map compares to a person with no abnormal symptoms.

One of the major measurements included in the map is called “magnitude” and demonstrates how much of each type of activity is present in the individual and whether they have too much or too little in any of the measured locations.  Without exception, individuals with ADHD produce too much slow (delta and/or theta) activity in the frontal and sometimes temporal regions of the brain.

This excessive slow wave activity begins to create what I call a traffic jam that can impede normal processing, specifically in the executive centers of the brain which control attention, cognitive inhibition, working memory, cognitive flexibility, reasoning, and problem solving.

Think of it like the larger, slower brain waves getting in the way of the more concentrated, faster processing transmissions.  This causes transmissions to be slower, or sometimes fall off completely, resulting in the very real and frustrating symptoms of ADHD.

In conclusion, as I explained in my last article, with Neurofeedback intervention the brain can be trained through operant conditioning feedback to normalize.  Hence, in the case of treating ADHD, overwhelming headway can be made to train the brain to reduce the production of slow wave activity and increase faster speeds so issues like focus, attention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity can become a thing of the past.