“If you want to sleep in a coffin tonight it would be alright” and then the undertaker closes the door leaving the girl alone with 4 corpses for the night. I giggled. (It sounds morbid but it was actually pretty funny in context) Damn. The movie shut off. Again. I’m looking at that blue bar on the left. Hmmm. How can I make it go up with out MAKING it go up? That’s right, soft intention. Down a little. Boo. Up a little. Yay? Up a lot! But not past the yellow line. Yet… My mind feels funny, kind of like when you think you’re finally actually meditating, and then YES! The bar moves up past the yellow line and the movie clicks back on. The next time the movie stops I try (but not really) to move the bar again but I don’t have the energy. Not this time. I’m ready to stop for the day. Whew. How can I feel tired from doing what feels like nothing?? I've just been sitting watching a movie! But my brain has been working really hard. All I know is this is super cool. I can literally watch my brain “trying” things to get that movie to turn back on. The bar creeps up, try to do more of that. It starts to slip back down? Let’s try something else. All with “soft intentions” and not TRYING to do anything specific. This is the idea behind this specific neurofeedback system that I tried (and then immediately purchased to practice more on myself!) It's the pIR HEG I mentioned a few months ago in this post. Passive infrared hemoencephalography The idea is to strengthen the control over my ability to overcome my emotional brain by pulling my frontal cortex back online when that serves me better. And it potentially has a bunch of benefits! From helping with migraines and head injuries, to ADHD and emotional reactivity. (But to be clear what I have is not an FDA approved medical device, it’s for wellness!) So why share all of this? Because I’m falling in love with neurofeedback and now I’m going to have my own equipment to play around with! I’ll be tracking what I experience and what I see as benefits and challenges and I’m going to share it here with you! Because maybe you’ll get excited about it and want to try it out too! How great would that be? Pretty dang awesome! But I don’t know how it’s going to go (I haven’t even managed to get my system all set up yet!) so the jury’s still out on that. And even though I don’t have any data yet, here are some things to know about this neurofeedback experience:
But you know what’s even better than reading my excited ramblings? Watching a 4 minute video by someone who’s been doing this for decades! I’m going to be talking about this more often as I work through it myself. And I'll be sharing more resources and research as I go, so we're on the same page with the data and insight piece. Is there anything you're super excited about right now, Reader? I just got off a call with a friend who's thrilled with the psychodrama program she's in! And another who just launched a (much overdue IMO) podcast! And a colleague just shared the link for a conference on reproductive psychiatry that she was so blown away by that another friend and I are going to sign up to attend in 2025! Super cool mental health-y stuff! Is there anything better than the awe and amazement that comes from learning something new? Maybe pumpkin ice cream but neurofeedback is ranking super high for me right now!! Tell me what you're amazed by! I can't wait to get inspired! Cheers to healthy brains, Dr. B Jessica Beachkofsky, MD Your friendly, online psychiatrist! P.S. Neurofeedback is cool and usually doesn't require an MD to perform. Some of these devices aren't even considered medical devices so it may be a thing to consider adding to your practice! Just an idea... P.P.S. I'm getting back to ADHD soon, I promise! We still have to talk about meds!!! P.P.P.S. I don't have any videos of my first session but once I've got my system running I'll be sure to include some so you know what it looks like in action! |
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You have probably played 2 truths and a lie, and if not, you'll get the idea pretty quickly. (I actually haven't played this! But my friend and I were lounging by a pool on Saint Simons Island a few summers ago and a bunch of adorable, drunk college kids introduced us to it!) I'm going to tell you 3 things about myself but one of them isn't true. Can you guess which one is the lie? I was an art education major in college (and I was excellent at making coffee mugs!) I worked for years in a...
best laid plans... I was totally planning on recording your ADHD meds video yesterday and gladly shooting it off into the ether so it'd be waiting for you in your inbox when you needed a break today... but... Helene! For those who aren't in Florida or the southeast path of this lovely gift from mother nature, it was a Cat 4 hurricane that hit a little north of us last night. We're fine. Our house is fine. Our kids are thrilled (2 hurricane days next to a weekend!!). And just a little water in...
”Okay can you please run that by me again Dr. Notsogoodwithconsciouspatients?” “I mean, I need you to come see my patient. She’s crying. I think she’s really sad. Maybe she’s depressed or something.” “Did you ask her?“ “Uh……” “What’s the clinical question here?” “Come on, dude! It’s 3am! Can’t you just come and talk to her??” I mean, yes, of course I could. And since I was a resident on psych consults, I did. Because I was already rudely awoken by someone on ortho who had a “scary” crying...