Neurofeedback Brainwave Training
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Neurofeedback brainwave training is a therapeutic game-changer for anyone who struggles with body image and disordered eating, especially when combined with health-focused psychotherapy. In Alison's upcoming book, she explains that pressure to conform to unrealistic body ideals can be a toxic stressor that disrupts the healthy development of the nervous system, setting up disordered eating patterns and a negative body image.
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Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find barriers within yourself that you have built against it." |
For many, weight stigma, the thin ideal, and diet culture, compounded by other stressors at home and in their communities such as being bullied, teased, alienated, abused, violated or experiencing family dysfunction, traumatic loss, financial distress, or others with addiction or mental illness is the early setup for disordered eating patterns and a negative body image. In the 1990s, a landmark study at Kaiser Permanente found that the more adversity a young person experiences before the age of 18, the more detrimental the effect it is likely to have on her physical and psychological health throughout her life.[46] Other studies correlate childhood adversity with disordered eating, obesity and problematic weight management behaviors like yo-yo dieting.[47]
What makes the pressure to conform to a trending body and compounding adversities damaging to a child’s lifetime relationship with food and her body is that toxic stress disrupts healthy nervous system development and function. It can increase a person's appetite and disrupt the brain circuits responsible for emotion and eating regulation. It can trigger psychological suffering and feeding difficulties associated with yo-yo dieting and eating disorders including obsessive thoughts, impulsivity with food, emotional reactivity, mood imbalances, and inflated appetite and food cravings.
Many people judge themselves harshly for these eating and body image struggles. But it’s important to realize that disordered eating patterns are not character flaws. They are predictable responses to toxic stress when a person lives in an environment of food abundance that also idealizes iron-fisted control of our appetites and bodies. Health-focused psychotherapy combined with neurofeedback brainwave training sessions can foster a healthy nervous system and improved emotion- and eating-regulating abilities. Together they can help you overcome disordered eating and improve body-confidence.
What makes the pressure to conform to a trending body and compounding adversities damaging to a child’s lifetime relationship with food and her body is that toxic stress disrupts healthy nervous system development and function. It can increase a person's appetite and disrupt the brain circuits responsible for emotion and eating regulation. It can trigger psychological suffering and feeding difficulties associated with yo-yo dieting and eating disorders including obsessive thoughts, impulsivity with food, emotional reactivity, mood imbalances, and inflated appetite and food cravings.
Many people judge themselves harshly for these eating and body image struggles. But it’s important to realize that disordered eating patterns are not character flaws. They are predictable responses to toxic stress when a person lives in an environment of food abundance that also idealizes iron-fisted control of our appetites and bodies. Health-focused psychotherapy combined with neurofeedback brainwave training sessions can foster a healthy nervous system and improved emotion- and eating-regulating abilities. Together they can help you overcome disordered eating and improve body-confidence.
When Alison became a psychotherapist, she realized she couldn’t just talk her clients out of eating and body image struggles. To help them recover, she needed to calm their activated nervous systems. She became a neurofeedback provider working in the Othmer Method. And she quickly recognized that neurofeedback had been the missing therapeutic piece.
Neurofeedback training sessions make healthy eating easier and more sustainable while helping her clients feel more comfortable in their bodies. Weekly training sessions strengthen emotion- and eating-regulation abilities. This means that training increases your ability to moderate eating impulses and reduce bad body feelings while normalizing your appetite and mood. Sessions help to quiet the mind and create an abiding sense of inner peace and contentment. A healthy nervous system supports you to take charge of food and feelings, to befriend your body, and to build resilience against diet culture, weight stigma, and unhealthy body ideals.
How does neurofeedback training work?
Neurofeedback training involves sitting in a comfy chair for about thirty minutes at a time while watching a pleasant scene like a rainforest hike or a moving mandala on the monitor in front of you. Your neurofeedback practitioner will place electrodes on your head in formations that correspond to the therapeutic effects being targeted. The electrodes do not put anything into your head. Instead, they gather information about brainwave activity and feed it into the computer. The computer uses the data to render the scene you are watching. As your brainwave activity changes, so does the image in front of you. Changes in the scene such as volume, color, clarity, and speed gently redirect brainwave activity into more functional patterns. Over time with regular training, you develop a healthy new normal that includes a quiet mind, inner peace, and a sense that you are in charge of food and your feelings.
Neurofeedback training sessions make healthy eating easier and more sustainable while helping her clients feel more comfortable in their bodies. Weekly training sessions strengthen emotion- and eating-regulation abilities. This means that training increases your ability to moderate eating impulses and reduce bad body feelings while normalizing your appetite and mood. Sessions help to quiet the mind and create an abiding sense of inner peace and contentment. A healthy nervous system supports you to take charge of food and feelings, to befriend your body, and to build resilience against diet culture, weight stigma, and unhealthy body ideals.
How does neurofeedback training work?
Neurofeedback training involves sitting in a comfy chair for about thirty minutes at a time while watching a pleasant scene like a rainforest hike or a moving mandala on the monitor in front of you. Your neurofeedback practitioner will place electrodes on your head in formations that correspond to the therapeutic effects being targeted. The electrodes do not put anything into your head. Instead, they gather information about brainwave activity and feed it into the computer. The computer uses the data to render the scene you are watching. As your brainwave activity changes, so does the image in front of you. Changes in the scene such as volume, color, clarity, and speed gently redirect brainwave activity into more functional patterns. Over time with regular training, you develop a healthy new normal that includes a quiet mind, inner peace, and a sense that you are in charge of food and your feelings.
[46] https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/childabuseandneglect/acestudy/index.html
[47] Fuemmeler BF, Dedert E, McClernon FJ, Beckham JC. Adverse childhood events are associated with obesity and disordered eating: results from a U.S. population-based survey of young adults. J Trauma Stress. 2009;22(4):329–333. doi:10.1002/jts.20421
[47] Fuemmeler BF, Dedert E, McClernon FJ, Beckham JC. Adverse childhood events are associated with obesity and disordered eating: results from a U.S. population-based survey of young adults. J Trauma Stress. 2009;22(4):329–333. doi:10.1002/jts.20421
