Neurofeedback for depression is helpful. It can even eliminate or reduce the need for medication. Neurofeedback has no side effects, and once you’ve had enough sessions, you can stop.
If you want a longer lasting solution to depression, neurofeedback can really help. Depression is a feeling of helplessness and hopelessness and you just can’t ‘snap out of it’. It is so debilitating, and stops you from becoming and being the person you want to be. You need some kind of specialized treatment.
Depressive Symptoms
Depression is often experienced as sadness, anxiety or emptiness. You might feel very negative, guilty, and/or worthless. You can even lose interest in activities you previously cared about and enjoyed doing.
Depression can make it difficult to concentrate, remember things, and make decisions. You might notice that you often have decreased energy, and feel slow and fatigued. It may affect your sleep, either sleeping too little or too much. You may notice appetite or weight changes, have thoughts of suicide or death and wonder “what is the point”?
Depression can cause you to feel very restless in your body, and feel irritable and angry. You may have aches and pains, such as headaches, cramps, or digestive problems. If physical symptoms aren’t related to a physical illness, they might be part of depression.
Some people express their depression by taking it out on others, for example by getting angry or being very irritable. Others will turn it inward on themselves, with self-criticism, shame and guilt. Either way, this is a difficult way to live.
What Is Neurofeedback?
Your brain is wired to receive input through your senses. Senses like seeing and hearing. You don’t try to see, you just see without trying. The same with your hearing. Your senses are not under your conscious control. They are unconscious processes that your brain does without you thinking about it.
That is how neurofeedback for depression works, too. You sit in a comfortable chair and watch a calming video. I set the system to a brain wave frequency that restores resiliency. When your brain creates that frequency, the picture on the screen moves, and gets brighter and bigger.
Your brain very quickly figures out that the picture will be nicer if the brain continues to create the desired frequency. Your brain is wired to want all the input it can get. All you have to do is sit and watch the video. Your brain unconsciously does the work for you.
After a few minutes, you will start to actually notice how you feel when your brain is making this brain wave frequency. We find the best frequency for you, where you really notice that you feel better.
Neurofeedback restores your mind and body to a more resilient and self-regulated place. This, in turn, makes life much easier. When your nervous system is calm and regulated, you can handle the daily ups and downs of life, getting more done and with less stress. This is called being resilient.
Neurofeedback For Depression
Depression causes you to feel very dysregulated, unhappy and makes you want to give up. Neurofeedback encourages the brain to create calming and grounding brain waves that are like a balm for your nervous system. You start to feel more stable and light hearted.
You will tell me what symptoms you are having and I will adjust the neurofeedback system to reward the correct brain waves for you. This returns the brain to a more resilient and regulated state.
Neurofeedback helps you have more control over a process that is usually not under conscious control. As you start to feel happier, less depressed and more empowered, decision making starts to improve and you can make the changes that will lead to a better life.
What Happens During Neurofeedback For Depression
You sit in a comfortable chair and I apply four electrodes to your scalp. I use a white paste to keep the electrodes on, and I remove it with water and alcohol at the end.
There is always one electrode on the top of your head and one on the middle of the forehead at your hairline. The other two I move around, depending on what you are dealing with. Where I place the electrodes on the scalp are called placements.
If you have a lot of anxiety with your depression, I will add a placement on the right back of your head on the parietal lobe. This helps with the physical symptoms of anxiety and stress such as stomach aches, muscle tension and being short of breath.
I can also add a placement on the right front which helps you deal with emotions and emotional over-reactions. This helps with anger, irritability, fear, shame, hypervigilence, and social anxiety.
Feeling so depressed that you don’t care about yourself or anyone else can be dealt with by placing electrodes just above each ear on the temporal lobe. This is an excellent treatment for that debilitating hopeless, helpless feeling.
Sometimes we do twenty or thirty sessions and you will feel completely well. Your brain needs the repetition in order to reinforce the desired brain wave that keeps you feeling great. With enough repetition, your brain starts creating better brain waves on its own, without the need for neurofeedback.
Trauma And Neurofeedback For Depression
Some people need more sessions of neurofeedback for depression. If you’ve had a lot of trauma, we might have to work through some things together.
Trauma can cause depression. Trauma alters brain functioning and neurofeedback restores the nervous system to a better place.
Neurofeedback makes it much easier to do work in therapy that leads to more self-confidence and self esteem. As a result of feeling better, other issues might start coming to light.
When you are depressed, you don’t want to deal with anything, so there might be a backlog of things that you just weren’t ready or able to tackle. You can continue to work through the things that are important to you and that might be holding you back in your life.
It’s amazing what can happen when you no longer have debilitating depression! What ever you’ve been putting off, you now can move forward and start to feel like your accomplishing more.
We can add some Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing EMDR to your treatment. This will help bring to light and work through the unconscious patterns and thought processes that don’t serve you. When your depression has lifted, you can do this with more ease.
There might be other things that you’d like to discuss and talk through. Once your depression has lifted, you may very naturally want to start dealing with and working through some things.
If you are interested in neurofeedback for depression, and want to learn more or try it out, please feel free to contact me at mindy@mftherapy.com or call me 310-314-6933.