Full Transcript for Train Your Brain: Neurofeedback, Trauma + Peak Performance with Angie Noack

kind of found me. And when I was introduced to the field, I was like, ⁓ this is it. This this is what I'm meant to do. speaker-0: Mm-hmm. So was that when you were introduced to neurofeedback or when were you introduced to neurofeedback on your job? speaker-1: Yeah. So I was actually, yeah, kind of whatever it was, maybe not even 10 years down the road, maybe eight years down the road, seven years down the road from my head injury, I was introduced to neurofeedback, right? And at that point I had overcome a lot, but I was still dealing with some very severe insomnia and some really severe anxiety. But I would have, you know, panic attacks, things like that. And honestly, before the head injury, I was almost too relaxed. Like I would not turn in any assignments in school and I was like, that seems like somebody else's problem. ⁓ it just very like laxadaisical. I could sleep for, you know, a hundred years, also because I was 19. And after that, I couldn't sleep. I was so anxious. I was so overstimulated. I couldn't go into big crowds of people because I would have panic attacks. And after doing around, I'd say 40 to 60 sessions of of neurofeedback, I haven't had a panic attack since. I have no issues in crowds. ⁓ the insomnia actually got significantly better. There were some other hormone things that needed to fall into place for me to find ultimate healing with that, but neurofeedback was a huge piece to heat piece to that puzzle. speaker-0: Hm, well, it sounds like you went from a chill cucumber to an ancient overachiever. Post putting three and then you rewatered it. speaker-1: An actual psychopath. My brother-in-law one time asked my sister, and he's only known me obviously after my head injury. And he goes, Was Angie always like this? Like a driver, an achiever, have to win, have to be successful. And she was like, No. She goes, sh her in high school was like, C's get degrees, like D's are acceptable. Like I just couldn't have cared less about anything. And truly, like I said, it the the brain injury didn't make me smarter, but it it showed me it like unlocked something in my brain that said, like, This is the only one you get. You you need to you need to do everything you can with it. speaker-0: Yeah. I mean it's such a huge traumatic event in your life. It makes me think about even the identity shifts that people experience pre and post, but also once they go through neurofeedback, if they come to you even with as like a last resort of anxiety or depression, they're also setting them up themselves up for another identity shift to be able to get to know that version of themselves and choose that version of themselves. speaker-1: So that's such an interesting point. And honestly, you're right that what's interesting, probably anxiety and depression are like the number one things that we treat day in and day out. Anxiety, people are willing to give up anxiety. Anxiety feels like crap. They hate it. It inhibits them. People are like, I don't want that. You take that. Depression is actually interesting. And I I don't claim that people want depression, but they find identity with it, right? I am depressed, my depression, this is who I am. And so as neurofeedback starts to lift that cloud or that veil, you're absolutely right that sometimes there's an identity crisis, right? Of like, ⁓ my gosh, if I am not this depressed person, who am I? And we have to do some, you know, kind of coaching and some counseling around that to truly, and I am a licensed professional counselor. That's what my license is in is clinical mental health. We have to do some work around letting that go, letting that identity. be let go of because it may no longer be, you know, a true pattern in your brain. speaker-0: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, you're literally helping people rewire what their identity is and no longer is anymore. speaker-1: It's probably my favorite thing ever, right? And you know, some people listening might be like, but wait a second, you know, is this gonna make me not funny or is this gonna make me not drink you know, all these things? Like the beautiful thing about neuro is we can keep what we want and change what we don't want, right? That you know, if you're if you're a humorous person, neurofeedback's not gonna make you a not humorous person. If you're somebody who's crippled by anxiety, well, yeah, yeah, we are about to change that, right? But I don't believe that that's who you were created to be. I don't believe that you were somebody who was, you know, created to just be you know, run your life based off of, you know, if you're having, you know, horrible anxiety or not, or if you haven't slept in 10 days or not. Right. So ⁓ so it definitely isn't something that we're not, you know, those are not things that we're train we're changing or or we're training, right? We're really giving your brain flexibility and the option to shift into that if it needs to, but it doesn't have to live there. speaker-0: Yeah. I mean we're kind of diving in, but I also want to simplify for people who are listening that are like, Why is my brain health important? What is neurofeedback? So can you help walk us through like what is neurofeedback in the most simple grounded way? speaker-1: For sure. I I feel like we dove in and people are like, give us the tea. What even what are you even talking about? So what we do, we're a brain mapping and neurofeedback company. And a brain map is a quantitative electroencephalogram. Similar to an EEG or like a spec'image, except that we're not only looking for something structurally wrong. Right. So it's not that we won't see it if somebody's had a brain injury, a concussion, ⁓ epileptic discharge happening in the brain. It's not that we're not gonna see it. It's just that that's not the only thing that we're looking for. We are looking at the electrical and the neurological wave activity happening. And literally everything is going to show itself to us within neurological

patterns, anxiety, depression, ADD, PTSD, brain injury, sleep issues. All of those things manifest themselves within patterns. And that's what we're looking to see. But we're going to see it through kind of the lens or, you know, almost the scope, if you will, of brain waves, as all humans are capable of producing the same brain waves. Delta deep slow sleep, theta drifting into sleep, alpha is a receptor, beta clean energy, high beta fight or flight. And we need it, right? We need all those waves. If we are in danger, high beta says, holy crap, I'm not safe. I gotta get the heck out of here. If we're trying to go to sleep at night, if we're trying to work our job, if we're trying to play with our kids, and our brain is lit up with fast wave activity, that's never gonna serve us well. So that's really what the brain map is gonna show us. And you know, Zoe, we did a brain map with with you when we were in LA. First off, I can do a brain map from anywhere. I can literally ship you equipment. We can do it across the world. So I happen to be in LA. I had Matt Zoe and was like, let's freaking get together and do a brain map, right? Because I'm I'm already here. But if you're like, Angie, I'm I'm not in LA or I'm not in Denver, great, I can just ship you equipment, we can do it, we can do it together. But it really doesn't matter. You could be having the best day you've had in a while or a kind of crummy day. I'm not only looking at what your brain is producing at that moment. I'm looking at the patterns that your brain has ingrained over the last 15, 20, 30 years. Okay. So if you're having a good day, great, if you're having a crummy day, it doesn't matter. I'm still gonna see what's going on. Right. So do that brain map and then we do a full review to go over that with you, which is what, you know, Zoe and I just had the opportunity to do ⁓ to really talk through, hey, here's what we see. And ultimately, if we're gonna do neural feedback, here's how we're gonna go about that and what we're gonna train, right? And then the actual neurofeedback that we do is operate conditioning of the brain. It is reward-based training. We're teaching the brain to create new neuropathways to serve that person better. ⁓ so they have a headset at home, it has a lot of little electrodes embedded into it. Key component, there's not any electrical stimulus going into the brain, right? We're not shocking the brain in any way. Nothing, nothing's going in. The electrodes are only picking up information, kind of monitoring and reading what the brain is doing. So electrodes pick up the electricity, and then the feedback loop of neurofeedback is the electrodes on your head pick it up. It goes into an amplifier on your phone in the brain code app and then is fed back to you through visual watching something and auditory listening to something. Those things are very much working as kind of a mirror for your brain, right? That your brain gets to experience in real time what it's doing and training itself. Like if you've ever, you know, taught a puppy to sit, you tell it to sit, you give it a treat, it repeats the behavior. Because it wants the reward. Eventually, you know, we can take away the treat and it still knows how to sit, as now that's a new neurological highway in its brain. So it really is teaching your brain flexibility, self-regulation. It's like your brain has the remote control to the situation. speaker-0: Mm-hmm. Yeah. It makes me think about you're cr you're literally paving new neuropathways in the brain. Like if you go on a hike, you know a hike that is well paved, you have open road versus what is that path that like like nobody has been here, I'm all up in the brush, and it sounds like what you do in neurofeedback is literally help people gradually pave the way in those hiking pathways. that have not been paved before. So it's more readily available in go to. And and I mean James Clare talks so much about creating habits, but for example, that is also retraining your neuropathways of what a habit is to you too. But ⁓ can you speak more to the metaphor that you mentioned earlier about hardware and software? Because that was so valuable. speaker-1: Yes. So one, I love the the kind of visual representation that you just gave. You're exactly right. Imagine if you looked at a hike up a mountain and it just went straight up the mountain and you were like, holy crap, there's no that is str what a like, what the heck is that? But it's so deeply ingrained, right? It's it's like that is the clearest path you've ever seen. But then you look over and you're like, but wait a second, if I go around this way, I'm gonna like this is a much easier path. This is gonna be much healthier. I'm not gonna get hurt going up this path, but I need to walk over that a hundred times. So that now this is the new ingrained pattern. So we're not erasing the one over here that you know kind of sucks and isn't serving as well. We're just ingraining this new one and then teaching the brain to only take this new one. So when we talk about software versus hardware, a lot of your listeners might be like, Angie, I am freaking doing all of the things. Okay. I meditate, I wear the blue light glasses, I take supplements, I cold plunge, I sauna, like I I'm doing everything, right? Like, like how is this different? Think about it, software versus hardware, right? Software, if you need a software update on your computer, heck yes, right? Let's freaking go do some meditation. Like maybe let's do some counseling. If we have a hardware issue, there's a book called The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Bannerkolk, and it talks about how our bodies hold on to trauma and things on that deep down cellular level. That's the neural feedback, right? If we have a hardware issue, a software update really cannot address that. At some point, we have to address the hardware. That's the neurofeedback. speaker-0: Mm-hmm. Yeah. So w walking through when somebody I

just want to walk through the journey to like help somebody simplify it as well, too. It's like what is that journey? Who are these people that are coming to you, whether first resort, last resort? What is the intake? What is the process ⁓ and transformation that they can't expect and you've seen? speaker-1: ⁓ my gosh, that's a question. So honestly, who who can benefit from neurofeedback? Anybody, right? That your brain is 100% your best asset. Why would we not want to optimize and train our absolute best asset, right? For longevity, for health, for sleep, for wellness, all the things, right? I would say the most common kind of symptomology, right, that that we see is anxiety, depression, ADHD, PTSD, trauma. ⁓ now I'm using diagnostic terms. What's interesting about diagnosis ⁓ is that there was a gentleman, ⁓ Thomas Insel, he was actually the director of the National Institute for Mental Health, and he highly criticized the DSM five, which is the diagnostic and statistical manual of which we as counselors use to diagnose. And he said, you know, there's a lot of reliability in in the DSM. Okay, a lot of reliability, meaning that we as counselors agree that all of these symptoms equal this diagnosis. But he said there's very little validity. Okay. Because there's no biological reason why this is happening. Meaning that we have no idea what the root cause is. Okay. So we know it reliably, we see those symptoms, it creates this diagnosis. We have absolutely no idea why it's happening. So rather than so I am using diagnostic terms to talk about so we understand the same symptoms. I'm not using a diagnosis because anxiety alone can come from 50 different patterns in the brain. Right. So even if somebody's like, Angie, I love meds. I want to be on meds. There is no shame in the medication game. You do what you gotta do. At least do a brain map before you go in and get and get put on a med. Right. As you might be in just the medication like roller coaster for the next year and a half, because that medication actually doesn't pair at all with with the chemistry in your brain or what's actually happening on a on a biological level. Right. ⁓ but yeah, anxiety probably is is number one of what I see. And a common pattern that I see with anxiety. Is overproduction of fast wave activity. Beta and high beta, the two fastest brain waves. That's where I hear a lot of people say, Angie, I live in fight or flight. I am so overactive. I go a hundred miles an hour all the time. I'm reactive. I yell at my kids. I don't mean to. I'm grumpy. Like all these things, right? And then I look at the brain, I'm like, well, yeah, yeah. You think you're going from zero to a hundred when something happens. Your brain's never seen zero in your life, right? You know, you're just sitting so much hotter than that. But if you're sitting at 80 and something happens, 80 to 100's not a hard jump. Zero to a hundred would be. ⁓ so the first step is like let first off we do a hundred percent free console. speaker-0: stop right there too because I know that you also mentioned that you help people like realtors and also like athletes optimize performance in their brain too. So it's not just people in like c catastrophe or who have had trauma, but also what is the optimization look like. speaker-1: You are exactly right that I work with a lot of people who are like, you know, I could really I I'm in a bad situation, right? Like my this anxiety is out of control or my sleep is so poor. I also, you're right. I work with peak performance, right? That really everybody is brain optimization, right? Everybody is trying to change their brains. But I do have people who come in and are like, Angie, I am spectacular, right? I am already the best thing walking around on this planet. Kudos, right? You're dope. How can I be even better? Right? Like you take the professional athlete who Maybe neck down is as good as the other 10 athletes standing next to that person, right? That that woman, that man. I I'm equally as good. Okay, so what's my what's my edge, right? What sets me apart? Always, 100% of the time, that's going to be your brain. What if you can synthesize information faster? What if you can make your reflexes quicker? Concussion. What if you could recover faster from a concussion than this other person next to you? What if your brain is ready for that? You know, when something happens, it's more resilient. Right. That what if you could sleep deeper so that you get better recovery? That is neurofeedback, right? And we do have a lot of professional athletes who are doing brain training now. There was actually a documentary on Netflix called The Quarterback, and Kirk Cousins talks very openly about doing neurofeedback. I wish he had done neurofeedback with me. That'd be sick. All the athletes that I do it with, I can't say their names on you know publicity because we have privacy laws. ⁓ but Kirk Cousins talks very openly about doing neurofeedback, which I think is absolutely incredible, right? That He knows his brain is his best asset, and he is doing everything he can to optimize that. speaker-0: Mm. Yeah. It's incredible. So in terms of sort getting back to it, in terms of the whole process of the intake and then the journey. speaker-1: Yes. So somebody we're always going to start with a totally free consultation, right? So you're going to get on a call with myself, with Rachel, and talk about, hey, okay, here's what I'm dealing with, right? Is neural feedback even a good fit for me? You know, that ⁓ if like we talked about if somebody is having like a really severe like mold issue, hey, maybe we need to deal with that first. Or if you're like, Angie, I'm in the protocol, I need something else, great. Now neurofeedback is is kind of the next piece to that puzzle. But let's determine what your symptoms are, if neurofeedback's a good fit. Next step, let's do a freaking brain map, right? Let's take a look at your brain, you know, see

what it shows us. And does doing a brain map behold you to anything? Nope. You can absolutely just do the brain map in person or we can ship you equipment and do it, you know, from anywhere. Let's talk about what we see. After that, let's decide is neurofeedback the right step forward? If it is, we fire up sessions. ⁓ and then I would say most people do between six and nine months. Usually we start with six. ⁓ I had a consultation today where the young lady goes, ⁓ my gosh, that's so much time. And I go, Okay, I know that we live in the era like the era of like Amazon Prime, Ozempic, like I want it today. I want fast result. I hear that. Did I do too? When I order my shampoo on Amazon Prime, I expect it in 20 minutes. I feel that the reality, right, is that our our brains just don't it probably took you 20 years to get here. It's not gonna change in two weeks. Okay. ⁓ no, I would say that you most people start to see noticeable change within about four to six weeks, okay. Think about it like building muscle, right? It would be sick if I could have abs in three days at the gym. That would be dope. That is not the case, right? It takes a little bit longer for us to see kind of the fruits of that labor. So I'd probably give it, you know, four to six weeks to start to see that change. Mostly we're doing like three to four times a week. And those sessions are 20-minute sessions. And they can be done from wherever, whenever you have a headset with you. If you're not live with someone, so literally 10 o'clock at night, six in the morning, whatever, you know, kind of tickles your fancy. That is what works. And then every other week you get on a Zoom with your remote clinician to talk through kind of qualitative and quantitative data. Qualitative, your feedback to us, Angie, I'm sleeping more deeply. I'm waking feeling more rested. I something happened at work that I would have just flown off the handle about. And I handled it so well, right? You're noticing kind of those smaller changes happening. And then we're talking about quantitative change on the back end. Neurofeedback is very numbers-based, right? So if you're like Angie, I'm a numbers person, me too. Okay. Don't just tell me I feel better. Show me in numbers, right? If my I started off on forty-five hertz of high beta micro voltage in the prefrontal cortex and now I'm producing thirty-five hertz, I wanna know those those numbers have change. speaker-0: My mind is literally blown when you can just you just sit there and the neurofeedback is just happening. You don't have to do any more of the I mean, the inner work and the therapy and all of that is helpful and valuable and adds to it, it sounds like. But this is the upgrade of hardware where you can literally sit there watching the Ronchia show if you want. And your brain is tr is rewiring itself to be optimized. speaker-1: I love that your brain went to the Rancia shows. I was like, I know what I'm gonna be watching during neurofeedback. So first off, we do have some stipulations around it. Although I will say we work with a subpopulation here in Colorado of first responders. Fire police who one, you're exactly right. They don't, and I'm making a generalization, a lot of times fire police don't want to talk about the feelings, right? They don't wanna do the, they don't wanna do the inner work. Like they've seen a lot of really hard and and horrible things, right? So it'd be like, hey. Tell me about how you're feeling about that. They're like, no, thank you. Let's actually just do the neurofeedback. So you're exactly right that some people maybe have already done the self-work and they're like, Angie, I've I've been in counseling for six years. I've done the work and I still have anxiety. I still can't sleep. Okay. Now again, software versus hardware. And some people are like, Angie, I don't want to talk about that. That is unsafe. If I if I start talking about it, that is going to open a whole can of worms that I'm just not ready for. Great. Maybe we start with the hardware so that we can at some point address the software. Right. ⁓ but we do, I will say that population also was like, I want to work watch Black Mirror. I'm like, ⁓ my God, that's so dark. And they're like, it it relaxes me. Peace be with you. Like, listen, if that is what makes you feel good, fine. If you're somebody who is like, Angie, I hate horror. Let's please not watch something like overstimulating to your brain while you do neurofeedback. My brother-in-law likes to watch Meat Eater. In case you're wondering what that is, it's a hunting show where you kill animals and then eat them. Listen. That that is what like makes him happy during neurofeedback. So I just upload all the meat eater that he wants. I watched New Girl many, many years ago when I trained and that that was my jam. So but whatever tickles your fancy. speaker-0: Mm-hmm. So it seems like neurofeedback can also be part of a part of the puzzle or the team that you also work with to optimize and heal and grow. What does that support team look like that you recommend for people or I mean I'm sure it's a case by case basis? But do you when you work with people, do you recommend other practitioners to work with as well? May maybe yourself as a counselor too, to support them from a holistic point of view. speaker-1: You're a hundred percent right. It depends on the person, right? That someone comes in, and Zoe, you and I were talking earlier when we were going over your map review of like, hey, do you see things like mold, hormones, things like that? So it's the brain map does not the the report does not come out and say, ⁓ Hashimoto's, right? Like it doesn't, it doesn't give me that direct. It basically shows me indicators of like inflammation and neuroinflammation, things like that happening. So I will absolutely ask questions like, hey. When was last time you had a hormone panel done? When was last time we did some blood work? Do you have a natural

doctor? Right. If I see no pattern for you know inflammation, I don't necessarily need to make that recommendation, right? If someone comes in, they're like, Angie, I'm having some, you know, suicidal ideation. I'm feeling super dark. I might go, Do you have a do you have a counselor that you're working with? Often yes. If they're like, no, I'm like, let's get that other piece of the puzzle in place. As we we are not necessarily both roles for you, right? That you know, you might be working with one of my clinicians who's Board certified a neuro, but they're not a licensed counselor like I am. So I'm gonna say, hey, let's get, you know, another piece in place. I have people who come in who they have a psychologist, a psychiatrist, a dietitian. Let's get all of us on some calls together, right? That this is communicative health. Often the the head doesn't know what the body's doing. We need to get everybody on the same page to make sure that we're all doing the best work that we can to give your body and your brain the best chance of healing that it can. speaker-0: Mm. I feel like neurofeedback as I'm learning about it is such a slept on modality to be able to support. Do you find people come to you as a last resort and there's so much education to be done? Or where in people's journeys do you see them tending to come to you? And where would you like making come? speaker-1: You're speaking so much truth. It is slept on. And I don't think it's slept on because people know about it. I think it's slept on because people don't know about it. Right. Now, ⁓ 10 years ago, 15 years ago, when I was given presentations of neural feedback, I would walk into a group and I was like, Has anybody heard of neural feedback? And you'd have like one homie in the back who was like, I think my cousin did this. Like nobody. Now, 50, 70% of people are like, Yeah, I've heard about it. I knew somebody who did it. There's so much more. And I really believe that in our culture there has been a shift, right? Like we are looking for more natural forms of healing and of wellness. I really do believe that. That the the take a hundred pills and then take another pill for the side effect of those pills, that answer does not suffice anymore. Now, again, that doesn't mean that that's not the right choice for you right now. It means you should have other choices. You should be given multiple modality options when you are struggling versus. It's this or bust. It's do this or continue to suffer. No, that is that is not the answer. So I would say twofold. I would say 10 years ago, I saw people as last resort, right? They'd come in, they're like, Angie, I've been on meds for 15 years. I've done all the things, right? And I am just, I am unwell. And then I read some book and it mentioned neurofeedback, or I was literally Googling, right? You know, like, what else, what else can help? Think outside the, you know, and then they find us. And now I absolutely see people in all stages, people

who are just starting, who don't want to go on meds, who people who, you know, maybe are like, hey, I don't even feel like it's, you know, it's not that bad yet, but I don't ever want to get there. Like I I want to strengthen my brain now. Well, we can still kind of turn this around versus letting it get to a place where now I feel now I'm in the hole so far, like I gotta dig my way out of it. Right. And then I absolutely see people, you know, on on the back end who are like, I'm, you know, really suffering and and I need help now. So I do feel like though that has shifted a lot. speaker-0: Mm-hmm. What have you seen is possible through neurofeedback for clients you've worked with? speaker-1: I could give you a thousand stories of absolute like life transformation change. And I will give you some because they literally light my soul on fire. So I was working with a woman probably eight years ago who came in and she was having really severe anxiety, but it manifested in travel anxiety. Okay. So it felt really specific. Like, I cannot get on a plane. I have a really hard time driving, right? It was ⁓ inhibiting her life. She was like, Angie, I I can hardly drive to work. And when I do drive to work, like it was very specific, like some honestly, like bathroom trauma, whereas like I feel like I'm gonna like wet myself. I feel like I I'm gonna like lose control of my bowels, which from a counselor standpoint, a lot of times with women when we're having trouble like with bathroom missions, things like that, that can be sexual trauma associated with that. Not always, but that can be things. She had no cognitive memory of that. It doesn't matter. Right. So it's not something this isn't like EMDR where you have to process through on a ⁓ an emotional level, that trauma, we're going deeper down, right? We're going neurological. So it doesn't matter that if something had happened, I'm still gonna work on it, you know, kinda on the back end. ⁓ six months later, she texted me from China. She texted me from China. She went to, yes, she literally went on a trip. She texted me from there and said, I don't even remember who that I'm literally giving myself chills out of control. ⁓ I she was like, I don't remember who that person was. I like I don't even know, you know, where I would be I But she chose to invest in herself. She chose to believe that her brand was capable of that change, which is just absolutely phenomenal. ⁓ another example, I had a young man come in, his mom brought him in, 13 years old, played hockey, and had been kicked out of two different middle schools ⁓ for behavior, was about to be kicked off of another hockey team, just like really severe behavioral issues, kind of, and had been labeled his whole life as like the troubled kid, right? Like attitude, all the stuff ⁓ about Two months into neurofeedback, might have been long two, no, it was approximately two months into neurofeedback. His mom came in and said that another mom from this hockey

team had came up to her and asked her what medication he was on because he was a totally different kid. She was like, ⁓ my gosh, like things will happen on the ice where he would have just like lost his cool, started a fight, whatever. So she was like, ⁓ what what'd you put him on? And she was like, Nothing. That's brain training. So literally this kid, and especially at 13 years old, right? Rather than him having to grow up his whole life being like, The problem kid or whatever. And when I looked at his brain map, this kid was going 100 miles an hour, high beta in the prefrontal cortex. His decision making was absolutely out of control because his brain was on fire, right? It was going so fast and he had absolutely no brakes. It's not like we changed him from like a bad kid to a good brain, a good kid. There's no bad brains. All brains are good. It was about giving him back control of the vehicle that he had. speaker-0: Mm. Wow. So when it comes to like anxiety or depression medication, does the medication does neurofeedback mimic the medication or what is what is the difference? speaker-1: So no, no, it's not working like medication. So medication, you know, and medications work differently. Benzos, SSRIs, like all these different types of medication work. speaker-0: For people either. speaker-1: It that's a real that's yeah, it it really depends on the type of medication, right? That we actually know that about maybe 30, 40 percent of the population has epileptic discharge happening in the brain and no active seizures. Okay, that's actually a super, it's a really common thing to see spike wave activity or or little blips of of epileptic discharge and have absolutely no active seizures. But what we do know is that that person is put on an antipsychotic, which often people are if they're dealing with addictions or anything like that. it will make that exponentially worse. Okay. That will exacerbate symptoms severely. Okay. But all of these symptoms look behavioral. So like, ⁓ this person's getting worse. They're so much crazier. But really it's a side effect of the medication. So again, we just, if we're even gonna go on a medication, we need more data points. Right. But no. So medication, when you take a medication, it goes in and it floods. Okay. We cannot tell it where to go. I cannot tell a za a Xanax Only go to the hypothalamus, only go to the amygdala. We can't tell it that. It goes in and it goes, oof, right? And now maybe it helps with some of the things that we want it to help with. Great. That's also why it has side effects because it can't just do the only thing that we want it to do. Neurofeedback is teaching your brain to do it on its own. It's not putting something synthetic in, which is also why it doesn't have a shelf life, right? We know that medication, like I don't take my whatever every single day, it it stops working, right? And then When we stop taking it, we're left with what we were left with before because it doesn't actually change anything. Okay. Long term. Neurofeedback, we're teaching your brain to do it on its own, creating new neural pathways. So if you're weaning off of medication while you're doing neurofeedback, you're not gonna have the same like, ⁓ my gosh, now I feel so terrible again. Because let's say the medication's taking you down and we're taking you down, at some point you have to start to wean because you're gonna feel over speaker-0: Mm-hmm. So it's working with you. It makes me think about like postpartum moms too and how instrumental neurofeedback could be for them. speaker-1: I work a ton with women who are trying to get pregnant, currently pregnant, or postpartum. Absolutely. Wanting to get pregnant, Angie, I haven't been off of my SSRI in, you know, 15 years. ⁓ I just got off birth control and I feel like shit, you know, like, ⁓ my gosh, I I need something else. Great. Let's let's get your brain, you know, in check. And especially too, we have a lot of, you know, fertility issues and for many different reasons. But imagine if your brain has lived in fight or flight for the last 25 years and now you're like, I think I'm gonna have a baby. Your brain's like, Are you freaking kidding me? Like we are not sinning. We are not there's a famine. Like we need to no shot. You know what I mean? What if we can regulate your brain where now it's safe to to even enter into that? Similarly, that okay, I got off of all my meds, I'm pregnant, I feel horrible. Neurofeedback is completely safe. Again, it's not putting any stimulus into the brain. Okay. ⁓ so we want to help obviously regulate your body during that process, and then absolutely you're right. Postpartum. I'm feeling crummy. Maybe I'm getting, you know, this the sad feelings. Maybe I'm feel getting some postpartum anxiety. Let us help regulate your brain at any or all of those stages. speaker-0: Mm-hmm. Are there ideal ideal kind of like brain wave states you want to see every level at? Or like this is the perfect brain. speaker-1: Wouldn't that be wild? No, there is no perfect brain, right? There is not one brain that's like, ⁓ if Angie and Zoe's brain could be this brain, they'd be better. Absolutely not. Every brain is different. Everybody is different. Every person is different. If we were all rocking the same brain, we would be super boring, right? So maybe, you know, one person, like they have theta dominance. Okay. Their brain has overactive theta. That makes them creative and calm and caring and emotionally sensitive, beautiful. way too much theta, ADHD. Okay. I'm so distractable. Maybe I'm grumpy if I have it in the prefrontal cortex. I'm kind of like falling in and out of sleep during the day. Like I can't, I can't stay focused long enough to do anything. That's where like their their theta is beautiful. They have they just have way too much, right? So it's not about taking that brain and being like, let's get rid of all of the theta. No way. Theta is your superpower. We need to

make it where you control the amount of theta that you have. Okay. Versus like my brain is all fat. Literally nothing but fast going on in here. If I live in all fast all the time, I'm anxious and reactive and I don't sleep and I feel so overstimulated and crummy. If I have enough fast wave activity, I'm highly motivated. I get stuff done. I'm a better leader. I'm a better manager. I'm a, you know, I'm I'm very motivated, right? So it's not about I I need like a a theta brain. I do need some theta, though, for real. But I actually do need that. It's about maybe I need a little bit more and a little bit less of this, but my fingerprint is still my fingerprint. Right. My biological makeup is still mine. It's about getting it back within my control. speaker-0: Mm. Yeah. Well, even diving into like my brain scan that we just went into too. We talked about I mean, I will let you go over this more in depth, but that I have higher delta and alpha and low beta, but my brain is off the charts in terms of processing speed. But I was yeah, what is what is your interpretation? speaker-1: Mm-hmm. So to talk about it, you have a theta and alpha dominant brain. Okay. And when we talked about your fast alpha, alpha again is that kind of gear shifter in the car. Alpha gives our brain flexibility and plasticity. When we have too much alpha, especially we also we want our brain to like have more alpha with our eyes closed because it helps us feel calmer. Your brain has more alpha with your eyes open, which just isn't as favorable to you, right? That's where you're gonna have a harder time shifting. So we talked about Zoe, where you're like, I will get hyper fixated, I will go into a hole. I'm like working on something for three, four hours and I like can't transition out, right? So cool that you're so focused. If you need to only spend an hour on that, bummer that you can't transition out of it, right? So it's not that we want your brain to have no alpha. We want it to probably have less alpha with your eyes open and more control, having more flexible alpha. You also have some really beautiful theta, right? And we talked about that gives your brain creative problem solving, right? The ability to almost see things from a different vantage point. You're an incredible conductor person, right? So you're able to say, Man, I met Angie 20 years ago and I met this other person today. You guys need to meet. You do similar things. You'll be a great connection. Like what? That's a superpower. You know, so it's not in no way do we want to take that away from you. However, also having a lot of alpha with your eyes open is a very common pattern of a of a head injury. Okay. So do I think that your brain maybe always from birth had that pattern? Probably not. You know, that's maybe something that, you know, you gained through some through some head trauma. Now, even though we're however many years down the road, your brain's always flexible. It's always neuroplastic. It is willing

to change. It just doesn't know how to do that yet, right? And that's really where the neurofeedback comes in to help teach it, you know, to do something different. Similar with your excess delta. Having a little bit of excess delta is sleep wave activity happening during the day. ⁓ also, we talked about that you have a little bit of hormone stuff going on. I think that that also could be a component of that, right? When you told me you're like, Angie, I could sleep 12 hours a day. I'm like, ⁓ okay. You know, having extra delta is is like, ⁓ you know, we shouldn't have to sleep 12 hours a day, right? We should sleep eight and be like, I am my tank is full, I am good to go. Your brain's like, we can use a little more. 15, 20, no way, right? That that becomes underproductive. You're probably sitting in a sitting in a heavier theta place of sleep, not getting to that like really good restorative place of sleep. So Is your brain doing anything bad? No. Could it be doing a few things to serve you better? Yes. speaker-0: Mm. Yeah. And ⁓ in terms of you said I have a high processing speed too. Like what does what does that exactly mean? speaker-1: So a processing speed is also known as peak alpha frequency. So alpha is such an interesting wave because it kind of shoots up and comes back down. So we call it alpha peak, like how high it goes when your alpha peaks. Also think about it almost like a conveyor belt, okay? That when you receive information, it comes into your prefrontal cortex, goes to the back, and then comes back out. When we have a fast processing speed, we have a fast conveyor belt, okay? To give you a reference point. An average processing speed is like, A nine point seven to a 10, yours is a 10.4. Okay. So it's well above an average processing speed. What does that tell me? That tells me that your brain takes in information well, synthesizes it. Now, sometimes when we have a fast processing speed and overactive alpha, we can get a little overstimulated, right? Like we can get almost a little analysis paralysis and our brain is like, I'm gonna take in all of the information and I need to remember every single bit of it. And then you have situations where you're like, Angie, I don't remember that person's name. I've met them ten times. 'Cause it's not able to take in everything and commit everything to permanency. So by giving you a little bit more control over that, you might go, Hey, this is important. I need to remember this. This isn't important. That can go. speaker-0: Mm-hmm. Yeah, like I was telling you before, I love to just take in all the information with clients or just like even people I talk to. I'm like, let's just lay it on all on the table and then I'll connect all of the dots in the theta of creatively prob problem solving and be like, Okay, there's your answer. Now go. speaker-1: Yeah, and connecting dots, right? Like, ⁓ hey, I see this, I see this. That's that beauty of that theta to give you that kind of vantage point to be able to look at things. And I'm sure you meet people that you're like, bro, the answer's right there. Their brain's probably a lot more linear, right? Like a lot more like they just they k literally can't see it if it's not what they thought it was going to be, which is X plus Y equals Z. Your brain's like, you know, rainbows and butterflies equals bananas. Like we are like we, you're you're like, I can see, I can put different pieces of different puzzles together. to get ultimately what what might be like the more creative answer. speaker-0: Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's like spaghetti. speaker-1: It's also interesting, right? Because ⁓ having a brain injury does not make us smarter. Okay. ⁓ so I have to wonder what what friggin' was your processing speed before your head injury? Like, you know, but you you have probably rocking before you got rocking a fast processing speed over there. ⁓ I honestly I've had to work to speed up my processing speed. That when I first did, you know, my first brain map, I don't know, twelve years ago, I was probably sitting at like a nine point eight, nine point nine processing speed. Which isn't slow, it's not fast by any means. And now I'm sitting at a 10.2. ⁓ so if there's people out there who are like, man, I've struggled with learning or synthesizing information or cognition, your brain is capable of speeding up, right? It just doesn't know how to do that. speaker-0: Mm-hmm. Do you still do neurofeedback yourself? speaker-1: Great question. So I didn't for a long time. Like I did a bunch of neurofeedback and I felt so freaking good. And my family noticed the change, right? That I remember one time I my whole family was in the car and we were driving up to do a 14er. They live in Washington. So they were in Colorado with me. And I was flying. I was speeding. And I was like 20 over. I mean, it wasn't like a logo speeding. And I got pulled over. And the cop was like very generous. And he was like, Hey, you were speeding. I was like, I'm so sorry. And he gave me a fatty ticket and I was like, you know, thank you so much for your service. I love first responders. Peace be with you. We went, we hiked, you know, and I was like, man, that sucks. Whatever, you know, I'll pay this later. And we got home and my sister goes, I don't know who you this is right after I got done doing neural feedback. She goes, I don't know who you are. I was like, What do you mean? She goes, Angie, last year, two months ago, she goes, Had that happened and you would have gotten a $250 ticket, that's how much it was. She was like, You it would have ruined our day. ruined your life. You would been hysterical. Like and she goes, you like just handled it so well. I was like, neurofeedback. Right. Now she's done neurofeedback. My brother-in-law's done neurofeedback. My mom's done neurofeedback, but because they saw the the change in me. Now I'm in a different phase of of life where I'm trying to work on some other things. Like that Rachel and I are

so freaking busy with business that I've started doing a few more sessions. ⁓ but in the last 10 years I've maybe done five sessions. I don't need to, right? My brain is not gonna lose that. It runs over those patterns every single day. But other things have come up that I'm like, hey, might wanna train this a little bit, might wanna fine to this, but I have all the access to every bit of neurofeedback equipment in the world. I just don't need to I just don't need to train. speaker-0: Yeah. How would you how does the environment versus genetics play a role as well? speaker-1: That's a question. I actually was having literally an in-depth conversation about kind of nature versus nurture the other day. I was on a hike with my boyfriend and his parents, and we were talking about, you know, nature versus nurture. Gosh, I I don't even 60, 40, 75, you know, tough to say. I mean, what was it when the human genome project was conducted? We believed that, like, ⁓ we're gonna crack the human genome and it's gonna be like 90% genetics, right? Like, aha, this is the answer. And it's like it came back with like 10% genetics, right? But I was like, ⁓ wait, crap, we're actually responsible for for all of the things. So now, if someone has like really severe early developmental trauma, right? Let's say that somebody maybe was, you know, adopted or, you know, grew up in foster care or an orphanage or, you know, something like that, where even their trauma was happening before cognitive memory in utero, right? That, you know, we're gonna one, we're gonna see those patterns and that's gonna play a lot bigger role. Right. And now, is that genetics? Maybe is that. nurture what happened, also yes, you know, ⁓ versus, you know, somebody like you, Zoe, who maybe grew up in a really safe, secure family and then had a really severe head trauma. Right. Now, that's also why it's a really cool thing if we have some kind of a baseline assessment. ⁓ you know, if I could map every single like 10 year old on the planet, I friggin would. So that when something happens, we have the ability to to look at that. But when I map, because I've mapped full families like mom, dad, kids, You absolutely do see some patterns that are similar, right? If both of your parents have a fast processing speed, you probably have a fast processing speed. If both of your parents tend to run, you know, anxious, does that automatically mean you're gonna run anxious? Not necessarily. But also, is that because of, you know, your biological makeup or because you feel that? You pick up on their like neurological, electrical, anxious energy all of the time. And it stresses you out and you pick up that pattern. You know, so how I I don't have an exact answer because it's it's probably also on kind of a case to case. speaker-0: Mm-hmm. When somebody has head trauma or even anxiety or depression, do you in a brain map, do you see structural differences in the brain, or are you more so looking at the wavelength?

speaker-1: We're looking at wavelengths. So this is where it's just different brain scans, right? That a spec image is a blood flow scan, a QEG is an electrical neurological scan. A an MRI is more structural, right? Do you have a brain bleed, a hematoma, a a fracture, right? ⁓ you know, so it it just depends on what we're looking for. Now, if someone had a really severe head injury, I can still see like areas of impact, right? Like I might say, Hey. when you fell, was it, you know, like back occipital, you know, was this where, you know, damage happened because we're having a lot like radiating from there? But it's not showing me like, ⁓ structural white matter, gray matter right here. It's showing me wave activity, but I can still see indicators. speaker-0: Mm-hmm. Got it. So tactically, how can we support our brain health just in the way that we live and through our holistic health? speaker-1: Zoe, I will like die on the hill of habitry and of of kind of those micro changes, right? That neurofeedback, you might be somebody who's like, Angie, I'm doing all the things. So this is the last piece of my puzzle. If you're like Angie, I do literally nothing for my brain. Great, buckle up. Like, let's change some stuff, right? So, first off, make sleep your your superpower. Make sleep what you put above all else. I am an actual sociopath when it comes to sleep. Like people are like, Angie. 8 p.m. dinner, I'm like, if you mean 4 p.m., yes. If you mean like 7 30, no, I I won't be there. Absolutely not. Like I I am so structured around my sleep because I know that sleep is sleep is not my superpower. And I have to be so sensitive around my sleep. I get sunlight first thing when I wake up in the morning, as that literally is gonna actually increase melatonin in your brain for like 16 hours later. So if that's not something you're doing right now, get outside first thing in the morning, sunlight in your eyes and do not get on social media and check your phone. Okay. You are literally putting over-stimulation, blue light directly into your brain first thing in the morning. That is starting you off in the sympathetic nervous system state. So automatically if you're like, yeah, I wake up stressed. I starve my brain stressed. Well yeah, because you wake up, you probably have coffee on an empty stomach. I hear you, I'm I'm also guilty of that, but stop doing it. ⁓ but I I feel you right that you put you know caffeine in, you check your phone, you're automatically overstimulating your brain. Give yourself 30 minutes. One hour. Nobody needs you. Okay. Nobody needs you until that time, anyways. So get some sunlight. Don't be looking at your phone. Same thing at night, right? Put get your get you some blue light and green light blocking glasses. I mean the ones with the red lenses. I know you're like, those are not cute. I wear them every night and I'm sure I look absolutely whack. It is what it is. Wear those three hours before you go to sleep, right? Help your brain actually transition down into a parasympathetic nervous system state. And lull yourself into that, into that sleep cycle. So make sleep your literal number one job as sleep is as sleep is literally everything. It's the key to longevity. ⁓ a couple of other key indicators. So if you're somebody, if you run, if you run kind of hot, if you run kind of anxious, I'm a very big believer in some more like biohacking ⁓ or diff different types of modalities, as neurofeedback is a modality of biofeedback. So some kind of biofeedback tools. First one that is my absolute favorite is box breathing. Also known as combat breathing, where you breathe in for a four count, hold it at the top for a four count, breathe out for a four count, and hold it at the bottom. This is more what I would say is like a consistent everyday tool. Start your day in the morning with like two minutes of box breathing. It is absolutely going to set the tone of your day in a parasympathetic nervous system state. Do it. It's so beneficial. If you're like Angie, something happens at work and I get triggered and I fly off the handle or whatever, a better rescue is going to be bilateral stimulation tapping. And I if your viewers can't see me, it's literally where you're bilaterally tapping on either hemisphere of your brain, one after the other, with your fingers, one after the other. You can tap on your shoulders. If you're in a meeting and you don't want people seeing you, tap on your legs. I'm a professional keynote speaker. Before every single speech, I do box breeding and I do tapping because it physiologically disrupts the stress signal in your brain. Let me say that again. It physiologically disrupts the stress signal in your brain. So if you're like, I already feel like I'm getting overstimulated, I'm getting stressed out, my heart rate is is going up. Do a couple minutes of tapping. You're very much gonna feel that that physiological difference. And my last and honestly probably my favorite one, I feel like longevity is such like the hot word right now. Like ⁓ longevity, like how can I keep my, you know, how can I live forever? one, our b our brain is our best asset, right? So if you're 95 but you have no kind of cognition, Lord, take me out. Like, take me out before that happens, right? If I don't have my brain, I I don't, I don't want it. Puzzling is my absolute favorite longevity hack. I'm not talking about puzzles on your phone. I'm talking about a physical puzzle at your house. If you have ever walked into an elderly care facility, you'll see puzzles everywhere because they know that that is like PT for your brain. So pick a place in your house, put out a 500,000 piece puzzle and do a couple of pieces every single day. Cognition, memory, prefrontal cortex, executive functioning. It is going to benefit every single area of your brain and literally be like PT. speaker-0: Mm-hmm. Is there any way that you can map early look at your brain earlier on for like dementia or

other kind of diseases like that or aphasia or what have you to be able to rewire that earlier on before people? speaker-1: Yeah. So can we diagnose, you know, Alzheimer's, dementia, Parkinson's like early on? Not necessarily, right? You know, and once it's set in, there's not a way to reverse it. Okay. So I and and that, you know, obviously that is that is super depressing. No, is there still stuff that we can do? Absolutely. We can try to slow up progression as as much as as possible and and give the brain as much as we can, but th there there's not the ability to reverse that. However, I'm such a firm believer in that. So many things are preventative. Okay. That we now know that Alzheimer's is being called ⁓ the diabetes three because unregulated blood sugar throughout your life is a huge indicator of Alzheimer's later in life. One of my favorite books on the planet is called Glucose Revolution. Jessie Asantro A wrote it. She's a scientist and literally talks about the the science of blood sugar regulation of glucose. ⁓ I read that book. I'm not diabetic, and I was like, what's this going to teach me? The most incredible book I've ever read, and I've probably recommended it and bought it for a thousand people because it's the great it's like the greatest book of all time I love her. ⁓ but it's so incredible because we sometimes we believe like, ⁓ well there's Alzheimer's in my family. I'm gonna get it. Take control, right? Take responsibility for your brain and your life, right? Similarly with dementia and and these other neurodegenerative issues, think about if you break your arm and you get a cast put on it. You know, eventually six weeks later, when you get that cast off, you have like a little weird shriveled chicken arm. Why? Because the muscle has started to atrophy. As we get older, we stop increasing plasticity in the brain, not necessarily intentionally, we just get comfortable, right? We're kind of doing the same things, we're running through a routine. What are things that you can do? Little micro happens and changes in order to increase your plasticity. Like, ⁓ Angie, I read a lot. Do you already know how to read? Then you're not changing plasticity. Now, if you're learning to read in Spanish or braille, that is changing plasticity. So make yourself a lifelong learner, right? Change what you're doing, learn new things. As one, it's gonna make you happier because you actually you get exponentially more dopamine in the ⁓ in the pursuit of a goal than actually reaching that goal. So one, you're gonna be happier and two, you're gonna increase plasticity in your brain. speaker-0: Mm-hmm. Wow. That's insane. Are there any supplements that you suggest people take? I know so many people are like, take fish oil. speaker-1: So supplements, again, this is kind of like don't t don't guess test. You know what I mean? That if you and truly, right? You get on social media and it's like, uh-huh, glutathione, right? Like it's like the new hot, like

whatever it is. You might be having like the most expensive pee you've ever had every day if you're not actually deficient in these things, right? When we think of supplements, they should be supplemental to our food. So one, get most of your nutrients out of food. There's another fantastic book called Fiber Fueled. It's actually about plant-based eating. So if you're not a plant-based person, try to overlook that of like, it's not, you know, I'm not necessarily all vegan all the time. ⁓ but it does give it a lot of information on just plants, right? And the different micronutrients that are happening in plants. I'm like absolutely one of those weirdos that sprouts broccoli sprouts at my house. Like I have one on my counter right now. So I'm like, I know the micronutrients and fiber that's happening in rock. ⁓ so one, get most of your nutrients out of your food. But let's say I'm dairy free. I I cannot eat the dairy. It does not, it doesn't love me the way that I love it. So I take a calcium supplement. Okay. I take a high quality calcium supplement because I believe that that's something, you know, that my body needs. And I've done a lot of testing for that. So first off, go get yourself some blood work done with a natural doctor and see what you actually should be supplementing with versus kind of the blanket like vitamin C, you know, magnesium. Like you probably don't need that much freaking magnesium. You know what I mean? Same thing with, you know, melatonin if you don't sleep well. If you take so freaking much melatonin, your brain is gonna stop producing its own naturally. So that's really, you know, maybe a little bit, but that's not a great solution. speaker-0: Mm-hmm. Yeah. We were talking before this sometimes it's the simple things that are actually the big things to support your overall health. Absolutely. Sleep and chewing your food. Sleep. speaker-1: You can drink some water, are you incredibly dehydrated all the time? I live in Colorado. Yes, I am. Like drink drink more water. Give your give your brain the chance to be at least a little bit hydrated. speaker-0: Yeah. What would you say lights you up most about this work you do? speaker-1: ⁓ my gosh. Honestly, I believe that there's such a misconception that we are beholden to what we're born with, right? And what lights my soul absolutely on fire is being able to teach people that that is not the case. Your brain is absolutely neuroplastic. It is capable of change. It just doesn't know how to do that yet. But you can learn to do that. Your brain can learn to change. So literally offering people hope and the opportunity to change their lives and to change their neurology gets me up every single day. speaker-0: I love that. And as we wrap up, what is one reminder you want every listener to take with them about what's possible through supporting their brain? speaker-1: ⁓ my gosh, your brain is your best asset. It is the one thing that will carry you the farthest in life. Make sure that you are treating it as such, right? That how would you treat your most valued prize possession? You would treat it the best. So if you're treating it with highly processed food and, you know, soda and different things like that, or or lack of sleep and overstressed, that is not the that is not how you would treat, you know, your your favorite person or your best asset. start treating it like you love it the most and like it's gonna give you the best life that you can have. speaker-0: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And where can our community connect with you, explore brain mapping, learn about brain code centers, neurofeedback, and all the things. speaker-1: So you can find us on our Instagram at Brain Code Centers. Rachel runs our Instagram. Thank God bless her. She is a saint because I am the worst at social media. So ⁓ if you DM Brain Code Centers, she will literally DM you back. ⁓ she can send you a link to schedule your free consultation. Braincodecenters.com. I get a lot of people who are like, is there, you know, is there like a library on information about this? We have a f we have tons of research articles on our page that you can go look at. ⁓ we do also have a lot of, you know, Google reviews and testimonials. So don't ⁓ don't take it from me, right? That obviously I've done a lot of neurofeedback. I do neurofeedback, I've committed my life to it. Hear about it from other people who have had very real life life transformation experiences. speaker-0: Mm-hmm. Amazing. Well, thank you so much for your time. I feel like I could nerd out for hours with you, but I I will I will let you go and let everybody explore neurofeedback themselves. speaker-1: Heck yes. Thank you so much, Lloyd. speaker-0: Of course they explained. Thank you for tuning in to the We Shine Wall Podcast. If today's conversation lit something up in you, I'd love for you to share it with a friend, leave us a review, and dive deeper each week by subscribing to our Substack in the show notes to interact with guests and discover more resources to expand you. Until next time, keep trusting your right next step and keep shining, my friend.