Have you ever found yourself wondering what stress is actually made of?
We might be aware of certain physical byproducts of stress in the body, such as cortisol; we may also think of certain second-order effects of stress on the body, like high blood pressure; still others will talk of the many psychological manifestations of stress, like anxiety. But what is its substance? Is there a form it takes that can be measured directly, observed, quantified and acted upon directly?
The truth is that, in spite of how often we talk about it on our culture, relatively little is known about stress, from where and how it originates in the brain all the way to its often-unpredictable effects on the body. There are as many different responses to stress as there are individual personalities on our planet, if not more, and their relationships to our health and health outcomes are even more numerous. The best that most of us can manage is to try our best to preemptively deal with stress, which is to say figure out how to avoid it; and for those inevitable times when we cannot avoid it, we can react to it by treating its symptoms by whatever means are available and appropriate. But that still leaves the stress itself looking quite mysterious.
Advanced quantitative EEG (qEEG) captures and quantifies your brain activity
It may not yet be possible to directly measure stress itself, but the 19-sensor qEEG technology that we use in our office is able to quantify brain activity by measuring electrical signals, and what is stress if not a form of neural activity? You see, all forms of brain activity consist of tiny electrical signals moving between different parts of the brain, and the paths they move along form discrete networks. These neural networks are understood by scientists to govern particular functions of the brain, inasmuch as electrical activity along these networks corresponds with the subject performing those functions. For example, different neural networks are associated with certain tasks the brain performs, such as attention or executive function, as well emotional states, such as depression or anxiety. Using a normative database and an advanced form of qEEG recording and analysis, one subject’s neural activity along a given pathway can be determined to be relatively high or low, with different clinical presentations corresponding with these values. This advanced analytic technique is called sw LORETA, which stands for standardized weighted Low Resolution Electromagnetic Tomography. A simple example would be an excess of neural activity along the “anxiety” network might correlate with a clinical presentation of anxiety.
Training Your Brain with sw LORETA Neurofeedback to reduce anxiety and fatigue from stress
Now, it also might not; the brain is a mysterious organ. But in any case, a qEEG can draw a map of all the unoptimized pathways in one’s brain, many of which are understood by science as relating to disordered presentations, and this is finally where sw LORETA neurofeedback enters the picture.
You see, during the neurofeedback session, when the brain’s electricity is being measured through the skin of the scalp, state-of-the-art software can then translate those measurements to an output, such as sound or a visual display, in real time. This feedback engages your neuroplasticity in such a way that you learn to modulate the amount of activity moving along these pathways, and even create brand new ones, such as in the case of a mild traumatic brain injury. In this manner, you can train your brain using direct feedback from the various networks that work together to keep your brain in a state of relaxation and calm. In the hands of a skilled practitioner, this technique can be used to encourage or discourage activity along a given channel, in effect working to shift the initial imbalance. And by rewarding the brain’s tendencies toward correcting these imbalances, it offers a form of training for the brain to learn how to more effectively regulate itself. With enough training, the subject themselves develops the internal resiliency to perform these regulating functions themselves, both improving symptoms and reducing the need for further intervention.
If you are interested in learning more about using qEEG-based sw LORETA neurofeedback to manage your stress or any other dysregulating psychological condition, contact Dr. Sacarin today for a free consultation.
