Category Archives: brain

Would you like some theta brain waves with that?

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According to the book I’m reading, What Really Matters: The Search for Wisdom in America, many of the biofeedback pioneers viewed the early focus on training people to experience the alpha range of brain waves as a mistake. Elmer Green, biofeedback pioneer said,

Alpha is finally only an idling state. It’s ten times better than beta when you’re tense, but beyond a certain level of relaxation, it doesn’t have that much to offer by itself. If you want to truly grow, the only way you’re going to do that is through the deeper state of theta. That’s where you can interrogate the unconscious and even gain the ability to reprogram it. The true value of alpha is that it’s a necessary bridge between beta and theta.

Green did research on theta in the early 1970s. Neurofeedback studies of yogis and monks showed that as they moved into deep levels of meditation, alpha eventually gave way to long trains of theta waves. Zen masters have described this deep state as having access to some deeper level of truth or knowing.

The challenge is to learn how to experience theta without falling asleep. Our most common experience of a pure theta state is in those moments when we are falling asleep or awakening, when our minds let go of rational thought and often spontaneously form images.

We found theta to be associated with a deeply internalized state. The state of deep quietness of body, emotions, and mind…achieved in theta training seems to build a bridge between conscious and unconscious processes and allows usually “unheard” things to come to consciousness. It’s as if you have two radio signals. One is loud, the other is very soft and faint. To hear the faint one, you have to turn the loud one down. We go into theta to get this loud noise of normal waking consciousness turned off, so we can hear the softer voice underneath. And we do that because the breadth of our consciousness turns out to extend far beyond what we’re usually conscious of.

The book goes on to relate studies done by Green and associates where they trained themselves and others to relax the body, quiet the mind, let go of emotional tension, and increase theta while remaining awake enough to be aware of the imagery that arose.

College students so trained were able to recall rich imagery, including long-forgotten childhood events. After the studies, a significant percentage of students reported positive changes, including greater clarity, more energy, improved relationships, and better concentration and recall.

Green went to India to study brain wave patterns of advanced yogis and tested Ram Sharma, who could produce nearly pure theta waves on command while remaining fully conscious, unheard of in the West.

Green later said the value of theta training…

…is the relatively rapid development of a skill in shifting, without years of trial-and-error meditation, into a state of consciousness in which one comes face to face with one’s Self…. You can feel all the mental, physical, and emotional things going on around you and in you and yet not be identified with the individual pieces.

So how can you experience theta without a neurofeedback machine? I’ve experienced it when receiving cranio-sacral therapy, esoteric acupuncture, regular acupuncture, and massage, and also through meditation.

Once experienced, it becomes easier to re-experience.

Article: This Is Your Brain on Metaphors

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I found this article in the New York Times fascinating, particularly the information about how the brain confuses the literal and figurative.

Consider an animal (including a human) that has started eating some rotten, fetid, disgusting food. As a result, neurons in an area of the brain called the insula will activate. Gustatory disgust. Smell the same awful food, and the insula activates as well. Think about what might count as a disgusting food (say, taking a bite out of a struggling cockroach). Same thing.

Now read in the newspaper about a saintly old widow who had her home foreclosed by a sleazy mortgage company, her medical insurance canceled on flimsy grounds, and got a lousy, exploitative offer at the pawn shop where she tried to hock her kidney dialysis machine. You sit there thinking, those bastards, those people are scum, they’re worse than maggots, they make me want to puke … and your insula activates. Think about something shameful and rotten that you once did … same thing. Not only does the insula “do” sensory disgust; it does moral disgust as well. Because the two are so viscerally similar. When we evolved the capacity to be disgusted by moral failures, we didn’t evolve a new brain region to handle it. Instead, the insula expanded its portfolio.

Not only does the brain fail to distinguish rotten food from rotten behavior, it also fails to distinguish between being in need of a bath and dirty doings:

Another truly interesting domain in which the brain confuses the literal and metaphorical is cleanliness. In a remarkable study, Chen-Bo Zhong of the University of Toronto and Katie Liljenquist of Northwestern University demonstrated how the brain has trouble distinguishing between being a dirty scoundrel and being in need of a bath. Volunteers were asked to recall either a moral or immoral act in their past. Afterward, as a token of appreciation, Zhong and Liljenquist offered the volunteers a choice between the gift of a pencil or of a package of antiseptic wipes. And the folks who had just wallowed in their ethical failures were more likely to go for the wipes. In the next study, volunteers were told to recall an immoral act of theirs. Afterward, subjects either did or did not have the opportunity to clean their hands. Those who were able to wash were less likely to respond to a request for help (that the experimenters had set up) that came shortly afterward. Apparently, Lady Macbeth and Pontius Pilate weren’t the only ones to metaphorically absolve their sins by washing their hands.

And — get this — holding a warm drink affects judging personalities as warmer!

Another example of how the brain links the literal and the metaphorical comes from a study by Lawrence Williams of the University of Colorado and John Bargh of Yale. Volunteers would meet one of the experimenters, believing that they would be starting the experiment shortly. In reality, the experiment began when the experimenter, seemingly struggling with an armful of folders, asks the volunteer to briefly hold their coffee. As the key experimental manipulation, the coffee was either hot or iced. Subjects then read a description of some individual, and those who had held the warmer cup tended to rate the individual as having a warmer personality, with no change in ratings of other attributes.

The author goes on to talk about what really ends bloodshed and creates peace. Highly recommended reading!

Left brain, right brain

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I love having both hemispheres of my brain as resources, the left brain for practical matters, logic, reason, and the right brain for intuition, creativity, the big picture, connection with the Universe or the Source or Big Mind, whatever words you want to use to denote the unfathomable mystery in which we all live.

The right brain’s work is actually bigger than, and completely holds, the left brain’s work, which is in service to survival. Imagine that!!!

The right brain holds all other awareness not needed for survival. (Which is why stress can be so debilitating. If your focus is survival, literal or figurative, you’re probably not using your right brain.

Healing lies in the right hemisphere.

Western science has discovered that within a day, our brain hemispheres shift in dominance roughly every 90 minutes. This is often when people take a break from what they were doing — go to the bathroom, get a drink of water, stretch or stand up and walk around, make a quick phone call.

When the hemispheres switch, the nostrils also switch dominance.

You may notice that often, one nostril is more open, and that this changes. (Given of course that you don’t have a cold or allergies or obstructions to nose breathing.)

If you haven’t noticed that before, check it out. Which is more open now? When you wake up? When you go to sleep? When you’re paying bills? When you’re praying or meditating or listening to poetry?

Nadi shodhana, also known as alternate nostril breathing, influences nostril dominance to balance the hemispheres of the brain. It’s a yogic breathing technique.

There are several YouTube videos available to show you how to do that. This one shows that you can place one hand under your armpit to help the hemispheres switch dominance. This one is good for actually learning the technique.

Being able to switch quickly from hemisphere to hemisphere, of course, gives one a great advantage. The hemispheres’ roles and personalities are so different, it’s like having access to two brains with great and various resources instead of just one.

And who doesn’t want more resources in life?

I find the practice calming and centering. When life seems to be coming at you too fast, which applies to most of us with jobs / families / businesses, nadi shodhana is a useful addition to your day.

The joy of being a Five

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I finally figured something out, something that has been fishy for a long time where I work, that no one will speak openly about, like a shameful family secret.

I have wracked my brain trying to figure out what makes sense about this situation, which has been rather crazy-making.

I went into a theta state listening to a new CD, and I got an image of being in a rowboat out on the water, and the large and long arms of a woman who remained submerged reached up and grabbed control of the boat.

Oh, and when the other chief instigator of crazy-making, the one who is not submerged but deeply connected with long-armed woman’s energy, came into my office to say hello, I just happened to be watching this hilarious video.

The image and that “coincidence” tell me a story about what’s really going on.

I’m going to use this blog post to address this shadowy, long-armed woman. Everyone else who reads it, please pray for the most wounded of the two women to find peace. We will work on the other one later.

I know who you are, and it is time for you to completely let go. Way past time. This is no way to be living your life, through someone else.

I am sorry that you are in so much emotional pain and carry such a great need to control things. There must be a great well of tender vulnerability underneath that furious need to control others.

Your path to true happiness — and it is as available to you as to anyone else — lies in fully acknowledging your vulnerability and your fear.

Life is short, time passes quickly, and with it our only chance. Soften.

Let go of the need to control, let down your guard, and heal your heart.

By doing this, amazingly, you become able to lovingly protect yourself, tend to your own life, and become the magnanimous, self-surrendering, courageous, forgiving person that you really are.

You can find the help you need.

Best wishes to you. Now go your own way.

Reading What Really Matters: Searching for Wisdom in America

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I do not know how it happened that I missed this book! Published in 1995, it is the story of a successful journalist’s (as it says) search for wisdom in America. Tony Schwartz helped Donald Trump write a little book called The Art of the Deal, which made him rich but unsatisfied. He went on a quest that he shares in this book.

It’s Tony’s personal search, and he documents it as if writing in a journal (but with plenty of background info), rather than the “impersonal, keep your personal experience out of it” style of journalism.

He begins with Ram Dass and the influence of Eastern religions on America in the 1960s, covers the early days of Esalen, and moves on to brainwaves and biofeedback in Part I, The Pioneers.

I’m currently in the second part, Mind-Body Potentials, reading about Betty Edwards and drawing on the right side of the brain.

This quote got my attention:

As she stood by my side on that final afternoon [of a 5 day “drawing on the right side of the brain” workshop at Harvard], I suddenly understood the powerful impact of Edwards’s continuing encouragement. She creates a nurturing, nonjudgmental environment in which the expectation of success is high and the possibility of failure never enters the picture…. Put another way, the right hemisphere mode is a fragile and elusive state that can easily be overridden by the left hemisphere’s rush to judgment. At the same time, when the left hemisphere faces a challenge that it is ill equipped to meet, Edwards believes that it often simply gives up instead of turning the job over to the right hemisphere.

“We work very hard to thwart that inclination to quit,” Edward told me…. “I think of the left brain as the gatekeeper of the ego. One of its functions is to protect us from being made a fool of. In order to let the right hemisphere come forward and take over, the left hemisphere needs to be reassured that things will turn out okay. That’s what we try to do with our cheerleading. We’re creating a safe environment in which to let go of conscious control.”

One of the biggest changes I notice in myself that I believe comes from meditation is that my right brain is becoming more active. As I’ve mentioned before, whole body awareness is in the domain of the right brain. And it seems true, that the left verbal brain has to be able to let down its guard to experience wholeness. Even if just for brief periods of time at first, to know that it’s actually safe! And not just safe, but a wonderful, unnameable experience!

This is a rich book for seekers of wisdom. I am looking forward to reading about flow, learned optimism, dreams, Ken Wilber, the Enneagram, and his conclusion, entitled The Point Is to Be Real.

I wonder if he’s written anything that updates this book, which is now 15 years old. It seems like he might have something on American teachers like Byron Katie and Gangaji, who use satsang or inquiry to help people grow.

What else? Oh, I imagine he might add something about deeksha. And perhaps something about the recently discovered neuroplasticity of the brain.

What’s cutting edge in the search for wisdom?

Contemplative neuroscience: how meditation changes your brain

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Today I ran across a link to CNN’s Belief Blog, about how meditation changes the brain, complete with images of brain scans.

The article cites Richard Davidson at the University of Wisconsin and research on the limbic system and development of concentration and empathy, and also the left anterior region and positive emotions (available after only a few weeks of meditation). He’s the most well-known contemplative neuroscientist, being a friend of the Dalai Lama’s, who has given him access to Tibetan monks who are among the most highly experienced meditators in the world with over 10,000 hours. (At one hour per day, it would take 27 years to accumulate that much time meditating!)

It also cites (new info to me) Andrew Newburg’s study of the prefrontal cortex and attention, and the superior parietal lobe and lack of orientation to time and space. Could this explain the experience of oneness and presence in meditation? Makes sense to me.

The National Institutes of Health is funding more research in contemplative science, an encouraging sign.

Still, the nascent field faces challenges. Scientists have scanned just a few hundred brains on meditation to date, which makes for a pretty small research sample. And some scientists say researchers are over eager to use brain science to prove the that meditation “works.”

“This is a field that has been populated by true believers,” says Emory University scientist Charles Raison, who has studied meditation’s effect on the immune system. “Many of the people doing this research are trying to prove scientifically what they already know from experience, which is a major flaw.”

But Davidson says that other types of scientists also have deep personal interest in what they’re studying. And he argues that that’s a good thing.

“There’s a cadre of grad students and post docs who’ve found personal value in meditation and have been inspired to study it scientifically,” Davidson says. “These are people at the very best universities and they want to do this for a career.

“In ten years,” he says, “we’ll find that meditation research has become mainstream.”

I hope so.

Writing a new chapter in my life

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Just finished 6 weeks of cleansing and flushing my body of parasites and toxins and nasty old stuff that needs to go.

Now it feels ripe to do the same for my worldly goods.

I’m downsizing. Selling my East Austin house where I’ve lived for the past 10 years, making some big changes.

I’m hoping to buy a used vintage trailer in good shape and wanting to find a nice place to put it — on someone’s big lot or country acreage not too far out.

The trailer parks on Barton Springs Road would also be a good location, if I can get in there.

Or perhaps I’ll rent a trailer first and see how I like it.

Releasing, shedding, letting go, removing, reducing, downsizing, lightening up… I have too much stuff. I’m so ready for clean, spare, minimal. I could have so much more free time to do things I love.

So much to do… Prune the branch that hangs too low in front of the house, obscuring the view. Clear the entry path. Clean the house and make it ready for prospective buyers. Take stuff to Habitat and Goodwill and Half Price Books. Sell stuff on Craigslist. Maybe even sell the house on Craigslist!

I’m feeling my way through this, flying by the seat of my pants. Wanting to find a good neighbor for Bruce, someone who will honor the house and remodel, not tear it down and build ugly.

This house has been good to me, and it’s time to move on. I’m preparing for finishing my work at my current job sometime mid-2011. I’ve committed to stay through the session. Hopefully the last day of May will be my last day there.

And… I’ve been accepted into AOMA (acupuncture school). I deferred my entrance until next July, so I can do all this stuff at a pace I can handle.

I’m not 100% sure it’s right for me, but it sure feels like I’m moving in the right direction, and nothing else I’ve found resonates so much with me. Oriental medicine feels right, and it’s daunting. Three and a half years of eastern and western medicine is pretty intense, and it’s been years since I’ve been in school. But how fascinating, exotic, and practical. It will definitely keep my left and right brain hemispheres working!

In many ways, these changes are a side effect of meditation. Questions arise: How am I not living my right life? What is my right life? What do I love to do so much that I would do it for free (and making a living at it is icing on the cake)?

Words, images, dreams, realizations arise. The answers I’ve found so far are: doing/teaching/learning yoga, learning about the subtle body’s energies, learning to think like a Daoist, helping others and myself on the path toward health and enlightenment, being of joyous service. And writing.

I hope you’ll wish me good luck and lend me your support.

Buddha’s Brain: supplements for brain health

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June 2, 2012: I’ve updated this post with links for the supplements if you want to order online. Some of them are not readily available in stores like Whole Foods.

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When I read the book Buddha’s Brain, I was very impressed by an appendix, Nutritional Neurochemistry, by Jan Hanson. She’s an acupunturist who has specialized in clinical nutrition for many years.

I’ve been following Hanson’s suggestions and taking supplements for about six weeks now. I take the minimum amount suggested. I feel better! My memory is better, I sleep better, and I focus better. My mood may be a little better—I wasn’t depressed before, and I generally feel buoyant already.

I haven’t noticed any changes in my digestion (the other area that neurotransmitters affect), but I take great care with my diet, having been tested for food sensitivities years ago and generally following a Type O Gatherer genotype diet. I eat well, going light on grains, beans, and dairy (mostly limited to yogurt and kefir), eating lots of fruits and veggies including green juices, and buying fresh and organic.

I’m not a doctor or a nutritionist, just someone in pursuit of health and well-being. I’m going to repeat some of what Jan Hanson says here in the hopes that if you’re really interested in this topic, you’ll click the link above, buy the book, and read it yourself. The world needs more people who are working toward functioning at 100 percent of their capabilities!

Base  your decisions either on testing or on self-observation.

  • If you have problems with sleep or digestion, supplement for serotonin.
  • If you have memory issues, build acetylcholine.
  • If your energy is low, build norepinephrine and dopamine.
  • These last two and serotonin help with mood.

Since supplements are expensive, it seems wise to start with your diet, because you gotta eat anyway. In general, eat lots of protein (a serving the size of a pack of cards at each meal) and at least 3 cups of veggies per day. Protein includes nuts, dairy, seeds, eggs, legumes, and grains, as well as meat, poultry, and fish and seafood.

Foods that are particularly good for brain health: berries, egg yolks, beef, liver, and dairy fats. I prefer grass-fed bison to beef and suggest avoiding liver unless it’s from a really clean source. Eggs with orange yolks from free-range chickens rock!

Foods that are not good for brain health: those with refined sugar and/or refined flour. You probably know this already.

If you think your body may disagree with some foods, either get tested for food sensitivities (chiropractors and naturopaths offer this) or eliminate suspects for a week or two and notice if you feel better, think more clearly, digest more easily, and have more energy. Anything your body is sensitive to causes an inflammatory reaction throughout your body, and inflammation is an enemy of your brain.

Supplements for basic brain health

Hanson recommends multivitamins with 10 to 25 times the daily value of all the B vitamins. For adults, that means at least the following amounts:

  • 12 mg of thiamin (B1)
  • 13 mg of riboflavin (B2)
  • 160 mg of niacin (B3); you may need a separate supplement* to get this much, and I recommend the no-flush kind
  • 50 mg of pantothenic acid (B5)
  • 17 mg of pyridoxine (B6)
  • 24 mcg of B12

Check your multivitamin label and if these amounts are not provided, find one that does. I like Source of Life food-based vitamins.

Vitamins B6 and B12 and folic acid play a crucial role in the production of many neurotransmitters:

  • Be sure to get 50 mg of B6 in the form of pyridoxal-5-phosphate (P5P) on an empty stomach in the morning. I have not found this form in a multivitamin, so I take a separate supplement. B vitamins are water soluble; any excess is excreted, so it’s okay if you take too much (at least from what I read now).
  • Take 800 mcg or more of folic acid, which is twice as much as most multis contain, so you’ll need a separate supplement.
  • Get at least 24 mcg of B12, which multis usually have.

Make sure you’re getting 400 IU of Vitamin E, at least half of which is gamma-tocopherol (not the more common alpha-tocopherol, which multivitamins usually contain).

Get 100 percent or more of the daily value of minerals. The Source of Life multi mentioned above includes the minerals below.

Iron plays a big role in brain health. If you think you might be low in iron, get tested, and supplement if you need it.

  • 1000 (men) or 1200 (women) mg of calcium (usually supplements are needed; I like New Chapter Bone Strength Take Care)
  • 20-35 mcg of chromium
  • 900 mcg of copper
  • 8 mg of iron (18 for menstruating women; Source of Life’s multivitamin offers this much iron—see link above)
  • 320-410 mg of magnesium
  • 1.8 to 2.3 mg of manganese
  • 45 mcg of molybdenum
  • 700 mg of phosphorus
  • 4.7 g of potassium
  • 55 mcg of selenium
  • 8 to 11 mg of zinc

Get enough omega-3 fatty acids. The benefits are better growth of neurons, mood elevation, and slowing of dementia. She recommends fish oil containing about 500 mg each of DHA and EPA daily—high quality, molecularly distilled. I like New Chapter Wholemega. It’s from sustainably caught wild Alaskan salmon.

Note: If you want to avoid fish oil, you can take a tablespoon of flax seed oil and 500 mg of DHA from algae daily.

Supplementing for neurotransmitters

Neurotransmitter supplements should be taken carefully. Start with the smallest dosage, try one new one at a time, and discontinue if you have negative side affects. Do not combine neurotransmitter supplements with antidepressants or psychotropic medications.

Hanson recommends building serotonin first. Serotonin supports mood, digestion, and sleep. Take 50-200 mg of 5-HTP in the morning or 500-1,500 mg of tryptophan before bed. If you need help sleeping, tryptophan at night is probably the better choice.

Norepinephrine and dopamine support energy, mood, and attention. Dopamine transforms into norepinephrine, so supplementation is the same for each: take L-phenylalanine or L-tyrosine, and start with 500 mg on an empty stomach, first thing in the morning. The maximum dose is 1,500 mg, which may be too stimulating for some.

Acetylcholine supports memory and attention. Take phosphatidylserine (PS), 100-300 mg per day. Also take acetyl-L-carnitine, 500-1,000 mg first thing on an empty stomach. Take huperzine A, 50-200 mcg per day. Hanson recommends finding which combination works best for you.

*The supplement links are based on the recommended minimum dosages given in Buddha’s Brain. I am a small person, and these dosages work for me. If you are larger or more in need of neurotransmitter supplementation for particular purposes such as sleep, attention, or memory, you can experiment with taking up to the maximum recommended, only making one change at a time and making gradual changes. Many of the supplements may be ordered from Amazon on a subscription basis, saving you money.

Good news for the brain

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Good news for brain health! Neurofeedback is growing in popularity — an estimated 100,000 Americans have tried it over the past decade.

The National Institute of Mental Health just sponsored its first study, on ADHD, with results to be announced later this month. The study’s director noted improvement in many of the children’s behavior.

Some so-called authorities still think of it as crackpot science.

It seems to me more like physical therapy: you have an injury or an imbalance, and you do exercises targeted to gain functionality.

Neurofeedback practitioners say people have problems when their brain wave frequencies aren’t suited for the task at hand, or when parts of the brain aren’t communicating adequately with other parts. These issues, they say, can be represented on a “brain map,” the initial EEG readings that serve as a guide for treatment. Subsequently, a clinician will help a patient learn to slow down or speed up those brain waves, through a process known as operant conditioning.

The article mentions companies offering it, and the lack of regulation. It advises choosing a practitioner carefully.

I’d love to hear first-hand accounts of people who’ve used neurofeedback to improve brain functioning in Austin, Texas.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/05/health/05neurofeedback.html?src=me&ref=health

Oh, yeah, one more skill!

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In my post yesterday about the skill developed for/during meditation, I forgot to mention the skill of returning! This is used when my monkey mind starts thinking, “Hmm, I’ll need to leave work early to get there on time tonight… I wonder if I’ll have time to change clothes… I can wear my new top… Who’s going to be there? I need to go to the grocery store too…” in the middle of meditation. I need to return my attention to the present moment, to my teacher’s directive, whole body awareness.

I have done this so often that I found tremendous value in putting my intent into words when I first sit down to meditate. Then when my mind strays, I bring it back to that anchored intent:

May my mind become steady with whole body awareness.

By the way, that act of gently and lovingly returning one’s wandering mind back to the present moment and to whole body awareness activates a small area between the limbic mid-brain and the frontal cortex called the anterior cingulate cortex, the ACC for short.

The ACC has to do with regulating emotions and behavior, as you might have guessed from its location. It appears that activating the ACC results in lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol, and lower levels of anxiety, depression, anger, fatigue, and pain sensitivity. In other words, more calm, happiness, acceptance, alertness, and pleasure!

And who doesn’t want that?

You may be wondering how I get my monkey mind to cooperate. I tell it that later it can think and wander all it wants to, but right now during meditation is not the time. Notice I don’t tell monkey mind that it’s bad for interrupting. It’s like a two-year-old sometimes! Redirect, redirect, redirect!!!