Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS)

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Recently New Scientist magazine published an article on Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) reflecting a growing level of interest in the subject. Current research is exploring the therapeutic efficacy of tDCS, but as the article indicates, also its potential in helping all of us access optimal performance, especially in learning. Whilst tDCS must still be regarded as an experimental therapy it clearly has lots of potential, and tDCS and other forms of neurotherapy and neurofeedback are available to clients of York Mind-Body Health. Continue reading →

Polyvagal Theory

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Recently I came across the work of Dr Stephen Porges, who developed the polyvagal theory as a more complete model of the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS). The ANS is a critical part of the physiology of stress and anxiety. The polyvagal theory makes a lot of sense and can potentially explain some findings that are anomalous from the point of view of the traditional understanding of the ANS. It also has something to say about how biofeedback and mindfulness help transform the physiology of stress. Continue reading →

Happiness and Moral Awareness

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This week I finished reading ‘The Happiness Hypothesis’ by Jonathan Haidt which I would rate as excellent. Though it can be positioned in the Positive Psychology genre, this book is much more than another rehash of happiness research. Haidt is a researcher in what you could summarise as the psychology of morality. I think his experience has given him some pretty unique insights that mean we can all draw some important learnings relating to a theme that is missing from the majority of self-help books and which the psychotherapy world has shied away from. That theme is the idea that “moral character” is core to our well-being. Continue reading →

Mindfulness Training Helps IBS

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Recently I came across a new research paper showing efficacy of mindfulness training for Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) – see also this other paper on mindfulness for IBS.

The researchers identified the likely mechanism as “non-reactivity to gut-focused anxiety and catastrophic appraisals of the significance of abdominal sensations” – in other words to a change in attitude on the part of the subjects towards their own gut sensations, and to the thoughts they had about them (though the thoughts themselves didn’t necessarily change).

Does this mean that either the IBS itself is all in the head (brain, rather than imagination), or alternatively, that the improvement is all in the head and nothing to do with the gut itself? After all, IBS tends to be the diagnosis you get when your doctor can’t find anything wrong with your gut. Continue reading →

EEG Assessment and Neurotransmitters

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Let’s summarise the drift of my last few posts.

  1. I find EEG assessment to be useful and percipient in clinical practice.
  2. I think it has more potential yet. The system I use derives from neurotherapy where it is used for selecting neurofeedback protocols, but I think it’s use can go beyond that. My ambition is to use it to inform my decisions in nutritional therapy.
  3. A lot is known about how neurotransmitter brain chemistry relates to symptomatology in mental, emotional and neurological disorders. Mainstream medicine’s approach targets brain chemistry adjustment – even though for the most part no attempt is made to objectively assess patients’ neurochemistry.
  4. There are EEG patterns that correlate to symptom patterns, albeit loosely rather than definitively. So it might be possible to use EEG patterns to predict which nutritional interventions are more likely to be successful. Continue reading →

The Role of Neurotransmitters in Mental Health

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Mainstream medicine views mental and neurological disorders in terms of neurochemical imbalances, and attempts to correct these using medications. For example depression is seen as a serotonin imbalance, and the most common class of anti-depressants (SSRIs) target the serotonin network. Whether or not depression really is a serotonin imbalance is a matter of controversy, but at least we can agree it would be a step forward if we had a means of objectively assessing the individual’s serotonin status, or the likelihood of SSRIs actually working (they don’t work for everybody). At present there is no reliable lab test that can do this. Continue reading →

Making Sense of EEG Assessment

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In my last post I made the case for EEG assessment as a useful and powerful tool in therapy and coaching. In this post I hope to put some flesh on those bones by explaining just what EEG is and what it can tell us.

EEG (short for electroencephalography) is simply an oscillating voltage measured from the scalp, and deriving from activity in the brain’s cerebral cortex. We can analyse the EEG to make sense of how the brain is functioning. Continue reading →

Making Use of EEG Assessment

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In recent months I’ve been using a simple system for assessing my clients’ EEG. (I actually developed the software myself and hope to market it for others to use in the not-too-distant future.)

I’ve been really impressed with the findings in the light of my clients’ presenting symptoms. The technology is cheap and recordings only take 15-20 minutes. I see a lot of potential for this tool, so I decided to write a blog post attempting to summarise my understanding of it and communicate something of its value. Continue reading →

Book Review – Dan Siegel – Mindsight

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The advances of neuroscience are everywhere these days. Whatever the media, whether television, radio, internet or newspaper, there always seems to be at least one article highlighting some new finding on the brain and its effect on behaviour. Many of the reported findings are both fragmentary and contradictory relying more on shock and impact of the headline than on the rigor of the research. So Dan Siegel’s Mindsight is both timely and important and adds much needed clarity of how the mind as a whole actually works. Continue reading →