Calm Your Brain: Lens Neurofeedback Explained with Nicole Bankhead

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Hi everyone, welcome to another episode of Wellness and Wealth.

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My name is Wendy Manganiello, your host.

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Today we're diving into something you might not have heard of before Lens Neurofeedback.

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If you've ever struggled with sleep anxiety or burnout as a busy entrepreneur, this episode is going to open your eyes to a gentle, tech-assisted way to support your nervous system and overall well-being.

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My guest, nicole Bankhead, founder of Serenity Wellness Counseling, has built a center focused on holistic healing beyond traditional talk therapy.

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We'll talk about how Lens Neurofeedback works, who's it best for and why it might be the missing piece in your self-care plan, whether you're a local to a practice or just curious about alternatives.

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This is an episode that feels especially relevant in our overworked world.

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Let's get into it.

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Welcome to the show, nicole, thank you.

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So we're going to get right into questions, because when we spoke, I had never heard of LENS for neurofeedback and I'd love for you to share with our audience what that is.

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LEND stands for Low Energy Neurofeedback System, a natural approach for emotional regulation.

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It's a form of EEG biofeedback and is a scientifically proven brain-based technique that helps clients balance and normalize their brain function and body regulation by helping to regulate the nervous system.

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The brain communicates internally with electrical impulses called brainwaves.

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The brainwaves occur at different frequencies and neurofeedback uses a computerized system to speak directly to the brain.

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This communication is similar to holding a mirror up to the brain and allowing it to see itself.

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Once the brain is presented with this new information, it will make necessary changes.

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Using what is referred to as neuroplasticity Works to lift the suppression in the brain, allowing the brain to be more flexible and function more optimally.

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Providers place sensors on the head to map 21 points to pick up the brain waves.

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Each of the 21 points correlate to a particular function in the brain.

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Neurofeedback training doesn't directly target symptoms.

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It assists you in improving your brain timing, which helps improve brain function or symptoms.

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Clients report being more emotionally balanced, mentally stable, flexible and resilient.

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A major advantage of neurofeedback over medication is that once your brain learns these new patterns, it tends to stick.

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It only assists you.

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If you do enough neurofeedback training, you're likely to experience improvement.

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How much training varies with each individual.

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Neurofeedback doesn't teach you the skills such as how to calm yourself, how to behave around others, spelling, solving problems.

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Instead, it helps you train the circuits of your brain to do a better job of calming, having self-control, spelling, solving math problems.

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When the circuits that play a role in those tasks work better, you do better.

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I'd love to know how you found out about your training.

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Neurofeedback has been around for a long time, but it was more of the traditional system where it would take about 80 sessions.

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These newer systems are more.

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I was introduced to it by trying it out myself through a program called IASIS neurofeedback.

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At first I felt great changes calm, sleep improved, less irritable but over time those experiences changed and I started feeling worse.

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That had me doing my own research.

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I knew I wanted to bring it into the practice because it is a way of healing people faster.

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Talk therapy is very important, but with neurofeedback alongside talk therapy, our clients feel more empowered to use the skills that are in their session.

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I started asking around and messaged many different providers with different systems and asked for their time, and I ended up meeting an amazing mentor and friend named Kelly, who introduced me to lens neurofeedback.

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After several hours on the phone, through deep explanation, she was able to explain the progress in her client, the trainings involved, the collaborative work with all lens providers.

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I immediately knew that was the fit for our practice, got trained in it and started using it with my own clients.

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That immediately started seeing success.

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That's really fascinating.

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The reason why we do self-care and I talk about that it's on different levels for different people is that people sometimes don't know that they could use something like this.

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I'd love for you to go through some of those symptoms or life things that might happen, that this could be beneficial for those female entrepreneurs.

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As an entrepreneur myself, I know that we work really long hours.

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Our body endures less sleep.

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We often find ourselves waking up feeling anxious or running through thoughts of need to get done.

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We start snapping at the people we care about, or even at our employees, and we're noticing these changes.

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Anytime you're starting to notice a lack in sleep, increase in anxiety, an increase in irritability, that's when I would suggest giving it a shot.

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The first thing we hear back from clients is that their sleep and irritability improves.

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I always feel like sleep is probably the first warning sign of most things, and the one we ignore the most.

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You don't realize how much that lack of sleep after a while is really affecting everything that you're doing, and then it's time to look into why we're having such a lack of sleep problem.

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For those who are looking for this, can you go a little bit through the phases of what to expect, as they're going through this therapy we do?

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have some clients that report they feel an immediate calmer state.

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I have some clients with autism that walk into a room and their legs are shaking.

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You can see it in their hands.

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After a few sessions of the feedback you see the body become relaxed, shoulders less tense, the hands start to relax, the legs are not shaking and we can sometimes see that in the very first session.

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Those clients will typically report back to us that their sleep improved.

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We usually recommend coming once a week and then about the eighth to 10th session you'll spread that out to every other week or three weeks.

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Clients five sessions.

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I feel like they're at their optimal level.

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It depends on the individual and how their brain is accepting that feedback.

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We call it a workout for the brain.

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Each individual is different.

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That's why we go through assessments.

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We ask a series of questions after every session and before you're next to determine where we increase or decrease the feedback.

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That's all on how you're feeling.

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Your total time in our office is maybe 20 minutes, but the actual feedback time is seconds.

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It depends on how many points we choose to do in that session.

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We often start with a few points and then work our way up to more.

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Each time it really is run for maybe five seconds at the most, depending.

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Like for some children that we use this with, we will do very little amounts of feedback, because that's all they need.

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And we can even do this with the body and not on the head, and we can do what we call body lens, so we can con the body through putting it on your hands and feet as well.

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It's amazing what we can do with technology that we didn't have to this advanced level even 20 years ago.

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And it doesn't even have to take all that much, because usually when we think of self-care we think we don't have time, I don't have that extra five, 20 minutes.

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But when something's that easy to go like I can go somewhere for 20 minutes to feel better, that just makes sense.

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It doesn't have to be this long, drawn out thing.

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It's like when we talk about meditation if people don't know better, they think it has to be a six hour thing and it's no.

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Just breathe for a minute and you'll start to feel better.

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So that's good to know that.

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It's also a really short type of scenario because especially as busy female entrepreneurs we're like, do we have the time to do this?

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And it sounds it doesn't take long to have this become useful.

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My last question if a female entrepreneur is wondering if Lens Neurofeedback is right for them, what's the first step to seeking out help?

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They can call our main line and sign up for a free Lens Neurofeedback session.

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We offer the first session free to give a client the opportunity to understand the system, complete their assessments.

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We recommend getting a complete map.

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We will actually map out the brain and that usually takes three to four sessions.

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Before determining whether or not it's the right fit, I'd love for you to talk about your offer.

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They can get a free session If they're not in your area.

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Do you have recommendations, if they're not physically in your area, for other places?

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that do it.

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Yeah, there is a list of lens providers we can send out to them.

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They can still call my office and tell us they're looking to try lens neurofeedback.

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Heard about it on this podcast.

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I mean, we have some people that come from 20, 30 minutes away because they want to seek out this type of therapy, but we can help them find other providers around them.

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They do have a provider list on the Oaks Lab website if you're dealing with anxiety or ADHD, this is a great way to take care of yourself.

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Thank you so much for coming on the show today, nicole, and sharing about this.

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This is the first time my audience will be hearing about this.

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If you would like to connect with Nicole, please see the show notes.

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Thank you again, nicole, for being on the show today.

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Thank you so much To my listeners.

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If you love what you hear today, please subscribe for more self-care tips.

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If you really love what Nicole had to say, please leave a review.

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Have a blessed and abundant week.