Unlock Your Brain’s Potential
Friederike Fabritius is once again joined by neurofeedback revolutionary, Penijean Gracefire. Today’s conversation focuses on creating a deeper understanding of brain stimulation, exploring innovative protocols that Penijean designed to improve people’s cognitive function right from the source. Discover how photobiomodulation can improve brain function, emotional balance, and cognitive performance by targeting specific brain wave frequencies. Learn about the importance of feedback in brain training and how it can be used to optimize mental flexibility, resilience, and overall well-being. Whether you're interested in improving focus, emotional regulation, or functional recovery, this science-filled episode will give you the insights needed to see just how useful brain-training can be.
00:00 Introduction to Neurofeedback with Penijean Gracefire
01:16 Exploring Brain Stimulation and Wearable Technology
01:37 Understanding Neurofeedback Protocols
03:45 The Importance of Feedback in Learning
05:04 Balancing Brain Waves for Optimal Performance
08:44 Personalizing Neurofeedback for Daily Life
14:45 Designing Effective Neurofeedback Protocols
22:01 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
Follow Friederike on LinkedIn to stay connected and up to date on her neurohacks.
And if you're looking for more brain-friendly insights be sure to subscribe to The Brain-Friendly Newsletter
Penijean Gracefire is a neural frequency analyst and constant question asker who rides motorcycles, drinks tea, and designs therapeutic applications for emerging neurotechnology. Her educational background includes a clinical mental health license and board certification in both Neurofeedback and Quantitative EEG. As a qualified supervisor, she also serves as the co-chair of the Neuroscience Taskforce for the American Mental Health Counseling Association.
Penijean constructs closed loop EEG-based feedback paradigms which alter neural dynamics in real time, helping people to recover from injury and trauma by improving cortical network flexibility and adaptive cascades. Her ground-breaking work has led to industry-wide changes in neuromodulation and is the basis for current standards in international certification. Penijean’s passions include spectral analysis, creative delivery mechanisms for caffeine, and taking things apart to see how they work.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Friederike Fabritius (00:05):
Hello everyone.
I'm here with Penijean Gracefire.
She's a true innovator in theneurofeedback and neuroscience space.
And I must say I came acrossher work because I was
interested in brain stimulation.
To me, it's crazy what is possible inthat field and that nobody's doing it.
Everybody's like on stimulants andtaking tons of medicines that have
(00:29):
side effects, antidepressants,anti-anxiety, and we all know that's
a bit problematic, to say the least.
At least I think it can be, I mean,I understand that if you're suicidal,
you might want to take something.
I'm not here to tell peopleto go off their meds.
That said, I think if you arein a, let's say normal range.
We all have problems.
(00:50):
Some people have anxiety, somepeople want to perform, some
people want to sleep better.
And so I think having the possibilityto stimulate your brain and teach
your brain how to activate certainareas of your brain or to hit certain
frequencies, to me it's a true puzzlewhen so few people are doing this.
(01:13):
At least I don't see alot of people doing this.
And so I looked into the Vielightdevice for photobiomodulation,
and by the way, this is not likea sponsored podcast or anything,
I'm just truly interested in this.
I'm a very curious person, so I will askPenijean the things that I want to know.
So welcome to the show, Penijean.
Penijean Gracefire: Thank you for having me. (01:35):
undefined
Friederike Fabritius (01:37):
Haha.
So, let me get started by askingyou: i've seen these different
protocols you designed for the device.
And so we can see here, there's EmotionalBalance, Theta Beta, Relax and Recover,
Alpha Plus Focus, Beta, Flex, and Enhance.
(01:58):
And I looked at them and I wasthinking, because they're not so one
dimensional, it's not that, oh, yourelax and we just throw a bunch of
alpha on your brain, or you want tosleep, we give you delta, or you want
to be focused, we give you low beta.
They're pretty nuanced.
So when I look at these protocols,for example, I see, let me just
(02:18):
quickly show this for those who arewatching on YouTube, so I see you're
starting with like, theta, and thenyou do beta or you do alpha gamma.
So I see there's like a range of thingsyou are doing here, and I just want
to hear it from the pro herself, like,how the hell did you come up with this?
(02:39):
Because I've never seen anything like it.
I see these more simple devicesand I see you get into a
certain frequency and that's it.
But here you can do so much more.
So, uh, please, pleaseexplain your approach when you
develop something like this.
Penijean Gracefire (02:52):
So the first most important thing for us to understand
is that for me to even be able toinnovate or invent things, the hardware
and software platform have to have theoptions, the features, and the capability.
Friederike Fabritius (03:06):
Right.
Penijean Gracefire (03:07):
So one of the reasons that you're only seeing that on that
Vielight Neuropro 2 platform is becauseit's currently the only device that
allows that set of features and options.
And so the reason I bring that up isbecause, um, there are two elements to do
in kind of independent photobiomodulation.
(03:28):
That are, um, important, thatunderlie most of those design choices.
So the concept of location and frequencyare relevant to, to almost any type of
feedback or feed forward that we're doing.
So I'm a big fan of theconcept of feedback, right?
(03:48):
Like, let's look at what your brain'sdoing, and then let's give it information
that will intrigue it and prompt it toengage in a, a, a change of behavior.
Um, and I think that feedback makesa ton of sense for everyone because
it's just basic learning, right?.
Friederike Fabritius (04:03):
Exactly.
And, sorry to interrupt,but that is to me so crazy.
For example, that's why I lovedhaving Jeff Tarrant here on the show
because millions of people meditate.
But apart from like self-awareness ininside, nobody's getting any feedback
on what they're actually doing.
And we know that feedback isso essential for learning.
(04:23):
So I find it almost crazy, like,how can you learn without feedback?
Right?
And so I thought it was genius that he'scombining that because, yeah, I could
be meditating for an hour and in realityI'm just thinking about my grocery list,
or I'm angry at someone or ruminating.
That is not very beneficial for me.
I would still clock off the timethat I tried to meditate, but maybe
(04:47):
I was in a very detrimental, negativestate and completely distracted
and I mean, I would feel it, but Iwouldn't know how to get out of it.
Well, if you get instantfeedback, then you say like,
oh wow, I'm getting distracted.
Let me refocus.
So are you saying this isnot just stimulation, this is
also feedback for your brain?
Penijean Gracefire (05:04):
So what we are discussing is what I would call
feed-forward, but the reason I'mmentioning the feedback component
and the idea of learning is that, sofor example, if you want to learn to
dance you can get out there and dowhatever, and that's completely fine.
You can watch a YouTube video or aTikTok and see someone demonstrating
(05:26):
and then you can potentially imitate andthen you can hire somebody to teach you
by arranging your body and giving youdirect feedback about your performance.
Friederike Fabritius (05:36):
Right.
Penijean Gracefire (05:37):
All of these are completely valid, right.
Each level will have more rapidityand maybe efficacy in how quickly
and how well you learn to dance.
And so, for me, because I've done so muchfeedback, paradigm building interaction
(05:57):
over the years, that's quite intuitive.
Like, you give somebody information,they take it in, it changes what they're
doing, they give you information, youtake it, that changes what you're doing.
Constant circuit.
But with something like photobiomodulationwhere there isn't always an inherent
feedback loop, it's just sort of, there'slight and they're blinking and they're
doing things, how are you supposedto communicate more sophisticated
(06:21):
models of information to a brainthat cannot be real time modulating
how the information is delivered?
Friederike Fabritius (06:28):
Right.
Penijean Gracefire (06:29):
And so that was the question I was asking when I was thinking
through how to build those, becausewe've spoken in earlier episodes about
the idea of there being a necessaryvariability of different things happening
at different times in the brain tomeet the demands of the environment.
Friederike Fabritius (06:48):
Exactly.
So for example, you don't want yourwhole brain to be in alpha, for example.
Maybe you want some at the back of yourbrain in a certain moment, and then
you want some gamma somewhere else.
So that idea that you don'twant to blast the whole brain
with just one frequency, right?
I saw that the device isalso boosting coherence.
And so kind of how different brainareas communicate with each other.
(07:11):
And so I think it moves from this likesimplistic idea that you need more
alpha, beta, whatever, to that ideaof helping different brain networks
getting into different frequenciessimultaneously so that they like
work together in an optimal way.
Is that what you're saying?
Penijean Gracefire (07:30):
Yes.
So location and frequency are huge.
Where in the brain do weexpect things to be happening?
And like what, what brain wave,faster, slower, are we expecting
it to hang out in to do the task?
But the other elements that reallyunderlie almost everything I design are
the concept of power and connectivity.
(07:51):
For example, if you have a cell phone, Ifyou have a completely charged up battery
and no signal, how well does it work?
If you have great connectivity and nopower charge, how well does it work?
Everything that we're doing requires boththe energy to do it and the connectivity
infrastructure to make it happen.
Friederike Fabritius (08:13):
Right.
Penijean Gracefire (08:14):
And so for me, there was a very natural marriage between
the idea of doing, say, neurofeedback,which can really help to build some
of that infrastructure or make thingsmore efficient or more flexible.
But if you don't have like theenergetic capability to engage
in that learning process, thenthat's not gonna be super helpful.
Friederike Fabritius (08:35):
Right?
So you're working like,on all of those fronts.
So you could almost say there'sa synergy with neurofeedback.
So let me get to my next question.
I look at the device and I'mthinking like, whoa, like it
has so many possibilities.
How often should I use it?
How much should I train?
(08:56):
I mean, of course I can experiment and seewhat happens, but I'm just thinking, so
for example, I have a pretty intense life.
A rather fast brain.
I have a lot of thingsthat I want to accomplish.
At the same time, I wantto be able to relax.
For me, which programswould you recommend?
How would you integratethem within neurofeedback?
(09:17):
Like, how would you think about it?
Because it doesn't come with a manual.
It gives you the information thatyou shouldn't do more than maybe 20
minutes per day on a healthy brainso that you don't overstimulate.
I also know I probably shouldn'tdo something super activating
just before I want to go to sleep.
That makes sense to me.
But apart from this, how do Ischedule my own perfect menu?
(09:38):
It's a bit like a spa menu.
You want to try all thedifferent massages and you're
like thinking, where do I start?
Penijean Gracefire (09:45):
Sure.
There's a couple differentways we can think about it.
I think that the starting pointpotentially is to shift the question
from what will make me performbetter and be more productive?
To what is it that I actually want tobe doing that is most meaningful to me.
(10:07):
And by that I mean almost everythingI design is with the intent to help
people have the processing capabilityto make the determinations for
themselves about how they spend theirtime and invest their energy in ways
that genuinely reflect what it is theywant and what's important to them.
Friederike Fabritius (10:27):
Right.
Penijean Gracefire (10:28):
If you were going to say what is genuinely the
most important thing that you wantto spend your irrecoverable precious
life hours on, what's the firstthing that pops into your brain?
Friederike Fabritius (10:40):
Well, the most important thing
for me is to be a good mom.
So with all the things I amdoing, it's important that I am,
i'm balanced.
So for example, I should notget sick because when I get
sick, everything crumbles.
So my most important goal would beto, to stay in balance so that I'm
never so exhausted that I kind ofget sick or get too tired to interact
(11:06):
with my kids to be fully present.
So to me, I usually have zerotrouble actually getting into
flow or getting things done, butit's more on the recovery side.
I would love to have that magicability to like instantly recover
more quickly and bounce back fasterfrom like demanding situation.
Because it's a bit like when you havefive kids, stuff happens all the time.
(11:30):
Like you get a call from the school,like you cannot, you have to kind
of prepare for the unexpectedconstantly because you never know.
So I try to always be inlike a very positive state.
So then no matter what happens on thatday, that it doesn't throw me off balance.
So I try to have a little bit of areserve so that I'm not operating at
(11:52):
the edge of my ability so that I havea little bit of a, like a buffer.
Does that make sense?
Penijean Gracefire (11:58):
A hundred percent.
A hundred percent.
Yeah.
Because what you were talkingabout is this principle of,
um, being able to identify whatyour resource availability is.
Because we don't havejust infinite resources.
Your capacity to prioritize howyou're investing, what is available.
First, you have to have an accurateassessment of what you're capable
(12:20):
of, and then you need to be ableto identify and make choices that
prioritize what that level ofinvestment is gonna be in what things.
That's a fairly complex calculation.
Friederike Fabritius (12:33):
Right.
Penijean Gracefire (12:34):
And it's something that you are doing potentially
almost every minute of every day.
Friederike Fabritius (12:40):
Right.
Penijean Gracefire (12:41):
Which means you almost never get a break.
And I am not going to delusivelysuggest that you should just
build in more break time.
Right.
Because right now thereis no break time to have.
Friederike Fabritius (12:55):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm like preparing a move.
I'm, I'm doing like amillion things and so
I have
a certain amount of break timeavailable, but it's not unlimited.
So I just try to optimize my brain sothat I can handle all that with more ease.
Penijean Gracefire (13:13):
So what you were describing, what I'm hearing.
Friederike Fabritius (13:15):
Yeah.
Penijean Gracefire (13:17):
I know we started off with I need to be able to bounce back.
Friederike Fabritius (13:21):
Right.
Penijean Gracefire (13:22):
But you have finite amount of bounce back ability.
So instead of trying to increase somethingthat doesn't actually exponentially
increase, we know what exponentiallydecreases as you, as you draw on it more.
Instead of doing that, the, the paradigmI would use would be how do we help
your brain better differentiate betweenhow it wants to invest and prioritize.
(13:46):
So that the choices you're making, givingthroughout the, or reflecting more of
the things that are important to you.
And it's just easier to kind of inhibitor say no, or ignore the things that
are actually less important to you.
Friederike Fabritius (13:59):
Good point.
Yeah, that's good.
That's actually also very in linewith the book I'm writing at the
moment, which is all about spendingyour energy on what matters.
And not wasting it on other things.
Penijean Gracefire (14:13):
The idea of being able to generate more energy is great.
And I think to some degreephotobiomodulation can help a little
bit with that energy productionat the cellular level, I think
is why we're both drawn to it.
But we know even if you, you know,even if you jet fuel up, there's
still only so far you can go.
(14:34):
Being more skillful deciders of fuelinvestment ends up being the thing that,
that ultimately is the highest payoff.
So in that case, if we were gonnapotentially look at the handful
of protocols available for you,my tendency would be to consider
Emotional Balance and maybe Enhanceas to possible starting points.
Friederike Fabritius (14:58):
Mm-hmm.
Penijean Gracefire (14:59):
And the reason I would consider those is that both of
these have a slow and a fast component.
Friederike Fabritius (15:05):
Right.
They have a combination.
So emotional balanceis like theta and beta.
Penijean Gracefire (15:10):
Mm-hmm.
Friederike Fabritius (15:11):
And the Enhance, well it says here in the Enhance is
like a gamma plus, so it has liketheta, high gamma, limbic alpha.
So it has like a range of,of different frequencies.
Penijean Gracefire (15:24):
Yes.
Friederike Fabritius (15:24):
Right.
So it has like fast andslow in combination.
Penijean Gracefire (15:28):
Yes.
And you'll notice as you look at theimages, not all of the LEDs in the entire
headset are lit up all at the same time.
Friederike Fabritius (15:38):
Right,
Penijean Gracefire (15:39):
You're looking for slow and fast to be happening
in different ways at different timesin your brain to create, an element
of there being variability, likedifferent things are happening.
Mm-hmm.
But communicating coherent and connected,I am gonna say connected independence.
And by that I mean we're asking forsome things to happen at a local level.
(16:02):
Mm-hmm.
And there to be network advantages.
Uh, network, what's agood way of saying this?
A highly functional and like sort ofnuanced brain that has that adaptability.
Has the capacity to listen these areasof the brain that I really need to be in
charge of say, uh, recruiting resourcesup from the central nervous system
up into my cortex, so I have optimalpowering, um, and then these other parts
(16:28):
of my brain that I want to be makingchoices in decisions and prioritization.
For example, if we'regonna say theta and gamma.
Theta's the brainwave, the frequencyrange in which we do a lot of thalamic,
cortical recruitment, all the stuff youeat, everything that's getting broken
down and, and converted into fuel,that's being recruited you know, right
up your central nervous system up intoyour higher cortical brain region.
(16:49):
So theta's a carrier wave forrecruiting a lot of those actual
physiological support resources.
Friederike Fabritius (16:55):
Oh.
So it would help me kind of builda little bit more of resilience
or like giving fuel to my brain.
So all the good stuffactually reaches my brain.
Interesting.
Yeah.
Penijean Gracefire (17:07):
So theta helps recruit what you need physiologically.
Gamma is a, a sort of higher levelfrequency in which we are doing
a lot of externally processing.
But gamma is also the range in whichwe are actually trying to integrate
what is happening inside and outside.
So even though there is quite a bitof sort of external orientation, gamma
(17:29):
is still that frequency range, whichtries to network a bunch of independent
areas together so if we think of gammaas driving and theta as eating lunch,
if you just hang out and eat lunch,you are gonna have optimal digestion.
If you are driving and you'redoing nothing to distract you,
(17:51):
you're gonna have optimal, safe,functional, high level driving.
But many of us will eat whiledriving because it allows for us
to potentially drive longer, right?
So the idea of being able todo multiple things at a time
in different places, right.
So if you can eat while you drive,then you know, you, you might be
(18:13):
slightly less... you might be slightlyless observant because there's some
physiological processes happening.
But also like, you don't have to stopfor lunch if you eat while you, so
if we think about this concept of,you know, there are some pairings,
there's a little bit of a payoff anda little bit of a payment for deciding
(18:34):
to do some things at the same time.
Um, as you know, most people can eatand drive, but once you start adding
in listening to a podcast and thenmaybe a vibrating right seat pad, and
now you're trying to do, you know,exercises with your feet so they
don't get cramps at some point you aregonna tap out or how many things you
can do at the same time when you'regonna get that exponential fall off.
(18:55):
The key behind sort of selecting out whatI'm trying to do to design the protocols,
but also you on your end selecting outwhat you'd like to try, Enhance says,
let's pair up some theta and some gamma.
See if we create physiologicalsupport for the higher end processing.
But you'll notice at the very end ofthat protocol, there's a handful of
(19:17):
minutes where you hang out in alpha.
Friederike Fabritius (19:19):
Right.
Let me, let me see this.
On the Enhance, you start with theta,then you have theta and high gamma
cross frequency coupling, what you justexplained, that it's good to kind of
combine them and then you have some limbicalpha to kind of like, come down from it.
Penijean Gracefire (19:37):
We've talked about slow waves and
we've talked about fast waves.
We haven't talked a lotabout the ones in the middle.
Friederike Fabritius (19:43):
Right?
Penijean Gracefire (19:44):
So if we say delta theta ranges are slow, beta, gamma ranges
are fast, what's all this alpha happening?
But not just alpha, low beta,low to midrange of beta is also
coming the middle of that range.
Well, what's the stuffin the middle doing?
Sticky note that.
You'll notice the other protocolI suggested the Emotional Balance,
(20:05):
right, has some, some maybe whatwe could call "thalpha" components.
You'll notice it will, it kind of titratesup into some low to mid beta ranges.
All of these protocols end youback up somewhere in the middle,
Friederike Fabritius (20:22):
right?
So it brings you back into like abalance, a bit like a set point where
you can bounce in one direction orthe other depending on what's needed.
It's like in the middle.
You can either go and relax from there oryou can go and like perform from there.
It kind of puts you in thatsituation where you can quickly
reach different functional functions.
(20:43):
Right.
Is that how you would see it?
So kind of from there, it'slike a good starting point for
a lot of different situations.
Penijean Gracefire (20:51):
Yes, and ultimately, if I don't have a feedback component,
what can I do to teach the brainsomething and so, stretching and modeling.
So what we're doing with theseprotocols in the photobiomodulation is
we are modeling different stretchingor expanding or exploring behaviors.
(21:14):
We're saying, look, here's someslow stuff, here's some fast stuff.
Both of these are cool.
Ultimately, you may want toend up back in the middle.
What we've done is we've shown youthe ranges and now we're hanging
you out so we don't leave youtoo high or leave you too low.
Friederike Fabritius: It's super fascinating. (21:27):
undefined
I feel like this ties in perfectly withwhat you told me about Z-score training
because it was also about that broadeningyour range of responses, and I think
that's the ultimate cognitive control.
So it's interesting that Irecognize a pattern here.
Like your original idea withthe Z-score training was kind of
(21:47):
to give the brain more options.
Penijean Gracefire (21:49):
Yes.
Friederike Fabritius (21:49):
And even though we have no feedback here, you're
kind of modeling new pathways or newactivation patterns for the brain
that just give you more, more options.
Yeah.
I'm gonna try those.
Thank you so much.
It's really cool because like in the, inthe, let's say, original neurofeedback
paradigm that we started out on.
(22:10):
You have one frequency in one place andyou try to increase it or to inhibit it.
You
have gone from there to like, seeingthe whole brain network and just
increasing the, the mental flexibility.
I think we can all need that.
So thank you so much for teaching usabout this and, and me in particular.
Thank you for today.
Hello everyone.
I'm here with Penijean Gracefire.
She's a true innovator in theneurofeedback and neuroscience space.
And I must say I came acrossher work because I was
interested in brain stimulation.
To me, it's crazy what is possible inthat field and that nobody's doing it.
Everybody's like on stimulants andtaking tons of medicines that have
(00:29):
side effects, antidepressants,anti-anxiety, and we all know that's
a bit problematic, to say the least.
At least I think it can be, I mean,I understand that if you're suicidal,
you might want to take something.
I'm not here to tell peopleto go off their meds.
That said, I think if you arein a, let's say normal range.
We all have problems.
(00:50):
Some people have anxiety, somepeople want to perform, some
people want to sleep better.
And so I think having the possibilityto stimulate your brain and teach
your brain how to activate certainareas of your brain or to hit certain
frequencies, to me it's a true puzzlewhen so few people are doing this.
(01:13):
At least I don't see alot of people doing this.
And so I looked into the Vielightdevice for photobiomodulation,
and by the way, this is not likea sponsored podcast or anything,
I'm just truly interested in this.
I'm a very curious person, so I will askPenijean the things that I want to know.
So welcome to the show, Penijean.
Penijean Gracefire: Thank you for having me. (01:35):
undefined
Friederike Fabritius (01:37):
Haha.
So, let me get started by askingyou: i've seen these different
protocols you designed for the device.
And so we can see here, there's EmotionalBalance, Theta Beta, Relax and Recover,
Alpha Plus Focus, Beta, Flex, and Enhance.
(01:58):
And I looked at them and I wasthinking, because they're not so one
dimensional, it's not that, oh, yourelax and we just throw a bunch of
alpha on your brain, or you want tosleep, we give you delta, or you want
to be focused, we give you low beta.
They're pretty nuanced.
So when I look at these protocols,for example, I see, let me just
(02:18):
quickly show this for those who arewatching on YouTube, so I see you're
starting with like, theta, and thenyou do beta or you do alpha gamma.
So I see there's like a range of thingsyou are doing here, and I just want
to hear it from the pro herself, like,how the hell did you come up with this?
(02:39):
Because I've never seen anything like it.
I see these more simple devicesand I see you get into a
certain frequency and that's it.
But here you can do so much more.
So, uh, please, pleaseexplain your approach when you
develop something like this.
Penijean Gracefire (02:52):
So the first most important thing for us to understand
is that for me to even be able toinnovate or invent things, the hardware
and software platform have to have theoptions, the features, and the capability.
Friederike Fabritius (03:06):
Right.
Penijean Gracefire (03:07):
So one of the reasons that you're only seeing that on that
Vielight Neuropro 2 platform is becauseit's currently the only device that
allows that set of features and options.
And so the reason I bring that up isbecause, um, there are two elements to do
in kind of independent photobiomodulation.
(03:28):
That are, um, important, thatunderlie most of those design choices.
So the concept of location and frequencyare relevant to, to almost any type of
feedback or feed forward that we're doing.
So I'm a big fan of theconcept of feedback, right?
(03:48):
Like, let's look at what your brain'sdoing, and then let's give it information
that will intrigue it and prompt it toengage in a, a, a change of behavior.
Um, and I think that feedback makesa ton of sense for everyone because
it's just basic learning, right?.
Friederike Fabritius (04:03):
Exactly.
And, sorry to interrupt,but that is to me so crazy.
For example, that's why I lovedhaving Jeff Tarrant here on the show
because millions of people meditate.
But apart from like self-awareness ininside, nobody's getting any feedback
on what they're actually doing.
And we know that feedback isso essential for learning.
(04:23):
So I find it almost crazy, like,how can you learn without feedback?
Right?
And so I thought it was genius that he'scombining that because, yeah, I could
be meditating for an hour and in realityI'm just thinking about my grocery list,
or I'm angry at someone or ruminating.
That is not very beneficial for me.
I would still clock off the timethat I tried to meditate, but maybe
(04:47):
I was in a very detrimental, negativestate and completely distracted
and I mean, I would feel it, but Iwouldn't know how to get out of it.
Well, if you get instantfeedback, then you say like,
oh wow, I'm getting distracted.
Let me refocus.
So are you saying this isnot just stimulation, this is
also feedback for your brain?
Penijean Gracefire (05:04):
So what we are discussing is what I would call
feed-forward, but the reason I'mmentioning the feedback component
and the idea of learning is that, sofor example, if you want to learn to
dance you can get out there and dowhatever, and that's completely fine.
You can watch a YouTube video or aTikTok and see someone demonstrating
(05:26):
and then you can potentially imitate andthen you can hire somebody to teach you
by arranging your body and giving youdirect feedback about your performance.
Friederike Fabritius (05:36):
Right.
Penijean Gracefire (05:37):
All of these are completely valid, right.
Each level will have more rapidityand maybe efficacy in how quickly
and how well you learn to dance.
And so, for me, because I've done so muchfeedback, paradigm building interaction
(05:57):
over the years, that's quite intuitive.
Like, you give somebody information,they take it in, it changes what they're
doing, they give you information, youtake it, that changes what you're doing.
Constant circuit.
But with something like photobiomodulationwhere there isn't always an inherent
feedback loop, it's just sort of, there'slight and they're blinking and they're
doing things, how are you supposedto communicate more sophisticated
(06:21):
models of information to a brainthat cannot be real time modulating
how the information is delivered?
Friederike Fabritius (06:28):
Right.
Penijean Gracefire (06:29):
And so that was the question I was asking when I was thinking
through how to build those, becausewe've spoken in earlier episodes about
the idea of there being a necessaryvariability of different things happening
at different times in the brain tomeet the demands of the environment.
Friederike Fabritius (06:48):
Exactly.
So for example, you don't want yourwhole brain to be in alpha, for example.
Maybe you want some at the back of yourbrain in a certain moment, and then
you want some gamma somewhere else.
So that idea that you don'twant to blast the whole brain
with just one frequency, right?
I saw that the device isalso boosting coherence.
And so kind of how different brainareas communicate with each other.
(07:11):
And so I think it moves from this likesimplistic idea that you need more
alpha, beta, whatever, to that ideaof helping different brain networks
getting into different frequenciessimultaneously so that they like
work together in an optimal way.
Is that what you're saying?
Penijean Gracefire (07:30):
Yes.
So location and frequency are huge.
Where in the brain do weexpect things to be happening?
And like what, what brain wave,faster, slower, are we expecting
it to hang out in to do the task?
But the other elements that reallyunderlie almost everything I design are
the concept of power and connectivity.
(07:51):
For example, if you have a cell phone, Ifyou have a completely charged up battery
and no signal, how well does it work?
If you have great connectivity and nopower charge, how well does it work?
Everything that we're doing requires boththe energy to do it and the connectivity
infrastructure to make it happen.
Friederike Fabritius (08:13):
Right.
Penijean Gracefire (08:14):
And so for me, there was a very natural marriage between
the idea of doing, say, neurofeedback,which can really help to build some
of that infrastructure or make thingsmore efficient or more flexible.
But if you don't have like theenergetic capability to engage
in that learning process, thenthat's not gonna be super helpful.
Friederike Fabritius (08:35):
Right?
So you're working like,on all of those fronts.
So you could almost say there'sa synergy with neurofeedback.
So let me get to my next question.
I look at the device and I'mthinking like, whoa, like it
has so many possibilities.
How often should I use it?
How much should I train?
(08:56):
I mean, of course I can experiment and seewhat happens, but I'm just thinking, so
for example, I have a pretty intense life.
A rather fast brain.
I have a lot of thingsthat I want to accomplish.
At the same time, I wantto be able to relax.
For me, which programswould you recommend?
How would you integratethem within neurofeedback?
(09:17):
Like, how would you think about it?
Because it doesn't come with a manual.
It gives you the information thatyou shouldn't do more than maybe 20
minutes per day on a healthy brainso that you don't overstimulate.
I also know I probably shouldn'tdo something super activating
just before I want to go to sleep.
That makes sense to me.
But apart from this, how do Ischedule my own perfect menu?
(09:38):
It's a bit like a spa menu.
You want to try all thedifferent massages and you're
like thinking, where do I start?
Penijean Gracefire (09:45):
Sure.
There's a couple differentways we can think about it.
I think that the starting pointpotentially is to shift the question
from what will make me performbetter and be more productive?
To what is it that I actually want tobe doing that is most meaningful to me.
(10:07):
And by that I mean almost everythingI design is with the intent to help
people have the processing capabilityto make the determinations for
themselves about how they spend theirtime and invest their energy in ways
that genuinely reflect what it is theywant and what's important to them.
Friederike Fabritius (10:27):
Right.
Penijean Gracefire (10:28):
If you were going to say what is genuinely the
most important thing that you wantto spend your irrecoverable precious
life hours on, what's the firstthing that pops into your brain?
Friederike Fabritius (10:40):
Well, the most important thing
for me is to be a good mom.
So with all the things I amdoing, it's important that I am,
i'm balanced.
So for example, I should notget sick because when I get
sick, everything crumbles.
So my most important goal would beto, to stay in balance so that I'm
never so exhausted that I kind ofget sick or get too tired to interact
(11:06):
with my kids to be fully present.
So to me, I usually have zerotrouble actually getting into
flow or getting things done, butit's more on the recovery side.
I would love to have that magicability to like instantly recover
more quickly and bounce back fasterfrom like demanding situation.
Because it's a bit like when you havefive kids, stuff happens all the time.
(11:30):
Like you get a call from the school,like you cannot, you have to kind
of prepare for the unexpectedconstantly because you never know.
So I try to always be inlike a very positive state.
So then no matter what happens on thatday, that it doesn't throw me off balance.
So I try to have a little bit of areserve so that I'm not operating at
(11:52):
the edge of my ability so that I havea little bit of a, like a buffer.
Does that make sense?
Penijean Gracefire (11:58):
A hundred percent.
A hundred percent.
Yeah.
Because what you were talkingabout is this principle of,
um, being able to identify whatyour resource availability is.
Because we don't havejust infinite resources.
Your capacity to prioritize howyou're investing, what is available.
First, you have to have an accurateassessment of what you're capable
(12:20):
of, and then you need to be ableto identify and make choices that
prioritize what that level ofinvestment is gonna be in what things.
That's a fairly complex calculation.
Friederike Fabritius (12:33):
Right.
Penijean Gracefire (12:34):
And it's something that you are doing potentially
almost every minute of every day.
Friederike Fabritius (12:40):
Right.
Penijean Gracefire (12:41):
Which means you almost never get a break.
And I am not going to delusivelysuggest that you should just
build in more break time.
Right.
Because right now thereis no break time to have.
Friederike Fabritius (12:55):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm like preparing a move.
I'm, I'm doing like amillion things and so
I have
a certain amount of break timeavailable, but it's not unlimited.
So I just try to optimize my brain sothat I can handle all that with more ease.
Penijean Gracefire (13:13):
So what you were describing, what I'm hearing.
Friederike Fabritius (13:15):
Yeah.
Penijean Gracefire (13:17):
I know we started off with I need to be able to bounce back.
Friederike Fabritius (13:21):
Right.
Penijean Gracefire (13:22):
But you have finite amount of bounce back ability.
So instead of trying to increase somethingthat doesn't actually exponentially
increase, we know what exponentiallydecreases as you, as you draw on it more.
Instead of doing that, the, the paradigmI would use would be how do we help
your brain better differentiate betweenhow it wants to invest and prioritize.
(13:46):
So that the choices you're making, givingthroughout the, or reflecting more of
the things that are important to you.
And it's just easier to kind of inhibitor say no, or ignore the things that
are actually less important to you.
Friederike Fabritius (13:59):
Good point.
Yeah, that's good.
That's actually also very in linewith the book I'm writing at the
moment, which is all about spendingyour energy on what matters.
And not wasting it on other things.
Penijean Gracefire (14:13):
The idea of being able to generate more energy is great.
And I think to some degreephotobiomodulation can help a little
bit with that energy productionat the cellular level, I think
is why we're both drawn to it.
But we know even if you, you know,even if you jet fuel up, there's
still only so far you can go.
(14:34):
Being more skillful deciders of fuelinvestment ends up being the thing that,
that ultimately is the highest payoff.
So in that case, if we were gonnapotentially look at the handful
of protocols available for you,my tendency would be to consider
Emotional Balance and maybe Enhanceas to possible starting points.
Friederike Fabritius (14:58):
Mm-hmm.
Penijean Gracefire (14:59):
And the reason I would consider those is that both of
these have a slow and a fast component.
Friederike Fabritius (15:05):
Right.
They have a combination.
So emotional balanceis like theta and beta.
Penijean Gracefire (15:10):
Mm-hmm.
Friederike Fabritius (15:11):
And the Enhance, well it says here in the Enhance is
like a gamma plus, so it has liketheta, high gamma, limbic alpha.
So it has like a range of,of different frequencies.
Penijean Gracefire (15:24):
Yes.
Friederike Fabritius (15:24):
Right.
So it has like fast andslow in combination.
Penijean Gracefire (15:28):
Yes.
And you'll notice as you look at theimages, not all of the LEDs in the entire
headset are lit up all at the same time.
Friederike Fabritius (15:38):
Right,
Penijean Gracefire (15:39):
You're looking for slow and fast to be happening
in different ways at different timesin your brain to create, an element
of there being variability, likedifferent things are happening.
Mm-hmm.
But communicating coherent and connected,I am gonna say connected independence.
And by that I mean we're asking forsome things to happen at a local level.
(16:02):
Mm-hmm.
And there to be network advantages.
Uh, network, what's agood way of saying this?
A highly functional and like sort ofnuanced brain that has that adaptability.
Has the capacity to listen these areasof the brain that I really need to be in
charge of say, uh, recruiting resourcesup from the central nervous system
up into my cortex, so I have optimalpowering, um, and then these other parts
(16:28):
of my brain that I want to be makingchoices in decisions and prioritization.
For example, if we'regonna say theta and gamma.
Theta's the brainwave, the frequencyrange in which we do a lot of thalamic,
cortical recruitment, all the stuff youeat, everything that's getting broken
down and, and converted into fuel,that's being recruited you know, right
up your central nervous system up intoyour higher cortical brain region.
(16:49):
So theta's a carrier wave forrecruiting a lot of those actual
physiological support resources.
Friederike Fabritius (16:55):
Oh.
So it would help me kind of builda little bit more of resilience
or like giving fuel to my brain.
So all the good stuffactually reaches my brain.
Interesting.
Yeah.
Penijean Gracefire (17:07):
So theta helps recruit what you need physiologically.
Gamma is a, a sort of higher levelfrequency in which we are doing
a lot of externally processing.
But gamma is also the range in whichwe are actually trying to integrate
what is happening inside and outside.
So even though there is quite a bitof sort of external orientation, gamma
(17:29):
is still that frequency range, whichtries to network a bunch of independent
areas together so if we think of gammaas driving and theta as eating lunch,
if you just hang out and eat lunch,you are gonna have optimal digestion.
If you are driving and you'redoing nothing to distract you,
(17:51):
you're gonna have optimal, safe,functional, high level driving.
But many of us will eat whiledriving because it allows for us
to potentially drive longer, right?
So the idea of being able todo multiple things at a time
in different places, right.
So if you can eat while you drive,then you know, you, you might be
(18:13):
slightly less... you might be slightlyless observant because there's some
physiological processes happening.
But also like, you don't have to stopfor lunch if you eat while you, so
if we think about this concept of,you know, there are some pairings,
there's a little bit of a payoff anda little bit of a payment for deciding
(18:34):
to do some things at the same time.
Um, as you know, most people can eatand drive, but once you start adding
in listening to a podcast and thenmaybe a vibrating right seat pad, and
now you're trying to do, you know,exercises with your feet so they
don't get cramps at some point you aregonna tap out or how many things you
can do at the same time when you'regonna get that exponential fall off.
(18:55):
The key behind sort of selecting out whatI'm trying to do to design the protocols,
but also you on your end selecting outwhat you'd like to try, Enhance says,
let's pair up some theta and some gamma.
See if we create physiologicalsupport for the higher end processing.
But you'll notice at the very end ofthat protocol, there's a handful of
(19:17):
minutes where you hang out in alpha.
Friederike Fabritius (19:19):
Right.
Let me, let me see this.
On the Enhance, you start with theta,then you have theta and high gamma
cross frequency coupling, what you justexplained, that it's good to kind of
combine them and then you have some limbicalpha to kind of like, come down from it.
Penijean Gracefire (19:37):
We've talked about slow waves and
we've talked about fast waves.
We haven't talked a lotabout the ones in the middle.
Friederike Fabritius (19:43):
Right?
Penijean Gracefire (19:44):
So if we say delta theta ranges are slow, beta, gamma ranges
are fast, what's all this alpha happening?
But not just alpha, low beta,low to midrange of beta is also
coming the middle of that range.
Well, what's the stuffin the middle doing?
Sticky note that.
You'll notice the other protocolI suggested the Emotional Balance,
(20:05):
right, has some, some maybe whatwe could call "thalpha" components.
You'll notice it will, it kind of titratesup into some low to mid beta ranges.
All of these protocols end youback up somewhere in the middle,
Friederike Fabritius (20:22):
right?
So it brings you back into like abalance, a bit like a set point where
you can bounce in one direction orthe other depending on what's needed.
It's like in the middle.
You can either go and relax from there oryou can go and like perform from there.
It kind of puts you in thatsituation where you can quickly
reach different functional functions.
(20:43):
Right.
Is that how you would see it?
So kind of from there, it'slike a good starting point for
a lot of different situations.
Penijean Gracefire (20:51):
Yes, and ultimately, if I don't have a feedback component,
what can I do to teach the brainsomething and so, stretching and modeling.
So what we're doing with theseprotocols in the photobiomodulation is
we are modeling different stretchingor expanding or exploring behaviors.
(21:14):
We're saying, look, here's someslow stuff, here's some fast stuff.
Both of these are cool.
Ultimately, you may want toend up back in the middle.
What we've done is we've shown youthe ranges and now we're hanging
you out so we don't leave youtoo high or leave you too low.
Friederike Fabritius: It's super fascinating. (21:27):
undefined
I feel like this ties in perfectly withwhat you told me about Z-score training
because it was also about that broadeningyour range of responses, and I think
that's the ultimate cognitive control.
So it's interesting that Irecognize a pattern here.
Like your original idea withthe Z-score training was kind of
(21:47):
to give the brain more options.
Penijean Gracefire (21:49):
Yes.
Friederike Fabritius (21:49):
And even though we have no feedback here, you're
kind of modeling new pathways or newactivation patterns for the brain
that just give you more, more options.
Yeah.
I'm gonna try those.
Thank you so much.
It's really cool because like in the, inthe, let's say, original neurofeedback
paradigm that we started out on.
(22:10):
You have one frequency in one place andyou try to increase it or to inhibit it.
You
have gone from there to like, seeingthe whole brain network and just
increasing the, the mental flexibility.
I think we can all need that.
So thank you so much for teaching usabout this and, and me in particular.
Thank you for today.
Popular Podcasts
United States of Kennedy
United States of Kennedy is a podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week, hosts Lyra Smith and George Civeris go into one aspect of the Kennedy story.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com