September 13, 2023 • 38 mins
ADHD, Anxiety Disorder, Unruly, Needs Discipline; many people have heard these words to describe them or their children. But what if the "behavioral issue" isn't about behavior at all? Neurofeedback is one of the many fascinating ways that exist to help map the brain and understand what's going on inside. We discuss this compelling use of neuroscience with Symmetry Neuro-Pathway Training founder, Dianne Kosto.
Connect with Dianne:
Connect with Brain Lady Julie
Do you have a great question or topic you'd like Brain Lady Julie to cover? Think you'd be a great guest? Message our producer Kelli@BrainLadySpeaker.com and let us know.
PLEASE NOTE: The information contained in this podcast is not at any time and for any reason meant to replace the guidance and/or treatment of any health professional. Whether it be a medical doctor, psychologist, psychotherapist, or anyone in the medical field. If you are under the care of such a health professional, remember this is an “added value” and not designed to replace any care you are currently under.
Connect with Dianne:
- Dianne@SymmetryNeuroPT.com
- 844.272.4666
- SymmetryNeuroPT.com
- YouTube
- Podcast - Power Your Parenting
Connect with Brain Lady Julie
Do you have a great question or topic you'd like Brain Lady Julie to cover? Think you'd be a great guest? Message our producer Kelli@BrainLadySpeaker.com and let us know.
PLEASE NOTE: The information contained in this podcast is not at any time and for any reason meant to replace the guidance and/or treatment of any health professional. Whether it be a medical doctor, psychologist, psychotherapist, or anyone in the medical field. If you are under the care of such a health professional, remember this is an “added value” and not designed to replace any care you are currently under.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Welcome to brain Lady Speaks with JulieAnderson. Julie brain Lady Anderson is considered
to be one of the nation's topexperts on the brain personality connection. She
has been inspiring her audiences to fireup their brains and ignite positive changes in
their relationships, and now she ishere to bring that knowledge to you.
The information she shares will help thosewho hear it to accelerate their success in
(00:25):
life and business through the discovery oftheir natural gifts and maximizing their brain power.
When you learn to tap into thepotential of your natural gifts and the
power of the brain mind connection,there is no limit to what you can
accomplish. Today and every Wednesday onbrain Lady Speaks, you'll explore the latest
findings to see how they have practicalapplication in your life. And now get
(00:48):
ready to join Julie Anderson on thebrain Lady Speaks radio show, Take It
Away. Julie, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome to this interview with the amazing
Diane Costo. We are looking forwardto I love this topic. As a
brain geek. I love this topicand I'll explain why in just a minute.
But I want to of course thankeveryone who is watching right now live.
(01:12):
If you have questions as we're talking, go ahead and type it into
the comment session section and we willdo our best to answer those or address
those in our as we're going throughthe show. But I am going to
start this right now by if youare listening later on as a in the
(01:34):
podcast world, wonderful, reach outto us if you have any questions and
we'll get those addressed as well.So let me once again welcome Diane Costo
to the to the Brain Lady SpeakShow this afternoon. Thank you for having
me, Julie. I'm excited tochat with you today. Absolutely. Let
me tell everybody, the listeners,the watchers a little bit about your background.
(01:57):
You are the CEO and founder ofSymmetry Neural Pathway Training, which provides
neural feedback. I'm so excited totalk about this services and systems to individuals,
families, therapeutic programs and professionals acrossthe USA, Canada, Mexico.
With the knowledge that neurofeedback saved herson's life and restored hope for her family,
Diane is a mom on a missionto make neurofeedback technology available to individuals
(02:23):
and families. So they can avoidthe trauma her family experienced as a result
of her son's brain dysregulation. Lookforward to hearing that story. From an
early age, Diane's son was kickedout of schools and programs. Dianne continually
sought an environment that would help herson thrive. While physicians, psychologist,
therapist, counselors, and educational professionalsgave her advice, no one had talked
(02:46):
to her about neuro feedback. Forover thirteen years, Diane has trained and
provided clinical and technical support programs forprograms and professionals who utilize neural feedback and
symmetry neural pathway training, and we'lltalk about that a little bit and approach
and as an approved in structure forBridgeports College CEC and Certification Certificate course,
(03:10):
Dan instructed chiropractors in advanced qEEG courses. All right, so you represent various
can you present to various continuing educationconferences across the USA? You list a
bunch of these. We will haveall of those in the show notes,
so anyone can look at those,and we're going to talk about how brain
(03:31):
waved wave disregulation, what it canlook like, and then how it is
oftentimes mislabeled as add ADHD, brainfog depression, those types of things,
and how narrow feedback helps with that. So welcome again, Welcome again,
Thank you, Julie. I'm sorrywe gave you all this tongue twisters too,
(03:53):
know a bit. I love it. I love it because it helps.
It helps everybody to know your background. I think that's important and I
really want to hear about your story. But I want to share really quick
why I am so excited about thistopic for the listeners. So for those
of you who know me or haveseen me speak, I will often say
(04:14):
that my background started when I wasstudying psychoneuroimmunology, which is this big long
word that just means the connection betweenthe thoughts and your mind, the chemistry
and your brain shifts, and thenhow that affects your immune system. And
in the book head First by NormanCousins, I strongly suggest that as a
read, it talked about neuro feedbackand how it was scientifically proven to actually
(04:39):
how your thoughts could actually change yourbody chemistry, and it was just fascinating
to me. So it was thistopic of neuro feedback was something that had
a very pivotal change or what's changedmy life at a very pivotal point and
kind of sent me down the trajectoryof being the brain lady as opposed to
the natural health certificate that doctor thatI was going for at the time.
(05:02):
So that's why I am so excited, so excited about this topic. Now,
enough about me, let's talk aboutyou. Tell me, tell us
a little bit, give us alittle bit more background on how you got
started with neurofeedback and where your interest, with your family and your own personal
experience into the neurofeedback world. Yeah, sure, I mean you read the
(05:25):
summary of it. Really it wasall about my son. I mean my
background was not in anything in theneuro or health or brain related field.
I was kind of like an accountingeconomics, behind the scenes kind of person,
you know. But my youngest struggledwith impulsivity and was kicked out and
labeled, and you know, Itried multiple different school environments and programs and
(05:46):
organizations and homeschool and anything I couldthink of, trying to find an environment
that he would find success in,and we kept getting that call, we
really love him, but he's notfollowing the program. Well, they didn't
always really they love him either.Yes, he came across as one hundred
and ten percent boy with the badattitude. Yeah, he had his protective
(06:08):
wall up or you know, makingup for not being able to control his
impulses and getting in trouble everywhere hewent from when he was a really little
guy five years old and all theway up to twelve going on thirteen.
I was trying to avoid having himbecome one of those quote unquote troubled teams,
(06:28):
you know. Yeah, yeah,yeah, So how old is your
son now? He is now twentyfive, soon to be twenty six in
September. Yeah, so it wasa long time ago. Yeah, So
what was what did it do forhim? Well, what happened was,
after all of these different schools andprograms environments, he ended up in a
therapeutic program. Was about to getkicked out of there, and I was
(06:51):
introduced to neural feedback, went throughthe training and drove from South Carolina to
know where you taught, set itup in this therapeutic program where he was,
and what happened was I started seeinghim. Well, number one,
he seemed to start it to restbetter because the dark circles under his eyes
started to get a little bit lighter. He started to lighten up in his
(07:12):
mood a little bit. He startedto actually think about engaging in some of
the elements of the program, wherebefore he was refusing to do anything.
You know, he didn't really believeor understand what was happening or that it
was really working, but he wasgoing along with it because he had no
other choice than I was physically theremaking him do it. But in the
(07:33):
end, it gave him this pausebefore reacting that he never really had since
birth. So he was just ableto stop, pause and consider his responses.
And before he was just constantly reactingto his environment and like a fight
or flight survival mode, and noone realized that's what it was, a
(07:53):
fight or flight survival mode. Itwasn't just him trying to be bad or
just being rebellious. Right protection mechanismin hindsight, right right, And twenty
years ago, neuroscience was still stillyoung in many ways, so a lot
(08:13):
of these different procedures, and itwas still kind of like really doesn't really
work, you know, like itwas still kind of in that that woo
woo stage where only the scientists reallyreally truly understood it. And you had
to as a parent, being anadvocate for your child was probably a challenge
(08:33):
at some points. Yeah, itwas amazing to me that all of those
years, like I said, fromabout fifth grade on, this started happening.
He literally was getting kicked out atthese young ages, and people would
just shake their head. They didn'treally know what to do for him,
didn't really peg him with any particularlabels. And I wasn't a big fan
of diagnosis and stuff, you know, And he did come across as a
(08:54):
smart kid with a bad attitude,so we didn't really feel sorry for him.
We you know, we all kindof kept trying to fight him and
that disciplined out of him. It'sthe opposite of what he needed. There
was no there was a physical reasonin his brain that he wasn't able to
pause, you know. So itwas very interesting and all of from fifth
grade, yeah, five years olduntil twelve years old, that's a long
(09:16):
time of nobody ever mentioning neurofeedback.Nobody ever mentioning, hey, why don't
you get a QEG brain map doneand see what's going on in that little
guy's brain. No one mentioned it. But what lit me up when I
got there and I started seeing theresults, I was like, somebody needs
to share this with the parents.It should be first line of defense,
(09:39):
not at the end of the ropewhen you're out of money and you're you
know, you're in debt and yourkids, your whole family's traumatized. That
that shouldn't be the case. Itneeds to be first right, right,
I agree one hundred percent. Lookingdeeper is so so, so very important.
So for the listeners that maybe aren'tcompletely clear, because there's a lot
(10:01):
of neuro stuff out there, lotsof different neurotechniques, whether it's related to
a physical piece of machinery. Iuse machinery as a you know, big
just kind of umbrella for utilizing somethingtangible or practices or brain training or you
(10:22):
know, mindfulness, things like that. Like, there's a lot of neuro
things out there. I hope thoselistening and watching to understand what exactly is
neurofeedback. Right, That's a reallygreat point that there are there are even
different styles and approaches of neurofeedback,but just the define neurofeedback is it's technology
(10:46):
driven learning for the brain. AndI have used all of these years a
non invasive version of that which Itreally is just using technology to measure and
analyze your brain wave communication and thengiving your them some feedback on what it's
doing so that the brain can learnto change. So it's technology driven learning
for the brain. And you know, we start out these days we put
(11:07):
a cap, a snug cap onyour head and put a little gel on
there and just take readings of yourbrain wave of communication called brain waves,
you know, while your eyes areclosed and then while your eyes are open,
and then we compare that to normativedatabase, find the regions that are
working well and which ones are off, and then we know what your brain
needs to learn in order to betterregulate. And the whole goal of neuro
(11:31):
feedback is to help the brain betterregulate, not to cure, diagnose,
or fix. It's just help yourbrain better regulate. Because when your brain
is disregulated, people don't sleep well. They may be impulsive, they may
have mood regulation issues, they mayhave anxiety. But when the brain is
functioning better and it is better regulated, people rest better, they can function
(11:52):
better, focus, maybe stop beforethey make a decision or react, you
know those kind of things. Doesthat help make sense of it a little
bit? I think that's excellent.Yeah, that's excellent, And there's so
many there's a lot of different Irecently have received a certification as a brain
health professional and went through a verydeep training through doctor Amen his clinics,
(12:16):
and there's so many different ways ofreading the brain. But what was what
has always been so fascinating to meis that things that we think of as
just simply behavioral disciplinary I should saydisciplinary behavioral activity or behavior is can be
(12:37):
oftentimes is connected to over activity ina certain area of the brain, or
under activity and a certain area ofthe brain. And when that happens,
it's it's almost not the person's fault. And I don't want to go to
that extent to say that, becausethen you're kind of blanketing all poor behavior
(12:58):
and I don't want to go thatare but I do want to say that
in some cases, there's so muchgoing on in the brain that if we
can address that first, then thebehavior is so much easier to adjust or
to correct if it needs to becorrected type thing. Yeah, that is
such a valid point and an importantpoint, you know. I think about
(13:20):
what would our family dynamics be likeif we each had a brain map on
how and why we respond the waywe do it, we would have a
totally different approach to interact him witheach other and a much more peaceful society
because now I know in hindsight whatI didn't know back then, and how
my approach and the professionals that wedealt with, how their approach would be
(13:43):
different if we were able to measure. I didn't have a brain map back
then for him. So now,yeah, you can really use that information,
and again not to make excuses foranyone, because you can be empowered
and you can use that information tofind a better way to live and interact.
But it also can point out reasonswhy people are frustrating the heck out
(14:07):
of you. They're not doing iton always on purpose, ex exactly.
And I think that's a critical pointwhen I'm because I do a lot of
a lot of work with different alot of coaching and consulting with different whether
it's relationships you know, intersct youknow, intermarriage, or with parents with
kids, or corporate leaders. Itend to do a lot with corporate leaders
(14:28):
and teams, and one of thethings I'm always trying to tell them is
the first thing when it comes tobuilding a good relationship is thinking receiver or
not sender, So we always wealways send on that default. But when
you're thinking about how does the personI'm interacting with need to see feel here
the message, experience that message,how does their brain going to process it?
(14:50):
And making sure that if you reallywant to be heard, you have
to deliver that message in the waythat their brain is going to get it.
And it's it's similar in what you'retalking about, because you really understand
what the brain is doing and whatadjustments can be made. Now on that
note, how does that like,Let's say you with your son or with
(15:11):
anyone that you're working with, becauseyou know we'll put this in there right
now, I'm going to talk abouthow you can connect with Diane and perhaps
you know, investigate doing neuro feedbackwith her. But once you know this
information, what are the techniques thatyou use to help individuals improve their situation,
(15:33):
improve their sleep? Is it justthrough the treatments, the physical treatments
with the cap So that has beenwhat I've done for these years. Now.
We certainly partner with therapists, coaches, councilor like whatever else you need.
There's so much more involved in regulatingyour whole system and nervous system.
It may be nutrition, it maybe a sleep coach, you know.
So there are all those other aspects, but from strictly the neuro feedback standpoint
(15:58):
can make a lot of headway becausewhen you start to better regulate the brain,
all of those other modalities and techniquesand stuff can be better integrated and
applied. So yeah, just fromthe neural feedback standpoint, what those sessions
look like is either they would comein an office, but now it's more
often at home training. We dounlimited use at home for like six weeks
(16:19):
at a time and work with peopleremotely coaching them on the process. And
the software is really user friendly.It's made to use at home, so
myself and my team can see alot more in the background, but it
keeps it nice and simple for theuser. The user experience, so they'll
have a couple sensors and a specializedamplifier that's plugged into a laptop. We
(16:41):
show them where to put those sensorson, they click a few buttons,
test their signals, and then theywatch something that you can stream online a
podcast, the Netflix, YouTube,Hulu, anything you're interested in, and
the software puts an overlay over topof it. So when their brain meets
a healthy, well regulated pattern,that's going to play a little bit brighter
and louder for them, So they'regoing to be rewarded. When their brain
(17:03):
is not producing a healthy, wellregulated pattern, it's going to go dimmer
and quieter, and that tells thebrain, huh, I'm going to do
something different. So it's just constantlycommunicating between their brainwave activity and that software,
and the software just keeps rewarding themto do what we want to encourage.
And then it's really based on anatural learning process. Think about when
(17:26):
you learn to write with a pencilor maybe practice the musical instrument. You're
kind of rough at it, andyour practice practice practicing, and then pretty
soon you're doing it without thinking aboutit. That's the same learning process that
happens through neurofeedback, which is technologydriven learning. You just repeat, repeat,
repeat, and pretty soon there's anew neural pathway in the brain because
you don't have to try anymore,it's there. I love new neural pathways.
(17:52):
Oh it's so interesting. So nowyou talked about it with your son
and this disregulation in his brain andhow that was coming out in negative behavior.
Can things like it? Can technologylike this be used just as an
overall to help with creativity or productivityor focus like is that something that you've
(18:18):
noticed assisting in as well? Yeah, I'm so glad you brought that up,
because again, I'm not a bigfan of stigmas and labels and all
of that, and I have neverseen a perfect brain yet. And I've
mapped some peak performers, business people, very successful people, Navy seals,
and we all have some improvement thatcan be made. So yeah, we're
(18:41):
all capable of continuing to learn.And there are Olympic teams using neurofeedback and
professional athletes, and you know it'snot as mainstream and talked about as we
want it to be. But yes, the answer is for sure, as
long as your brain can continue tolearn, you can improve those different as
specks of your life. Oh soI have to ask what did you did
(19:03):
you notice or can you share withoutyou know, hippo laws engaging and interfering,
can you can you share what youmight have noticed that was interesting about
high performing brains. Everybody is verydifferent, so it's really interesting. There
are some QEG brain maps that showa really like kind of lower power overall,
(19:30):
Like this reduced power level in peakperformers, and they wondered if it
was from like, you know,people they're just like overly productive, are
constantly pushing themselves and kind of gettingfatigued, or if it's a quality.
I don't think they really know yet, you know, Yeah, maybe it's
just a natural calmness or something something. I've seen that and then I've just
(19:55):
seen I mean, typical per performermaps look like a lot of other people.
You know, you don't really seethis perfect image of the best kind
of performance, because, like Isaid, everybody has a little bit of
something. Yeah, I'm there thatthey can improve on. Yeah. Now,
as you're my brain is just goingand I hope this is of interest
(20:15):
to the listeners. But you know, we talk a lot, and I
talk a lot about the PFC,about the prefrontal cortex of the brain and
how very important it is to thathigher thinking, understanding consequences of actions,
reasoning, brainstorming, creative problem solving, or just problem solving in general.
Like this is one of the reasonswhy I tell my parents, you know
(20:37):
what, the when you look atyour teenager and you you're like what were
you thinking. Chances are they weren't, Like, literally they weren't because it's
not it's not completely developed to yourearly twenties, So it just literally does
not it is not completely wired toall the regions of the brain. Can
you notice then, with your orwith the technology that you have, do
(21:03):
you notice in individuals who have impulseissues input I should say impulse control challenges
is probably a better way to putit. Do you notice some like lack
of activity in that frontal quadrant ofthe brain, those prefrontal cortexes of the
brain. Yeah, with impulsivity,there is a typical pattern. And I
(21:26):
can't say that for everything, butwith that impulsivity usually there is a little
less resources to inhibit the brain.So our brain is naturally excitatory. It
kind of wants to go wild.Think about it. When you lose your
inhibition, what do you do?You do something you normally wouldn't do,
right, because the brain is excitatorywants to just kind of go out.
(21:47):
So when we have too much slowwave activity in that prefrontal cortex, there's
not enough blood flow, there's notenough resources to inhibit and keep that brain
kind of under control. Like itnormally would, so you're more impulsive,
and that is a typical pattern wehave. That it's really important to note
too, Like you started mentioning aboutthe prefrontal cortex and all of the other
(22:10):
networks. So all of those networkshave to communicate in balance. And we'll
see these pictures of the brain andthere's certain primary functions and responsibilities and that's
great and that's interesting and everything,but you have to remember it's not just
one part of the brain. Theirnetworks. Any little kink or lack of
(22:32):
communication or over communication in those networkscan change how you function. So there's
like so much to it. It'sreally interesting. Yeah, because while there's
one specific area that might be responsiblefor audible speech, the inhibiting the expl
(22:52):
explorative, explorative, what's the wordI'm looking for, inhibiting a lot of
those curse words and things like that, that pulls in another. So the
so that's you know, that networkthat and understanding. Okay, if I
say this thing, I shouldn't saythis thing because it's not a proper thing
to say. It's connected. It'syou know, it's it's pulling in that
frontal cortex to the burro cause area. To this area and to the emotion
(23:17):
all of that and your memory circuits. It's such a complex. The brain
is just amazing to me, theway that it works. So I like
the fact that you're able to thensee areas that where there might be low
activity, so then through your processesthen you helped to increase that activity through
the feedback is Yeah. Yeah,that's the whole goal, is to better
(23:38):
regulate the brain, regardless of whatis going on. Maybe it's too much
slow wave activity up here in thefront maybe it's too much communication left to
right and from the hemisphere to hemisphere. We see that a lot now,
like hyper communication or not enough communicationfrom the left side of the brain to
the right side of the brain.And everybody's different on how that's going to
(24:00):
affect them, but we see thata lot in that whole autism spectrum disorders.
Yeah, I was gonna I wasgonna ask if you see that in
high anxiety disorders where you've got justa buzz because your brain's anxious. Yeah,
we'll see some of that more sometimesin that frontal lobe for anticipatory worry,
and sometimes we see like some stucktape loop kind of thing happening like
(24:25):
with rumination and everything more in theback of the brain with like alpha wave
activity that just is overproduced. Soyeah, certain little patterns and everyone.
So it's so fascinating. I couldgo on talking about this forever. I've
chose some people are going what we'regetting in the leaves? Yeah, okay,
(24:45):
So let's bring it back to thepractical. What it means for individuals
who are struggling with different things.What's one thing that you really wish everybody
knew about all this technical stuff thatwe just talked about, Like, what's
that practical potentially life saving? Andwhen I say life saving, I guess
(25:08):
in some cases it could be ifyou're if you're someone out there, and
this would be a who battles withsuicidal tendencies or suicidal thoughts dark thoughts.
By the way, this would bean absolutely perfect time for me to insert
in there. Please, please,please, if you are watching this or
you are listening to this, knowthat there are lots of resources out there
for help. Reach out by allmeans. Do not keep those feelings to
(25:30):
yourself, whether it's reaching out toyour medical doctor or the suicide hotline or
any of those. Please, byall means know that there are resources out
there, you know, reach outto us, reach out to other professionals,
and get know that we're here tohelp. And if you are,
(25:52):
in addition to that, if youare currently under a certain type of therapy,
be sure that you don't just allof a sudden stop a prescription that
you're on, or stop that andjump over to doing neurofeedback. Always discuss
it with your primary care physician ortherapist to make sure that it's because when
you're talking about the brain very sensitiveto influences, and if your brain is
(26:18):
receiving one set of influences, youdon't just want to also drop that and
jump to something else. It canhave very devastating effects. So I want
to throw that in there, thatlittle disclaimer and make sure that everybody knows
that. Now back to that question, what's the one What is the thing
that you wish everybody would know?What are some of those things that it
really really can help with, maybesome experiences of people that you've worked with,
(26:41):
Something that you want people to knowabout about this technology and about this
therapy that they may not already know. Yeah, there's so much. That's
a hard. One one thing toanswer, I definitely think we touched on
it as far as family systems andunderstanding who you're dealing with at home and
in the workforce is super important.I think removing the stigma and the labels
(27:07):
and just looking at it from thefact that we all have brainwave disregulation and
this should be in our homes,just like we're measuring our steps now and
our breathing and all of the thingsthat we measure. Neuro Feedbacks should be
in our homes just like all ofthose other technologies. It's not something to
be afraid of and be exclusive toonly people certain people that can have it.
(27:30):
I want it to be mainstream becauseI know it did save my son's
life. He would be one ofthose people that is locked up or accidentally
killed themselves, you know, ifit wasn't for this. So it is
critical that we have access to thisfor all of us. Those are a
couple of things that came to mymind first. So that means, so
I gotta put you on the spot. So do you do neuro feedback?
(27:52):
I have, thankfully, not thatI can't afford to do more. I
really can always do more because themore stressors we have, the more we
need it. But it really changedmy life in the fact that I was
hit with an autoimmune disease at agenineteen, and in hindsight, we realized
I really didn't have a good sleepcycle most of my life, and once
(28:14):
I got past those teenage years andmy body wasn't repairing itself from all the
growth hormone that you have as akid, I tanked and I was considered
disabled. But with the help ofneuro feedback over these last few years,
I really can get into a morerestorative sleep cycle so that when I do
activity during the day, my body'shealing itself more. So. It was
life changing for me as well.I've seen, like you mentioned, suicidal
(28:41):
ideation and things like that. Andone of the main interesting clients that was
at the therapeutic program where I firstbrought the technology there and I was helping
my son. She was signed upas well, and she was beliemic.
She was on staff watch. Shewas kind of antisocial, just really we
were very concerned about her, andher parents enrolled her in the neural feedback,
(29:03):
so we started watching. Pretty soonshe was off staff watch. Somebody
wasn't having to follow her to thebathroom, anymore. As she was keeping
her food down, she started interactinga little more with her peers. Over
time, she was on the leadershipteam, and then she got to the
end of her It was only atwenty session plan at that point, but
she kept saying no change, nochange. She was reporting, self reporting.
(29:26):
But we're watching her, right,you know, observing the change.
By the end of twenty I'm like, Okay, finally you don't have to
come back in here, and shebegged her parents for another round because she
was feeling better. You know,it changed her life. It was kind
of cute. So we do havethose people that don't notice it or don't
want to report it that we seesome interesting positive changes with. Yeah.
(29:51):
Yeah, there's a lot of goodstories like that, some of them the
book. Oh, that's so amazing. Oh the book. We're gonna talk
about the book in just a minute. That's absolutely amazing. I think it's
it's it's a great it's great thatwe're having because you'd mentioned you can do
this at home, you can haveit, so it's not as as complicated
(30:12):
as it was in the early days, you know, So that's that's that's
exciting. I'm gonna have to lookinto this more and you hit on sleep.
And anybody who knows me, youwill know when I talk about brain
health, when I talk about businesshealth, when I talk about business health
and relationship health, I always Ialways want to work with any of my
(30:33):
clients. The first thing I harpon a sleep. I'm like, if
if you're not getting if you're notgetting good sleep, every single thing in
your life it's going to suffer.I mean, just think about it.
If you wake up with brain fog, or you wake up and you haven't
had a good night's sleep, youare a grumpy button. If you are
a grumpy butt, you are meanto the people in your relationships. You
are not able to get your workdone or pick up the cells you know,
make those cells calls or whatever itis. And then you're down on
(30:56):
yourself. So your mind health goesdown. So to me, to me,
sleep not only for the reparative obviously, for the reparative benefits of it
for the body, How important itis for the brain. That's when your
brain does it's detox like it justolutelyso so important. So put technology away.
(31:17):
I harbored this all the time.Put it away an hour before you're
going to go to sleep, letyour let your brain naturally start to fall
asleep and swine down and don't havelights right up close to you, get
get get good sleep. That's that'snumber one. That's number one. You're
so right with that. And yourcognition declines as well if you're sleepy.
You know, the kids can't focusin school and do perform well on tests,
(31:41):
and people don't do their work aswell, and and then your mood
regulations suffer. So you've hit onall of it. And that's one of
the first things we like to watchfor and track is more restorative sleep,
because there are people that don't evenrealize they're not getting good and to stored
asleep. They think because they hitthe pillow within two minutes they're out,
that's a good thing. You know. It doesn't mean their brain waves.
(32:02):
It's like and I'll tell you whenI travel, when I present at conferences
and different things in my sleep cyclegets disrupted from all of that. Yeah,
I'll do a few neural feedback sessionsto try to get myself right back
into that routine. And I'm sograteful for that. Yeah, that's that's
amazing. I do a lot oftravel for speaking as well, and I
always always make sure I am Iwill take an extra day if I have
(32:27):
to, to get in there earlyenough to be able to make sure I'm
wound down enough so that I cansleep well, because I want to give
my all when you know, asdo most of us want to give your
all, and if you can inorder to give your all, you gotta
you gotta do that self cared numberone gig. That's yeah, okay,
all right, enough about sleep,Enough about sleep. You do have a
(32:51):
book coming out, so tell usa little bit about the book. Yes,
So it's meant to be a guidefor parents under stress looking for help
for their kiddos. Just like whatI went through. It's not going to
be a real deep read and causeyou more stress. It's really just a
quick read that shares our story,what we went through, some of the
things that we saw, and thatyou can learn from and consider neurofeedback.
(33:15):
It goes into a little primer onneurofeedback and why it can help others.
So I hope that it inspires andhelps parents to find those resources and inspire
professionals to actually provide it. Becausewe will teach professionals and put it in
schools and do whatever I have todo to get it out there. I
don't want to be the only provider. We want to help providers provide because
(33:36):
it needs to be mainstream. Therefore, we need many more people helping families
have access it. I love it. Quick question, how does it?
Does it help with pain management?Curious if the pain has been addressed,
like if it is more of aneurological residual chronic pain usually yes, her
phantom pain, things like that thatit is from. You know, it's
(33:58):
the wound has healed, but thepain is still there neurologically. Then at
auto responds well. And again painand sleep together everything because because my pain
levels are much less than they werewhen I was in my twenties, because
it's tied together, so huge helpingwith that and it starts to sound ridiculous.
(34:22):
Oh, it can help with this. It can help with that.
You know, is it a snakeoil. It's not. But we all
have the brain. That's the commonfactor. And when your brain is not
regulated, stuff happens and life isharder. Yeah, and there's there's just
so many things in our day today life. Stress alone is going to
disregulate your brain. So there's somany things you may you may think you
(34:46):
have it regulated today, but theslightest, you know, the slightest upset,
you know, biological factors can disregulatethe brain. Not enough hydration,
not enough water can disregulate. Sothere's so many different things that can knock
it off. You may have itin line today, but that doesn't mean
that it's not going to get knockedoff, knocked off fast. All right.
Just so so the book sounds whenis that coming out again? September
(35:10):
nine, ninety nine, my kiddo'sbirthday. That's awesome. That's awesome.
And your website is Symmetry neuro ne U r OPT dot com and you
have you have different programs. Youhave a six week unlimited neuro feedback sessions.
(35:32):
If somebody wants that, they canreach out to you, they can
reach you at Diane. So forthose of you listening, d I A
N N E at Symmetry Neural neuroptdot com. And yeah, stay connected
with her. She's all over theplace. She's Facebook, she's LinkedIn,
(35:54):
she's YouTube, she's Pinterest, andshe's Instagram. I'm not going to read
them all off to you because itwould be very confusing, but we will
put them all in the show notesin the show description and you can that
way you know how to reach Dianeand find out more information. So thank
you so much, Diane for beingon the Brain Lady Speaks live broadcast and
(36:19):
podcast as it comes out later today. I was honored to have you here,
and what a fun conversation. Ihope it was fun for other people
as well well. I certainly enjoyedit too, Julie. I'm sure we
could talk for a few more hoursabout it. So thank you for having
me and be happy to join youagain if you'd like. I would love
that. Lots of things we couldtalk about, would love it, would
love it, and everyone listening orwatching, thank you so much. We
(36:44):
are honored that she spent the timewith us. If you have questions for
us, if you have comments forus, by all means, put them
in the comment section of the videosor the podcast. This is I really
feel these topics are very valuable.So I'm going to ask a favor.
I'm just gonna come right out,and I am going to ask that you
give us some social media love,right, give us some thumbs up share
(37:07):
these links. If it's something thatyou think someone out there needs to hear
or would benefit from, or youenjoyed the conversation and you want others to
enjoy it too. I'm gonna makethat little request, so do that for
us. Other than that, stayin contact with us the brain Lady Speaks
show comes out, or you canstay in contact with us on the YouTube
(37:27):
channel for brain Lady Julie. Brainlady speaker dot com is my main website
for that. You can also reachout to us info at brainlady speaker dot
com if you would like any information, or if there's a topic you would
like to see disgust or if youwant to see this topic discussed again with
Diane, send us an email infoat brainladyspeaker dot com and you know will
(37:49):
respond. We absolutely will respond,I promise, all right. And as
I like to close all of mypodcast, all of my video casts,
I want everybody to just kind ofroll your shoulders back, take a really
nice deep breath, go out thereand simply enjoy every moment. Thank you
for being with us.
Welcome to brain Lady Speaks with JulieAnderson. Julie brain Lady Anderson is considered
to be one of the nation's topexperts on the brain personality connection. She
has been inspiring her audiences to fireup their brains and ignite positive changes in
their relationships, and now she ishere to bring that knowledge to you.
The information she shares will help thosewho hear it to accelerate their success in
(00:25):
life and business through the discovery oftheir natural gifts and maximizing their brain power.
When you learn to tap into thepotential of your natural gifts and the
power of the brain mind connection,there is no limit to what you can
accomplish. Today and every Wednesday onbrain Lady Speaks, you'll explore the latest
findings to see how they have practicalapplication in your life. And now get
(00:48):
ready to join Julie Anderson on thebrain Lady Speaks radio show, Take It
Away. Julie, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome to this interview with the amazing
Diane Costo. We are looking forwardto I love this topic. As a
brain geek. I love this topicand I'll explain why in just a minute.
But I want to of course thankeveryone who is watching right now live.
(01:12):
If you have questions as we're talking, go ahead and type it into
the comment session section and we willdo our best to answer those or address
those in our as we're going throughthe show. But I am going to
start this right now by if youare listening later on as a in the
(01:34):
podcast world, wonderful, reach outto us if you have any questions and
we'll get those addressed as well.So let me once again welcome Diane Costo
to the to the Brain Lady SpeakShow this afternoon. Thank you for having
me, Julie. I'm excited tochat with you today. Absolutely. Let
me tell everybody, the listeners,the watchers a little bit about your background.
(01:57):
You are the CEO and founder ofSymmetry Neural Pathway Training, which provides
neural feedback. I'm so excited totalk about this services and systems to individuals,
families, therapeutic programs and professionals acrossthe USA, Canada, Mexico.
With the knowledge that neurofeedback saved herson's life and restored hope for her family,
Diane is a mom on a missionto make neurofeedback technology available to individuals
(02:23):
and families. So they can avoidthe trauma her family experienced as a result
of her son's brain dysregulation. Lookforward to hearing that story. From an
early age, Diane's son was kickedout of schools and programs. Dianne continually
sought an environment that would help herson thrive. While physicians, psychologist,
therapist, counselors, and educational professionalsgave her advice, no one had talked
(02:46):
to her about neuro feedback. Forover thirteen years, Diane has trained and
provided clinical and technical support programs forprograms and professionals who utilize neural feedback and
symmetry neural pathway training, and we'lltalk about that a little bit and approach
and as an approved in structure forBridgeports College CEC and Certification Certificate course,
(03:10):
Dan instructed chiropractors in advanced qEEG courses. All right, so you represent various
can you present to various continuing educationconferences across the USA? You list a
bunch of these. We will haveall of those in the show notes,
so anyone can look at those,and we're going to talk about how brain
(03:31):
waved wave disregulation, what it canlook like, and then how it is
oftentimes mislabeled as add ADHD, brainfog depression, those types of things,
and how narrow feedback helps with that. So welcome again, Welcome again,
Thank you, Julie. I'm sorrywe gave you all this tongue twisters too,
(03:53):
know a bit. I love it. I love it because it helps.
It helps everybody to know your background. I think that's important and I
really want to hear about your story. But I want to share really quick
why I am so excited about thistopic for the listeners. So for those
of you who know me or haveseen me speak, I will often say
(04:14):
that my background started when I wasstudying psychoneuroimmunology, which is this big long
word that just means the connection betweenthe thoughts and your mind, the chemistry
and your brain shifts, and thenhow that affects your immune system. And
in the book head First by NormanCousins, I strongly suggest that as a
read, it talked about neuro feedbackand how it was scientifically proven to actually
(04:39):
how your thoughts could actually change yourbody chemistry, and it was just fascinating
to me. So it was thistopic of neuro feedback was something that had
a very pivotal change or what's changedmy life at a very pivotal point and
kind of sent me down the trajectoryof being the brain lady as opposed to
the natural health certificate that doctor thatI was going for at the time.
(05:02):
So that's why I am so excited, so excited about this topic. Now,
enough about me, let's talk aboutyou. Tell me, tell us
a little bit, give us alittle bit more background on how you got
started with neurofeedback and where your interest, with your family and your own personal
experience into the neurofeedback world. Yeah, sure, I mean you read the
(05:25):
summary of it. Really it wasall about my son. I mean my
background was not in anything in theneuro or health or brain related field.
I was kind of like an accountingeconomics, behind the scenes kind of person,
you know. But my youngest struggledwith impulsivity and was kicked out and
labeled, and you know, Itried multiple different school environments and programs and
(05:46):
organizations and homeschool and anything I couldthink of, trying to find an environment
that he would find success in,and we kept getting that call, we
really love him, but he's notfollowing the program. Well, they didn't
always really they love him either.Yes, he came across as one hundred
and ten percent boy with the badattitude. Yeah, he had his protective
(06:08):
wall up or you know, makingup for not being able to control his
impulses and getting in trouble everywhere hewent from when he was a really little
guy five years old and all theway up to twelve going on thirteen.
I was trying to avoid having himbecome one of those quote unquote troubled teams,
(06:28):
you know. Yeah, yeah,yeah, So how old is your
son now? He is now twentyfive, soon to be twenty six in
September. Yeah, so it wasa long time ago. Yeah, So
what was what did it do forhim? Well, what happened was,
after all of these different schools andprograms environments, he ended up in a
therapeutic program. Was about to getkicked out of there, and I was
(06:51):
introduced to neural feedback, went throughthe training and drove from South Carolina to
know where you taught, set itup in this therapeutic program where he was,
and what happened was I started seeinghim. Well, number one,
he seemed to start it to restbetter because the dark circles under his eyes
started to get a little bit lighter. He started to lighten up in his
(07:12):
mood a little bit. He startedto actually think about engaging in some of
the elements of the program, wherebefore he was refusing to do anything.
You know, he didn't really believeor understand what was happening or that it
was really working, but he wasgoing along with it because he had no
other choice than I was physically theremaking him do it. But in the
(07:33):
end, it gave him this pausebefore reacting that he never really had since
birth. So he was just ableto stop, pause and consider his responses.
And before he was just constantly reactingto his environment and like a fight
or flight survival mode, and noone realized that's what it was, a
(07:53):
fight or flight survival mode. Itwasn't just him trying to be bad or
just being rebellious. Right protection mechanismin hindsight, right right, And twenty
years ago, neuroscience was still stillyoung in many ways, so a lot
(08:13):
of these different procedures, and itwas still kind of like really doesn't really
work, you know, like itwas still kind of in that that woo
woo stage where only the scientists reallyreally truly understood it. And you had
to as a parent, being anadvocate for your child was probably a challenge
(08:33):
at some points. Yeah, itwas amazing to me that all of those
years, like I said, fromabout fifth grade on, this started happening.
He literally was getting kicked out atthese young ages, and people would
just shake their head. They didn'treally know what to do for him,
didn't really peg him with any particularlabels. And I wasn't a big fan
of diagnosis and stuff, you know, And he did come across as a
(08:54):
smart kid with a bad attitude,so we didn't really feel sorry for him.
We you know, we all kindof kept trying to fight him and
that disciplined out of him. It'sthe opposite of what he needed. There
was no there was a physical reasonin his brain that he wasn't able to
pause, you know. So itwas very interesting and all of from fifth
grade, yeah, five years olduntil twelve years old, that's a long
(09:16):
time of nobody ever mentioning neurofeedback.Nobody ever mentioning, hey, why don't
you get a QEG brain map doneand see what's going on in that little
guy's brain. No one mentioned it. But what lit me up when I
got there and I started seeing theresults, I was like, somebody needs
to share this with the parents.It should be first line of defense,
(09:39):
not at the end of the ropewhen you're out of money and you're you
know, you're in debt and yourkids, your whole family's traumatized. That
that shouldn't be the case. Itneeds to be first right, right,
I agree one hundred percent. Lookingdeeper is so so, so very important.
So for the listeners that maybe aren'tcompletely clear, because there's a lot
(10:01):
of neuro stuff out there, lotsof different neurotechniques, whether it's related to
a physical piece of machinery. Iuse machinery as a you know, big
just kind of umbrella for utilizing somethingtangible or practices or brain training or you
(10:22):
know, mindfulness, things like that. Like, there's a lot of neuro
things out there. I hope thoselistening and watching to understand what exactly is
neurofeedback. Right, That's a reallygreat point that there are there are even
different styles and approaches of neurofeedback,but just the define neurofeedback is it's technology
(10:46):
driven learning for the brain. AndI have used all of these years a
non invasive version of that which Itreally is just using technology to measure and
analyze your brain wave communication and thengiving your them some feedback on what it's
doing so that the brain can learnto change. So it's technology driven learning
for the brain. And you know, we start out these days we put
(11:07):
a cap, a snug cap onyour head and put a little gel on
there and just take readings of yourbrain wave of communication called brain waves,
you know, while your eyes areclosed and then while your eyes are open,
and then we compare that to normativedatabase, find the regions that are
working well and which ones are off, and then we know what your brain
needs to learn in order to betterregulate. And the whole goal of neuro
(11:31):
feedback is to help the brain betterregulate, not to cure, diagnose,
or fix. It's just help yourbrain better regulate. Because when your brain
is disregulated, people don't sleep well. They may be impulsive, they may
have mood regulation issues, they mayhave anxiety. But when the brain is
functioning better and it is better regulated, people rest better, they can function
(11:52):
better, focus, maybe stop beforethey make a decision or react, you
know those kind of things. Doesthat help make sense of it a little
bit? I think that's excellent.Yeah, that's excellent, And there's so
many there's a lot of different Irecently have received a certification as a brain
health professional and went through a verydeep training through doctor Amen his clinics,
(12:16):
and there's so many different ways ofreading the brain. But what was what
has always been so fascinating to meis that things that we think of as
just simply behavioral disciplinary I should saydisciplinary behavioral activity or behavior is can be
(12:37):
oftentimes is connected to over activity ina certain area of the brain, or
under activity and a certain area ofthe brain. And when that happens,
it's it's almost not the person's fault. And I don't want to go to
that extent to say that, becausethen you're kind of blanketing all poor behavior
(12:58):
and I don't want to go thatare but I do want to say that
in some cases, there's so muchgoing on in the brain that if we
can address that first, then thebehavior is so much easier to adjust or
to correct if it needs to becorrected type thing. Yeah, that is
such a valid point and an importantpoint, you know. I think about
(13:20):
what would our family dynamics be likeif we each had a brain map on
how and why we respond the waywe do it, we would have a
totally different approach to interact him witheach other and a much more peaceful society
because now I know in hindsight whatI didn't know back then, and how
my approach and the professionals that wedealt with, how their approach would be
(13:43):
different if we were able to measure. I didn't have a brain map back
then for him. So now,yeah, you can really use that information,
and again not to make excuses foranyone, because you can be empowered
and you can use that information tofind a better way to live and interact.
But it also can point out reasonswhy people are frustrating the heck out
(14:07):
of you. They're not doing iton always on purpose, ex exactly.
And I think that's a critical pointwhen I'm because I do a lot of
a lot of work with different alot of coaching and consulting with different whether
it's relationships you know, intersct youknow, intermarriage, or with parents with
kids, or corporate leaders. Itend to do a lot with corporate leaders
(14:28):
and teams, and one of thethings I'm always trying to tell them is
the first thing when it comes tobuilding a good relationship is thinking receiver or
not sender, So we always wealways send on that default. But when
you're thinking about how does the personI'm interacting with need to see feel here
the message, experience that message,how does their brain going to process it?
(14:50):
And making sure that if you reallywant to be heard, you have
to deliver that message in the waythat their brain is going to get it.
And it's it's similar in what you'retalking about, because you really understand
what the brain is doing and whatadjustments can be made. Now on that
note, how does that like,Let's say you with your son or with
(15:11):
anyone that you're working with, becauseyou know we'll put this in there right
now, I'm going to talk abouthow you can connect with Diane and perhaps
you know, investigate doing neuro feedbackwith her. But once you know this
information, what are the techniques thatyou use to help individuals improve their situation,
(15:33):
improve their sleep? Is it justthrough the treatments, the physical treatments
with the cap So that has beenwhat I've done for these years. Now.
We certainly partner with therapists, coaches, councilor like whatever else you need.
There's so much more involved in regulatingyour whole system and nervous system.
It may be nutrition, it maybe a sleep coach, you know.
So there are all those other aspects, but from strictly the neuro feedback standpoint
(15:58):
can make a lot of headway becausewhen you start to better regulate the brain,
all of those other modalities and techniquesand stuff can be better integrated and
applied. So yeah, just fromthe neural feedback standpoint, what those sessions
look like is either they would comein an office, but now it's more
often at home training. We dounlimited use at home for like six weeks
(16:19):
at a time and work with peopleremotely coaching them on the process. And
the software is really user friendly.It's made to use at home, so
myself and my team can see alot more in the background, but it
keeps it nice and simple for theuser. The user experience, so they'll
have a couple sensors and a specializedamplifier that's plugged into a laptop. We
(16:41):
show them where to put those sensorson, they click a few buttons,
test their signals, and then theywatch something that you can stream online a
podcast, the Netflix, YouTube,Hulu, anything you're interested in, and
the software puts an overlay over topof it. So when their brain meets
a healthy, well regulated pattern,that's going to play a little bit brighter
and louder for them, So they'regoing to be rewarded. When their brain
(17:03):
is not producing a healthy, wellregulated pattern, it's going to go dimmer
and quieter, and that tells thebrain, huh, I'm going to do
something different. So it's just constantlycommunicating between their brainwave activity and that software,
and the software just keeps rewarding themto do what we want to encourage.
And then it's really based on anatural learning process. Think about when
(17:26):
you learn to write with a pencilor maybe practice the musical instrument. You're
kind of rough at it, andyour practice practice practicing, and then pretty
soon you're doing it without thinking aboutit. That's the same learning process that
happens through neurofeedback, which is technologydriven learning. You just repeat, repeat,
repeat, and pretty soon there's anew neural pathway in the brain because
you don't have to try anymore,it's there. I love new neural pathways.
(17:52):
Oh it's so interesting. So nowyou talked about it with your son
and this disregulation in his brain andhow that was coming out in negative behavior.
Can things like it? Can technologylike this be used just as an
overall to help with creativity or productivityor focus like is that something that you've
(18:18):
noticed assisting in as well? Yeah, I'm so glad you brought that up,
because again, I'm not a bigfan of stigmas and labels and all
of that, and I have neverseen a perfect brain yet. And I've
mapped some peak performers, business people, very successful people, Navy seals,
and we all have some improvement thatcan be made. So yeah, we're
(18:41):
all capable of continuing to learn.And there are Olympic teams using neurofeedback and
professional athletes, and you know it'snot as mainstream and talked about as we
want it to be. But yes, the answer is for sure, as
long as your brain can continue tolearn, you can improve those different as
specks of your life. Oh soI have to ask what did you did
(19:03):
you notice or can you share withoutyou know, hippo laws engaging and interfering,
can you can you share what youmight have noticed that was interesting about
high performing brains. Everybody is verydifferent, so it's really interesting. There
are some QEG brain maps that showa really like kind of lower power overall,
(19:30):
Like this reduced power level in peakperformers, and they wondered if it
was from like, you know,people they're just like overly productive, are
constantly pushing themselves and kind of gettingfatigued, or if it's a quality.
I don't think they really know yet, you know, Yeah, maybe it's
just a natural calmness or something something. I've seen that and then I've just
(19:55):
seen I mean, typical per performermaps look like a lot of other people.
You know, you don't really seethis perfect image of the best kind
of performance, because, like Isaid, everybody has a little bit of
something. Yeah, I'm there thatthey can improve on. Yeah. Now,
as you're my brain is just goingand I hope this is of interest
(20:15):
to the listeners. But you know, we talk a lot, and I
talk a lot about the PFC,about the prefrontal cortex of the brain and
how very important it is to thathigher thinking, understanding consequences of actions,
reasoning, brainstorming, creative problem solving, or just problem solving in general.
Like this is one of the reasonswhy I tell my parents, you know
(20:37):
what, the when you look atyour teenager and you you're like what were
you thinking. Chances are they weren't, Like, literally they weren't because it's
not it's not completely developed to yourearly twenties, So it just literally does
not it is not completely wired toall the regions of the brain. Can
you notice then, with your orwith the technology that you have, do
(21:03):
you notice in individuals who have impulseissues input I should say impulse control challenges
is probably a better way to putit. Do you notice some like lack
of activity in that frontal quadrant ofthe brain, those prefrontal cortexes of the
brain. Yeah, with impulsivity,there is a typical pattern. And I
(21:26):
can't say that for everything, butwith that impulsivity usually there is a little
less resources to inhibit the brain.So our brain is naturally excitatory. It
kind of wants to go wild.Think about it. When you lose your
inhibition, what do you do?You do something you normally wouldn't do,
right, because the brain is excitatorywants to just kind of go out.
(21:47):
So when we have too much slowwave activity in that prefrontal cortex, there's
not enough blood flow, there's notenough resources to inhibit and keep that brain
kind of under control. Like itnormally would, so you're more impulsive,
and that is a typical pattern wehave. That it's really important to note
too, Like you started mentioning aboutthe prefrontal cortex and all of the other
(22:10):
networks. So all of those networkshave to communicate in balance. And we'll
see these pictures of the brain andthere's certain primary functions and responsibilities and that's
great and that's interesting and everything,but you have to remember it's not just
one part of the brain. Theirnetworks. Any little kink or lack of
(22:32):
communication or over communication in those networkscan change how you function. So there's
like so much to it. It'sreally interesting. Yeah, because while there's
one specific area that might be responsiblefor audible speech, the inhibiting the expl
(22:52):
explorative, explorative, what's the wordI'm looking for, inhibiting a lot of
those curse words and things like that, that pulls in another. So the
so that's you know, that networkthat and understanding. Okay, if I
say this thing, I shouldn't saythis thing because it's not a proper thing
to say. It's connected. It'syou know, it's it's pulling in that
frontal cortex to the burro cause area. To this area and to the emotion
(23:17):
all of that and your memory circuits. It's such a complex. The brain
is just amazing to me, theway that it works. So I like
the fact that you're able to thensee areas that where there might be low
activity, so then through your processesthen you helped to increase that activity through
the feedback is Yeah. Yeah,that's the whole goal, is to better
(23:38):
regulate the brain, regardless of whatis going on. Maybe it's too much
slow wave activity up here in thefront maybe it's too much communication left to
right and from the hemisphere to hemisphere. We see that a lot now,
like hyper communication or not enough communicationfrom the left side of the brain to
the right side of the brain.And everybody's different on how that's going to
(24:00):
affect them, but we see thata lot in that whole autism spectrum disorders.
Yeah, I was gonna I wasgonna ask if you see that in
high anxiety disorders where you've got justa buzz because your brain's anxious. Yeah,
we'll see some of that more sometimesin that frontal lobe for anticipatory worry,
and sometimes we see like some stucktape loop kind of thing happening like
(24:25):
with rumination and everything more in theback of the brain with like alpha wave
activity that just is overproduced. Soyeah, certain little patterns and everyone.
So it's so fascinating. I couldgo on talking about this forever. I've
chose some people are going what we'regetting in the leaves? Yeah, okay,
(24:45):
So let's bring it back to thepractical. What it means for individuals
who are struggling with different things.What's one thing that you really wish everybody
knew about all this technical stuff thatwe just talked about, Like, what's
that practical potentially life saving? Andwhen I say life saving, I guess
(25:08):
in some cases it could be ifyou're if you're someone out there, and
this would be a who battles withsuicidal tendencies or suicidal thoughts dark thoughts.
By the way, this would bean absolutely perfect time for me to insert
in there. Please, please,please, if you are watching this or
you are listening to this, knowthat there are lots of resources out there
for help. Reach out by allmeans. Do not keep those feelings to
(25:30):
yourself, whether it's reaching out toyour medical doctor or the suicide hotline or
any of those. Please, byall means know that there are resources out
there, you know, reach outto us, reach out to other professionals,
and get know that we're here tohelp. And if you are,
(25:52):
in addition to that, if youare currently under a certain type of therapy,
be sure that you don't just allof a sudden stop a prescription that
you're on, or stop that andjump over to doing neurofeedback. Always discuss
it with your primary care physician ortherapist to make sure that it's because when
you're talking about the brain very sensitiveto influences, and if your brain is
(26:18):
receiving one set of influences, youdon't just want to also drop that and
jump to something else. It canhave very devastating effects. So I want
to throw that in there, thatlittle disclaimer and make sure that everybody knows
that. Now back to that question, what's the one What is the thing
that you wish everybody would know?What are some of those things that it
really really can help with, maybesome experiences of people that you've worked with,
(26:41):
Something that you want people to knowabout about this technology and about this
therapy that they may not already know. Yeah, there's so much. That's
a hard. One one thing toanswer, I definitely think we touched on
it as far as family systems andunderstanding who you're dealing with at home and
in the workforce is super important.I think removing the stigma and the labels
(27:07):
and just looking at it from thefact that we all have brainwave disregulation and
this should be in our homes,just like we're measuring our steps now and
our breathing and all of the thingsthat we measure. Neuro Feedbacks should be
in our homes just like all ofthose other technologies. It's not something to
be afraid of and be exclusive toonly people certain people that can have it.
(27:30):
I want it to be mainstream becauseI know it did save my son's
life. He would be one ofthose people that is locked up or accidentally
killed themselves, you know, ifit wasn't for this. So it is
critical that we have access to thisfor all of us. Those are a
couple of things that came to mymind first. So that means, so
I gotta put you on the spot. So do you do neuro feedback?
(27:52):
I have, thankfully, not thatI can't afford to do more. I
really can always do more because themore stressors we have, the more we
need it. But it really changedmy life in the fact that I was
hit with an autoimmune disease at agenineteen, and in hindsight, we realized
I really didn't have a good sleepcycle most of my life, and once
(28:14):
I got past those teenage years andmy body wasn't repairing itself from all the
growth hormone that you have as akid, I tanked and I was considered
disabled. But with the help ofneuro feedback over these last few years,
I really can get into a morerestorative sleep cycle so that when I do
activity during the day, my body'shealing itself more. So. It was
life changing for me as well.I've seen, like you mentioned, suicidal
(28:41):
ideation and things like that. Andone of the main interesting clients that was
at the therapeutic program where I firstbrought the technology there and I was helping
my son. She was signed upas well, and she was beliemic.
She was on staff watch. Shewas kind of antisocial, just really we
were very concerned about her, andher parents enrolled her in the neural feedback,
(29:03):
so we started watching. Pretty soonshe was off staff watch. Somebody
wasn't having to follow her to thebathroom, anymore. As she was keeping
her food down, she started interactinga little more with her peers. Over
time, she was on the leadershipteam, and then she got to the
end of her It was only atwenty session plan at that point, but
she kept saying no change, nochange. She was reporting, self reporting.
(29:26):
But we're watching her, right,you know, observing the change.
By the end of twenty I'm like, Okay, finally you don't have to
come back in here, and shebegged her parents for another round because she
was feeling better. You know,it changed her life. It was kind
of cute. So we do havethose people that don't notice it or don't
want to report it that we seesome interesting positive changes with. Yeah.
(29:51):
Yeah, there's a lot of goodstories like that, some of them the
book. Oh, that's so amazing. Oh the book. We're gonna talk
about the book in just a minute. That's absolutely amazing. I think it's
it's it's a great it's great thatwe're having because you'd mentioned you can do
this at home, you can haveit, so it's not as as complicated
(30:12):
as it was in the early days, you know, So that's that's that's
exciting. I'm gonna have to lookinto this more and you hit on sleep.
And anybody who knows me, youwill know when I talk about brain
health, when I talk about businesshealth, when I talk about business health
and relationship health, I always Ialways want to work with any of my
(30:33):
clients. The first thing I harpon a sleep. I'm like, if
if you're not getting if you're notgetting good sleep, every single thing in
your life it's going to suffer.I mean, just think about it.
If you wake up with brain fog, or you wake up and you haven't
had a good night's sleep, youare a grumpy button. If you are
a grumpy butt, you are meanto the people in your relationships. You
are not able to get your workdone or pick up the cells you know,
make those cells calls or whatever itis. And then you're down on
(30:56):
yourself. So your mind health goesdown. So to me, to me,
sleep not only for the reparative obviously, for the reparative benefits of it
for the body, How important itis for the brain. That's when your
brain does it's detox like it justolutelyso so important. So put technology away.
(31:17):
I harbored this all the time.Put it away an hour before you're
going to go to sleep, letyour let your brain naturally start to fall
asleep and swine down and don't havelights right up close to you, get
get get good sleep. That's that'snumber one. That's number one. You're
so right with that. And yourcognition declines as well if you're sleepy.
You know, the kids can't focusin school and do perform well on tests,
(31:41):
and people don't do their work aswell, and and then your mood
regulations suffer. So you've hit onall of it. And that's one of
the first things we like to watchfor and track is more restorative sleep,
because there are people that don't evenrealize they're not getting good and to stored
asleep. They think because they hitthe pillow within two minutes they're out,
that's a good thing. You know. It doesn't mean their brain waves.
(32:02):
It's like and I'll tell you whenI travel, when I present at conferences
and different things in my sleep cyclegets disrupted from all of that. Yeah,
I'll do a few neural feedback sessionsto try to get myself right back
into that routine. And I'm sograteful for that. Yeah, that's that's
amazing. I do a lot oftravel for speaking as well, and I
always always make sure I am Iwill take an extra day if I have
(32:27):
to, to get in there earlyenough to be able to make sure I'm
wound down enough so that I cansleep well, because I want to give
my all when you know, asdo most of us want to give your
all, and if you can inorder to give your all, you gotta
you gotta do that self cared numberone gig. That's yeah, okay,
all right, enough about sleep,Enough about sleep. You do have a
(32:51):
book coming out, so tell usa little bit about the book. Yes,
So it's meant to be a guidefor parents under stress looking for help
for their kiddos. Just like whatI went through. It's not going to
be a real deep read and causeyou more stress. It's really just a
quick read that shares our story,what we went through, some of the
things that we saw, and thatyou can learn from and consider neurofeedback.
(33:15):
It goes into a little primer onneurofeedback and why it can help others.
So I hope that it inspires andhelps parents to find those resources and inspire
professionals to actually provide it. Becausewe will teach professionals and put it in
schools and do whatever I have todo to get it out there. I
don't want to be the only provider. We want to help providers provide because
(33:36):
it needs to be mainstream. Therefore, we need many more people helping families
have access it. I love it. Quick question, how does it?
Does it help with pain management?Curious if the pain has been addressed,
like if it is more of aneurological residual chronic pain usually yes, her
phantom pain, things like that thatit is from. You know, it's
(33:58):
the wound has healed, but thepain is still there neurologically. Then at
auto responds well. And again painand sleep together everything because because my pain
levels are much less than they werewhen I was in my twenties, because
it's tied together, so huge helpingwith that and it starts to sound ridiculous.
(34:22):
Oh, it can help with this. It can help with that.
You know, is it a snakeoil. It's not. But we all
have the brain. That's the commonfactor. And when your brain is not
regulated, stuff happens and life isharder. Yeah, and there's there's just
so many things in our day today life. Stress alone is going to
disregulate your brain. So there's somany things you may you may think you
(34:46):
have it regulated today, but theslightest, you know, the slightest upset,
you know, biological factors can disregulatethe brain. Not enough hydration,
not enough water can disregulate. Sothere's so many different things that can knock
it off. You may have itin line today, but that doesn't mean
that it's not going to get knockedoff, knocked off fast. All right.
Just so so the book sounds whenis that coming out again? September
(35:10):
nine, ninety nine, my kiddo'sbirthday. That's awesome. That's awesome.
And your website is Symmetry neuro ne U r OPT dot com and you
have you have different programs. Youhave a six week unlimited neuro feedback sessions.
(35:32):
If somebody wants that, they canreach out to you, they can
reach you at Diane. So forthose of you listening, d I A
N N E at Symmetry Neural neuroptdot com. And yeah, stay connected
with her. She's all over theplace. She's Facebook, she's LinkedIn,
(35:54):
she's YouTube, she's Pinterest, andshe's Instagram. I'm not going to read
them all off to you because itwould be very confusing, but we will
put them all in the show notesin the show description and you can that
way you know how to reach Dianeand find out more information. So thank
you so much, Diane for beingon the Brain Lady Speaks live broadcast and
(36:19):
podcast as it comes out later today. I was honored to have you here,
and what a fun conversation. Ihope it was fun for other people
as well well. I certainly enjoyedit too, Julie. I'm sure we
could talk for a few more hoursabout it. So thank you for having
me and be happy to join youagain if you'd like. I would love
that. Lots of things we couldtalk about, would love it, would
love it, and everyone listening orwatching, thank you so much. We
(36:44):
are honored that she spent the timewith us. If you have questions for
us, if you have comments forus, by all means, put them
in the comment section of the videosor the podcast. This is I really
feel these topics are very valuable.So I'm going to ask a favor.
I'm just gonna come right out,and I am going to ask that you
give us some social media love,right, give us some thumbs up share
(37:07):
these links. If it's something thatyou think someone out there needs to hear
or would benefit from, or youenjoyed the conversation and you want others to
enjoy it too. I'm gonna makethat little request, so do that for
us. Other than that, stayin contact with us the brain Lady Speaks
show comes out, or you canstay in contact with us on the YouTube
(37:27):
channel for brain Lady Julie. Brainlady speaker dot com is my main website
for that. You can also reachout to us info at brainlady speaker dot
com if you would like any information, or if there's a topic you would
like to see disgust or if youwant to see this topic discussed again with
Diane, send us an email infoat brainladyspeaker dot com and you know will
(37:49):
respond. We absolutely will respond,I promise, all right. And as
I like to close all of mypodcast, all of my video casts,
I want everybody to just kind ofroll your shoulders back, take a really
nice deep breath, go out thereand simply enjoy every moment. Thank you
for being with us.
Popular Podcasts
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
The Male Room with Dr. Jesse Mills
As Director of The Men’s Clinic at UCLA, Dr. Jesse Mills has spent his career helping men understand their bodies, their hormones, and their health. Now he’s bringing that expertise to The Male Room — a podcast where data-driven medicine meets common sense. Each episode separates fact from hype, science from snake oil, and gives men the tools to live longer, stronger, and happier lives. With candor, humor, and real-world experience from the exam room and the operating room, Dr. Mills breaks down the latest health headlines, dissects trends, and explains what actually works — and what doesn’t. Smart, straightforward, and entertaining, The Male Room is the show that helps men take charge of their health without the jargon.