HEALTH
Balance your brain
By Susan Melgren smelgren@kansan.com
Brain State Conditioning was developed in 2000 as a way to help people with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Lee Gerdes, CEO and founder of Brain State Technologies, says he struggled with the disorder for 10 years and wanted a way out. Using his background in computers, Gerdes created the technology by thinking of the brain as a computer network. He thought if he could show the brain what it looked like when in its most content state, the brain would change itself. Gerdes tried it successfully ori himself in 2000. In 2002, he used it to help his son, who had dropped out of Iowa State University, get back into school and on the Dean's List.
How it works
Brain balancing consists of a series of training sessions. Ed Bloch, director of the Life Enrichment Center in Lawrence, says the sessions shouldn't be thought of as a treatment.
"The technology isn't designed as a medical device," Bloch says "It doesn't diagnose or treat symptoms. It balances and harmonizes the brain."
During the session, the client sits in an anti-gravity chair.Trainers, like Bloch, attach sensors to the client's head; two behind the ears, two on various lobes of the brain and a free-standing one on top of the head. The sensors pick up brain waves and send them to the computer. Specially designed software searches for imbalances in the brain by looking at the ratio of brain waves between different lobes. The software compares the brainwaves to a model of how a brain looks in its most contented state, and then decides how to get the brain there.The computer takes the best brainwaves, translates them into sound and plays them back as music to the client through headphones. The music sounds like an electric keyboard.
Bloch says the sessions require little effort from the client because the process happens unconsciously. Bloch encourages patients to relax and to visualize certain things.
It sounds like a medical experiment: an anti-gravity chair, electrodes attached to your scalp, a computer that reads your brain waves and translates them into sound. But this isn't a scene straight from a sci-fi movie. It's called Brain State Conditioning and it can help people with a wide range of emotional, physical and psychological problems.
Sessions usually last 70 to 90 minutes, and clients do two sessions a day. Bloch says about half of his clients needs 10 sessions to see optimal benefits, while the other half needs 20 or more.
New technology can help you with your problems, big or small
Does it work?
than me," Hill says.
Tiffney Hill, Lawrence resident is 34 and has struggled with eating disorders since she was 13, first bulimia then anorexia.
"It wasn't okay if even one person was skinnier
Hill started treatment for her disorder the summer before her senior year of high school. During the next three years she was in and out of treatment facilities six times. She went to psychotherapy. She took mind- and mood-altering drugs. Two years ago she again checked herself into a treatment facility Nothing worked. Then she tried brain balancing.
Hill, who was already going to the Life Enrichment Center at the time, says she had no hesitation about the training sessions."I tried everything else," Hill says. "It can't hurt to try this." Hill went through about 10 training sessions with the Brain State Conditioning, and she says it changed her life.
Bloch, director of the Life Enrichment Center in Lawrence, says that since he first started offering Brain State Conditioning last February, he's had more than 60 clients. Of those 60, only one person didn't benefit from the process. Gerdes says that brain balancing doesn't work for 10 to 15 percent of his company's more than 8,000 clients. He says drug or alcohol use during training can prohibit the process from working, but some brains also just have strong defenses against this kind of treatment.
If you're interested in learning more about brain balancing, visit the Life Enrichment Center's Web site at www.lecnetwork.com or Brain State Technologies' Web site at www.brainstatetech.com.
Before the sessions, Hill says she ate only low-fat foods in small quantities. She used to avoid certain foods such as oils, butter, fried foods and red meat. Now she eats three to five times a day, and her meals are more varied.
"It produced more results in me than anything else I tried," Hill says. "I still try to eat healthy, but I'm more relaxed. If I want dessert, then I eat dessert."
Is this for real?
Spencer Payne, a clinical psychologist in Lawrence, says the technique used for Brain State Conditioning works, but he says that it's only part of the formula. "Because it's embedded in music, the person is not aware." Payne says "it's not as good as learning to have conscious control. It's better to learn than to have done to you." Payne says the process can be beneficial because it moves the brain into a better place for the person to then undergo psychotherapy.
Bobbi Bolley, a 26-year-old Emporia resident, agrees that Brain State Conditioning is only part of the process. Bolley had struggled with an eating disorder for 12 years when she went through the process. Unlike Hill, Bolley says she had lots of hesitations. She didn't think it could be a cure-all, and it wasn't a cure-all —but it was a key component in the healing process. She had tried two other treatments before brain balancing but says she wasn't mentally ready so didn't work. Before she underwent brain balancing, Bolley did therapy at the Life Enrichment Center. She says the therapy helped prepare her for the process.
Brain State Conditioning basics Brain State Conditioning can help with a variety of problems.
- Addictive dependencies, such as addictions to alcohol, drugs, gambling and tobacco
- Anger
- Anxiety
- Hyperactivity
- Brain injury
- Inability to focus
- Lack of energy
- Chronic fatigue
- Lack of concentration
- Learning difficulties
- Obsessive thinking
- Chronic pain
- Panic attacks
- Compulsive behaviors
- Poor memory
- Eating disorders
- Sleeping difficulties
- Stress
- Unhappiness
The Life Enrichment Center in Lawrence is one of 126 offices around the world that offer brain balancing. The software in each office is connected to computers at Brain State Technologies headquarters in Scottsdale, Ariz. The software sends data back to headquarters where it is processed and protocol is updated.
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October 2/2008