Treatment of insomnia using neurofeedback

Let's see what neurofeedback is and how it can be used to treat insomnia.

Sleep disorders are a form of discomfort that affects hundreds of thousands of people, but fortunately, they can be treated effectively.

One of the most useful resources for treating insomnia is neurofeedback, in which the principles of neurofeedback are used to treat insomnia.in which the principles of psychotherapy are united with those of neuroscience.

The brain waves and the neurofeedback

The neurofeedback is a procedure by means of which the nervous activity of the patient's brain surface is measured and this information is provided to the patient in real time.. This is achieved by simply applying senseores on the head, without the need for surgery or painful procedures.

In other words, it is based on allowing the patient to recognize the activity patterns of his brain to help him learn ways to alter them at will.

Neurofeedback is used to treat various types of psychological disorders, and one of those for which it is effective is insomnia.and one in which it is effective is insomnia. This makes sense, since states of consciousness and the tendency to relax have clear effects on brain waves, which visually represent the frequency that neurons in the brain adopt when coordinating with each other and emitting nerve impulses.

How is insomnia treated by neurofeedback?

For decades, scientific research has shown that at least several of the waves of nerve activity in the brain several of the waves of nervous activity can be promoted through operant conditioningthat is, they are likely to be controlled by the person through an incentive system.

In the same way that in psychotherapy measures are established to reinforce the appearance of some behaviors and weaken the appearance of others, neurofeedback helps to do the same when it comes to facilitating the appearance of certain patterns of neuronal activation. In this case, those that predispose the person to fall asleep and put an end to the problem of insomnia.

How is this achieved? As we have seen, neurofeedback makes the person aware of aspects of their neuropsychological processes that would normally go unnoticed, and from there, makes them able to reinforce those that serve their interests. In other words, it makes it easier for him to take control of some phenomena that take place in his body and that until then were semi-conscious, outside his voluntary control.

By learning how certain ways of thinking, feeling and regulating what happens in the body generate changes in these processes, it also learns ways to conveniently modify these processes.

Now, let's take a closer look at how neurofeedback helps you sleep.

The importance of alpha and theta waves

In falling asleep, there are two types of brain waves, two types of brain waves are particularly important: alpha waves and theta waves..

Alpha waves are those that indicate a relaxed state of consciousness in the person whose cerebral cortex begins to emit them. They are characteristic of the moments in which we daydream, they usually appear just before we start to doze: under their effect, we are awake, but at the same time we focus our attention on imaginative processes and the recalling of memories, or simply, we do not think about anything concrete.

On the other hand, the theta waves are those that appear when we start to sleep. With them, we disconnect almost completely from what is happening around us, but the level of activation is sufficiently intense that if we wake up in this phase we believe that we have not started to sleep, we simply do not remember well what has happened.

Thus, when applying neurofeedback to treat insomnia, the main objective is to to help the person to induce a transition from alpha waves to theta waves.. To achieve this, the patient undergoes various implicit learning processes, i.e. they depend more on practice and self-experimentation than on following purely theoretical instructions.

For example, it is known that the appearance of alpha waves is facilitated when the person's gaze does not focus on any particular element of the visual field, so that everything is "blurred"; this kind of experience contributes to entering a relaxed and meditative state of consciousness, similar to that which also takes place during clinical hypnosis sessions. With neurofeedback, patients learn the practice of this kind of phenomena, instead of remaining in a theory that in the case of those who develop sleep disorders is insufficient.

Bibliographical references:

• Carrobles, J.A. (2016). Bio/neurofeedback. Clinica y Salud, 27 (3): pp. 125 - 131.
• deCharms R.C.; Maeda, F.; Glover, G.H., et al. (2005). Control over brain activation and Pain learned by using real-time functional MRI. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 102 (51): 18626 - 18631.
• Dement, W. (2000). The promise of Sleep: A pioneer in sleep medicine explores the vital connection between health, happiness, and a good night's sleep. New York: Random House.
• Kamiya, J. (1969). Operant control of the EEG alpha rhythm. En C. Tart (Ed.), Altered states of consciousness. Nueva York: Wiley.
• Basmajian, J.V. (1989). Biofeedback: Principles and practice for clinicians. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins.