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LIZ JONES: Can neurofeedback, a therapy to manuipulate brainwaves, change your mindset?

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What's going on in there, Liz?

Through the years, I've spent a lot of time talking about my problems. With a friend over the phone. With an endless series of psychotherapists. In self-help groups. Hell, even with the readers of this newspaper. 'What should I do?' I always wail.

My main 'issue' is that even when I should be happy - such as when I first lived in my London Georgian townhouse, had a husband and things were going swimmingly - I seem incapable of feeling that emotion. I never feel good about myself and am paralysed by fear.

But talking about problems - a cheating husband, say, or a sister who has treated me appallingly - as you do in traditional therapy only reignites upset feelings. It stirs them up, like a stick in a pond.

I still wake every night at 3am, heart pounding, with worry swirling in my head that I will be made homeless, be fired, die alone and unloved.

So imagine how I felt when I discovered that it might not be the world's fault for attacking me. That the problem could lie in my own brain and that there is a way to change it.

According to neurofeedback, a therapy that works by manipulating your brain waves, mindsets like mine can be altered. The world around you might be the same, but the way you deal with it is adjusted. As I've been nervous ever since I was five years old, unable to enter the playground on my first day at school, my brain has become unable to change. It's stuck. This is the theory, anyway.

Neurofeedback originated in the U.S. in the Sixties, pioneered by Nasa as a way of training astronauts' brains to behave differently.

It involves being hooked up to a machine via electrical sensors attached to your head.

The sensors pick up electrical activity emitted by the billions of cells in our brains, convert it into visual form and then draw a map of your brain on a computer screen.

Once you can see what your brain is doing - which areas are being overused and those that lie dormant, for example - therapists show you how to do exercises that will change it.

Brainwaves that are over-used can be quietened, and those under-used, stimulated. And, unlike more conventional therapy, improvement can be seen on a screen as the map of your brain changes.

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Neurofeedback has proved so successful that the U.S. military is researching its use for treating brain injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder. City CEOs, poker champions and Olympic athletes have used it to help them reach the top, too.

And so, palms sweating, worried I'll be late, I find myself at Brainworks HQ in central London, one of the few places in Britain to offer the latest version of the therapy. I meet Christina Lavelle, director of the company, and a certified therapist.

There are computers, a big, flat screen and a hat like a swimming cap with 19 sensors attached to it; Brainworks has the most advanced array of neurofeedback equipment in the UK. I feel as if I'm about to be lobotomised.

First, I fill in a questionnaire, which asks me how I'm feeling and about my health. I tell Christina I work very hard, but that my work rate is driven by fear and that to live in this way is exhausting.

But this conventional talking phase lasts mere moments, thank goodness, before we move onto the science part.

She explains how it works. First, the electrodes measure my brain activity with eyes closed, then eyes open. The waves of activity are recorded, after about five minutes, in a computer programme. Areas of too much activity have a high amplitude and show up as bright red. Too little going on shows up as turquoise or pale blue.

Unlike conventional therapy, which can take years to reach into the recesses of the mind, Christina can immediately see deep inside my brain.

'That's why this method is so good for men, who don't want to talk about what is going on, and for children, who can't,' she says.

Christina can see your amygdala, the primitive part of your brain that is an almond-shaped blob of cells in the middle; I now like to think of it as being 'where stress lives'.

When stimulated constantly it becomes hyper-vigilant, meaning the slightest thing will tip you over the edge. It shows up as a burning red blob on the screen. Mine is practically exploding.

'Ideally, the brain would show balanced activity, all showing near zero. But some areas show minus one, two or three and some are off the scale,' says Christina, as she analyses the figures.

The age-old question of what's really happening inside Liz Jones' brain... answered

Apparently, I have too much activity at the front of my brain, indicating I can't think straight, and in my amygdala my score is plus 1.4, when it should be zero.

'The activity is a concern,' she says. 'There is lots of noise at the back of your head, too, showing as red, which means you are anxious, with lots of negative chatter.' This is so true: at all times, there is the voice of doom telling me I will fail.

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She says my brain is unusual 'not because you experience fear, which many people do, but it is showing up as post-traumatic stress disorder. It's quite extreme.'

Can she see anything good or positive? 'I can tell you are a writer. I see you can process words, you are very creative.'

Christina can also see 'a minute patch of red in the frontal areas', indicating I am depressed. 'But the depression is not acute,' she says. 'I can see your brain processes information swiftly and your memory is great.'

She's right. I never forget anything, I tell her, even slights as a child, and small things, such as what I wore on my first day at school. I'm like an elephant.

Liz Jones being a brain training guinea pig at Brainworks

'Hmm,' she says. 'I can also tell you cling on to bad memories. You don't let go.'

Most tellingly, Catherine can see the area of the brain that is linked to self- esteem has a score of minus two, meaning I have a low opinion of myself.

She says neurofeedback can help change this and balance my brain, given time. Is my self-esteem problem out of the ordinary? 'I see a lot of women with the same patterns,' she says.

As in a gym, we have to exercise the parts of our brains that we haven't used for decades so that they get stronger. So I start to think of the area that controls my self-esteem as my bingo wings.

I sit with the electrodes still on my head. I'm to watch a computer game on the screen. It's a Ferrari (the chair even buzzes like a car) and I'm to keep it moving around a race track just using brainwaves. I'm not to try too hard or to drift off, but soon, given how Christina has calibrated the game, my brain will learn to keep it moving.

Liz Jones and Brainworks director Christina Lavelle

Only when I am using my logical brain will it move; if I panic, it will stop. So, only when my brain activity is balanced will it move, thus exercising my brain to work in a good way. The effects, if I complete a course of 12 sessions costing from £1,320 (this initial session is £265), should last a lifetime. At that price, it should.

I'm sceptical, but I watch the car. It splutters. It stops. It moves slowly. It stops. I find the way to keep it going is to look at the road just in front of it, the future.

After 15 minutes, we stop and Christina removes the cap from my head to process the information.

I tell her I'm worried that she might change my brain too much and I won't be me any longer. 'What if fear is all I am and that if I escape from it I will become lazy and slack?' I ask her.

She tells me she works very carefully. Changes will happen incrementally. I will still be me, but just a better, less crippled version of me.

So much of my energy goes on worry that sometimes I become blind with fear. Christina explains this is because my brain is so busy preparing for flight mode it's releasing too much cortisol. 'Cortisol, the stress hormone, can suppress or damage the hippocampus nerve cells, causing memory problems.'

So if I can calm that area down, I will think more clearly, feel more secure and not let things get to me. After this first session, I go to London Fashion Week. It's an event that always gives me nightmares (will my tickets turn up, will I get in?) when it should be fun.

This time I was in less of a panic. I turned up at shows with five minutes to spare, not an hour as usual.

In a shop, when an item wasn't in stock, I would normally have flown into a rage, but I didn't.

Amazingly, she can see from the activity I am tired, with low frequencies that can make rational thought, performed in the prefrontal cortex, difficult 

I turn up two weeks later for my second session. Christina tells me I look different: more relaxed, with a more open face. She measures my brain activity. Not much has changed.

'The brain changes every day. You might see it get a bit worse, then a lot better. I can see today you are keeping a lid on your depression, but only just.'

Amazingly, she can see from the activity I am tired, with low frequencies that can make rational thought, performed in the prefrontal cortex, difficult. Basically, this means I over-react and have no sense of proportion.

Christina Lavelle needs two computers to really understand what's going on inside Liz Jones' brain

This time my exercise involves watching flowers, which my brain has to learn to open. I feel tearful.

'Can you tell I was an anorexic or even that I am still an anorexic?' I ask her, something I haven't mentioned until now.

I find it similar to hypnotherapy, which I have tried and found helpful, as it also requires very little talking 

'There are parts of the brain that show addiction, but it won't tell me what that addiction is to,' she says.

The insular cortex, part of the brain reward network, seems to be important to becoming addicted.

'I can see you have a tendency towards Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: you like order, to be in control.'

'Please don't make me untidy,' I plead.

Most people see Christina during their lunch hour, as each session is only 45 minutes. I find it similar to hypnotherapy, which I have tried and found helpful, as it also requires very little talking.

Liz Jones says: 'Most tellingly, Catherine can see the area of the brain that is linked to self- esteem has a score of minus two, meaning I have a low opinion of myself'

In a way, neurofeedback is vastly reassuring: there is a chemical reason for feeling so bad. Christina tells me that it is particularly useful for treating addicts, those with brain injuries, learning disabilities or autism, and for helping those with eating disorders.

I still have bad days. I continue to wake at 3am. But this week I opened an email from my accountant rather than just ignoring it

The great thing about it is you can see it working and you don't dig up bad memories.

After my second session, I drove home to the Yorkshire Dales. During a brief lull in the snow, I walked my rescued racehorse down the lane.

Normally, I transmit my fear to my horse, who snorts and prances. This time, we were relaxed. 'You were breathing differently,' said my assistant, walking behind us. 'Your shoulders were no longer up by your ears.'

I still have bad days. I continue to wake at 3am. But this week I opened an email from my accountant rather than just ignoring it.

The world might still attack me, but having the courage to face my problems can only help.

For more information, visit  brainworksneurotherapy.com;  tel: 020 7193 4373.

 






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