Mental Health Performance - Neurofeedback, Brainwaves & The Neuropsychology Of Sport Injury
About the Author
Ben Foodman is a licensed psychotherapist & performance specialist. He owns his private practice located in Charlotte North Carolina where he specializes in working with athletes to help them overcome mental blocks (the yips), PTSD, ADD / ADHD and achieve flow states through the techniques of Brainspotting & Neurofeedback. If you are interested in services, use the link here! Enjoy the article below!
Introduction: Athletes, QEEGs & Neurofeedback
Being explosive, smart and athletic are key traits towards being an elite athlete. But a trait that is rarely acknowledged and yet is just as important is the ability to be available. Another way to interpret this statement is to be essentially injury proof. Every athlete that has competed in sport has experienced some type of injury even if it was an incredibly minor injury. But where high level athletes need to be concerned is if they are sustaining multiple injuries and if the severity of those injuries increases to a more moderate level. Even worse is that while many athletes are consulting with sport psychologists to address these issues, most sport psychologists are not focused on approaches that are based in scientific fundamentals of sport injury and trauma.
Fortunately there is a growing number of professionals that are transitioning towards applying techniques that will help athletes truly address the interconnected nature of the mind and body when it comes to sport injury. These approaches end up being more effective because they are scientifically sound in their approach and will actually be able to deliver in terms of helping athletes both heal and significantly reduce the likelihood of injury or re-injury. For this Training Report I want to discuss one of these applications which is known as Neurofeedback. First I will recap the science of sport injury and then I will discuss how Neurofeedback is one of the most appropriate applications for this topic. With that being said let’s first review the science of sport injury.
Part I. Psychological Implications Of Sport-Related Injury
When athletes need to seek professional help to deal with an injury, the overwhelming majority of the work will be done with either a physical therapist or a doctor. Only in rare instances is a mental health professional incorporated into the situation. There are many reasons for this but one of the main explanations is due to the fact that injury rehabilitation specialists and many psychotherapists do not understand how to operate within the ‘mind-body space’ due to their lack of knowledge about this connection. When healthcare professionals conclude that the ‘physical injury’ has been treated but athletes still complain of pain, this is oftentimes viewed as a ‘psychological issue’ meaning that the pain is perceived as ‘not real’. And if athletes do end up seeing a sport psychologist to help with this issue, most professionals will only apply cognitive behavioral therapy techniques or deep breathing which rarely if ever actually address the issue. So what are these professionals missing that is key to helping athletes actually treat this issue?
The answer lies within the activity of the subcortical brain structures and the interactions occurring throughout the central nervous system and spinal cord. When an athlete experiences an injury, the human brain creates a very specific memory file that is tagged with a body sensation to alert the individual of unprocessed trauma. Even if the physical structures are repaired through physical therapy and medicine, the subcortical brain structures still maintain the memory file and continue to ‘protect’ the individual athlete through pre-emptive measures such as increasing the hyper-awareness of senses around the original area of injury, and also developing movement patterns that are meant to also protect the area of injury. Not only do clinicians need to utilize trauma-informed techniques to deal with these specific issues, but additional approaches such as QEEGs and neurofeedback should be used to identify and alter negative brainwave patterns that were possibly developed as a result of the trauma. But what are these brainwave patterns and how could they affect sport performance movement?
Part II. Brain Mapping & QEEGs
Through extensive research, professionals within the neurofeedback community have been able to identify specific brainwave patterns (aka Frequency Bands) that are typically associated with certain mental states. For example, if excess of slow alpha and a deficit of fast alpha is present in an individual’s QEEG results, this can be an indication of an under-aroused sympathetic nervous system. If slower alpha is the dominant reading, individuals can experience symptoms such as fogginess, decreased focus whereas individuals with faster alpha have sharper levels of focus as the brain is ‘idling’ between tasks.
As previously mentioned, research in the neuroscience of trauma can identify altered brainwave patterns and physical changes in the brain that have occurred as a result of injury. Athletes inevitably will sustain injuries at some point in their career, but when injuries are severe or high in quantity is when we see neurological changes occur that manifest in the form of muscle guarding, apprehension, or freeze responses. This is in part due to the fact that the brain becomes hypersensitive to areas of re-injury and movement patterns associated with those areas of injury. Therefore, the brain tries to avoid repeating those movements through the previously mentioned actions. This is why simply trying to only physically rehabilitate the area of injury is not enough. You have to actually address the central nervous system response with specific interventions, one of which is known as neurofeedback.
Part III. The Benefits Of Neurofeedback
As previously mentioned, we know that the brain can experience physical changes due to environmental circumstances. Some of the adverse changes cannot be repaired simply by ‘talking through’ the issue. Some of the neuroanatomical structures do not ‘communicate’ through traditional psychological interventions. However, one method of ‘communication’ where we are starting to see promising results in is through neurofeedback. I have previously discussed this approach in older Training Reports, but essentially clinicians that are neurofeedback practitioners utilize advanced hardware and software applications to acquire both a live feed of the areas where there is less than ideal brainwave activity, and can signal to the brain using operant conditioning techniques to recognize ideal brainwave activity.
Neurofeedback has actually existed as a treatment intervention for sometime, but initial limitations of technology prevented the technique from becoming more mainstream in mental health treatment. Fortunately through advances in research, we are now able to identify and treat many different issues that we previously had very little understanding of. While it is true that the bulk of the metanalysis in neurofeedback research is focused on ADHD treatment, there is growing consensus amongst clinicians that this technique has sound application to many other areas of focus within mental health treatment. When selecting a clinician, clients should make sure that those professionals are both licensed mental health professionals and are either certified or receiving training through the Biofeedback Certification International Alliance.
Note To Reader:
If you are an athlete reading this segment of the TRAINING REPORT, hopefully this content was helpful! I put the Training Report together because I felt like many of the discussions on issues such as the Yips/mental blocks, strength training & other subject matter on athlete performance concepts were really missing the mark on these ideas (e.g. how trauma is the direct cause of the Yips). If you are interested in learning more, make sure to subscribe below for when I put out new content on issues related to sport psychology & athlete performance! Also, if you are looking to work with a mental performance specialist, you are in the right place! USE THIS LINK to reach out to me to see if my services are the right fit for your goals!
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