NEUROPTIMAL®
NEUROFEEDBACK
Why Brain Training?
NeurOptimal® is an advanced neurotechnology designed to train the brain to function at peak performance levels. This innovative form of neurofeedback is not a medical treatment, but rather a training for the brain.
It doesn’t matter what your starting point is — EVERY brain can benefit and tap into its own unique optimal state.
REASONS WHY
NeurOptimal® believes YOU should be the one in control - NeurOptimal® is a brain training tool, not a treatment, medication, app, game, gadget, or fad. Ready to take off on a personal journey that makes you the driver of your own destiny? Now, you can decide what is best for your body & brain and travel to better health and performance! No analysis or third-party diagnosis is needed.
NeurOptimal® is non-invasive - There is nothing that is done to you, no electricity, no pushing, no inhibiting. Your brain activity is simply mirrored back to you via auditory feedback and your brain chooses what to do with it. The brain naturally knows how to move away from discomfort, so just providing a little information helps it know what direction to go.
NeurOptimal® is safe - Unlike other neurofeedback systems, NeurOptimal® never uses electricity (not even microcurrents) to check the connection. Our Sessions will be totally different every single time you do a Session. They are always unique, and 100% safe for all ages.
Our central nervous system responds to differences in the body - When something is not working right it is because the CNS noticed a difference in how it is supposed to respond. NeurOptimal® is acting like your CNS in that way. It mirrors the differences and the brain responds just as if the CNS had naturally detected it.
QUESTIONS?
WHAT IS NEUROPTIMAL® FOR? - NeurOptimal® offers information to the brain about what it has just done, which the brain can then use to organize itself. But how does it do that? During a NeurOptimal® session you will wear ear clips and two small sensors on the sides of your head. These pick up the delicate electrical activity of your brain. You relax and close your eyes and listen to music or watch a movie. NeurOptimal® processes your brain signals very rapidly and when it detects them moving into an “instability”, the music or movie pauses very briefly. That’s it. That’s all that happens. This is the “feedback”. Consciously of course, this has no meaning for us — in fact we may not even notice them. But unconsciously our brain understands the mathematics behind the timing of the pauses, which act a bit like a “rumble strip”. The brain adjusts its activity without any effort from you (you can be completely zoned out if you want), to stay “within” the rumble strip. The brain does this on its own — NeurOptimal® doesn’t tell it to. Imagine you are walking along a path on a cliff side, in the dark. You’d probably be floundering. But then a flashlight is shone showing the cliff edge. The flashlight doesn’t tell you what to do, but now you can use the extra information you have (the location of the cliff edge) to walk more certainly along your path. The brain learns from the information it is given until over time and without your conscious awareness or effort, it learns to organize itself more efficiently. And this manifests in your life by blocks dropping away and life just seems easier. NeurOptimal® is simple. But its simplicity belies its power. It’s powerful because it communicates directly with your brain, and there is nothing to interfere with that. There is no outside person having to evaluate or diagnose you, and no outside person deciding what training you need. It’s your brain effectively communicating with itself and making its own changes. Period. Think about that! Your brain really does know best.
WHO CAN BENEFIT FROM NEUROPTIMAL®? - We are often asked: “Who can benefit from using NeurOptimal®?” Our answer: “Anyone with a Brain.” This is because there are no criteria to determine whether you can use NeurOptimal® or not. It is used on toddlers to our oldest citizens, by the sick and the well, by those not functioning at their best to those who excel at what they do. There are no circumstances that preclude its use, and there is nothing to ever change when you do use it. There is no expertise required — just hit Go and you’re off. Every time you use NeurOptimal® your brain receives information about what it has just done, micro-second by microsecond. It works with you wherever you are in that instant. So there is never any evaluation to do ahead of time, no decisions to make and no settings to change. You don’t have to worry about doing anything wrong, and neither can you over train. If your brain gets tired it just ignores the information, just as you might ignore a television that is on in the background. Safe, and effective. Anybody. Anywhere. Anytime.
HOW DOES NEUROPTIMAL® WORK? - NeurOptimal® offers information to the brain about what it has just done, which the brain can then use to organize itself. But how does it do that? During a NeurOptimal® session you will wear ear clips and two small sensors on the sides of your head. These pick up the delicate electrical activity of your brain. You relax and close your eyes and listen to music or watch a movie. NeurOptimal® processes your brain signals very rapidly and when it detects them moving into an “instability”, the music or movie pauses very briefly. That’s it. That’s all that happens. This is the “feedback”. Consciously of course, this has no meaning for us — in fact we may not even notice them. But unconsciously our brain understands the mathematics behind the timing of the pauses, which act a bit like a “rumble strip”. The brain adjusts its activity without any effort from you (you can be completely zoned out if you want), to stay “within” the rumble strip. The brain does this on its own — NeurOptimal® doesn’t tell it to. Imagine you are walking along a path on a cliff side, in the dark. You’d probably be floundering. But then a flashlight is shone showing the cliff edge. The flashlight doesn’t tell you what to do, but now you can use the extra information you have (the location of the cliff edge) to walk more certainly along your path. The brain learns from the information it is given until over time and without your conscious awareness or effort, it learns to organize itself more efficiently. And this manifests in your life by blocks dropping away and life just seems easier. NeurOptimal® is simple. But its simplicity belies its power. It’s powerful because it communicates directly with your brain, and there is nothing to interfere with that. There is no outside person having to evaluate or diagnose you, and no outside person deciding what training you need. It’s your brain effectively communicating with itself and making its own changes. Period.
DO THE RESULTS LAST? - Doing NeurOptimal® sessions is a bit like learning to read — minus the hard work! Once you know how to read, you can’t not know. So yes, it lasts. But if you don’t read for a very long time, you might get a little rusty. Then once you jump back in, you quickly catch up and you’re off! NeurOptimal® is very like that. Once you have done say 20 Sessions, we like to say “you have it in your back pocket”. But if you get thrown off by something happening in your life, a session or two or three can get you right back. You can also stop training any time you want, and pick back up again later. It’s really up to you. Alternatively, those of us who own NeurOptimal® frequently consider it part of our own self-care, much like exercise. We are living tissue after all, and daily life stressors and pollution all take their toll. You might want to run yourself weekly or monthly to stay tuned — it’s really up to you. It’s your brain doing the training after all. It will let you know when it wants a session! At Zengar, we have found ways to easily keep it in our lives. We will often run a session while we are working. As long as we are not moving wildly (such as running on a treadmill) it’s fine because NeurOptimal® automatically ignores the noisy signal that prevents other systems from working. And our children will often do a session while doing their homework or playing a quiet game. So yes, the benefits of NeurOptimal® remain with you, and when life throws you an unexpected curve a few Sessions can quickly help you find your way home.
IS NEUROPTIMAL® SAFE? - There are many reasons why NeurOptimal® is so safe. When you are listening to NeurOptimal® you will hear brief micro-pauses in the sound. Once you settle in to a session, you might hardly even notice them. If listening to pauses in music were risky, our founder Dr. Val Brown jokes that you would have to hold the record companies liable for damages from old scratchy records! Certainly playing records in their hey-day did not seem to adversely affect millions of music lovers. There is another reason though, that NeurOptimal® is so safe. Unlike other systems, NeurOptimal® does not train states of consciousness. Indeed, it does not do anything to influence any outcome. Instead it is up to your brain to use the mathematical information it receives, or not — as it will. For this reason NeurOptimal® is an extraordinarily safe tool for self-optimization. In fact, history of its use world-wide as revealed in two extensive surveys of our users indicate that we have now well over three million hours of safe usage under all our belts. And that number is growing exponentially. Consider joining us. NeurOptimal® can help unleash your personal, social, spiritual, physical performance or academic potential. There’s little to lose and possibly much to gain!
MORE FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS - You say one of the reasons NeurOptimal® is so safe is that it doesn’t influence any outcome. What does this mean? Other neurofeedback systems have goals or outcomes they seek, usually determined in collaboration with the practitioner who is operating the equipment. To meet these goals the software will present you with tasks that you try to accomplish and when you get them right you get “points” in some way. Under the hood, the software is telling your brain to produce more of some frequencies and less of others — these are called augments and suppresses. The idea is that your brain can be pushed into learning to be more like a “normal” (or average) brain. NeurOptimal® does not work in this way at all. NeurOptimal® does not view your brain as sick or well — in fact, that is irrelevant to NeurOptimal® which is a training not a treatment. There are no pre-determined goals (such as getting well), and hence no augments or suppresses. In fact, there is no instruction given to your brain at all. It can do whatever it wants! The idea is to hold up that mirror (NeurOptimal®) and let your brain take it from there. You say the brain is doing the work, not NeurOptimal®. Could a brain be too disturbed or damaged to benefit from NeurOptimal®? At this point we have had a lot of experience with all kinds of brains, as you can imagine. We have yet to see a brain that cannot learn from NeurOptimal®. It does seem that every brain has within it an innate capacity to learn and hence potentially to benefit from training with NeurOptimal®. Luckily it wouldn’t take you long to find out. We say within six sessions you should know if it is helping, and often it can be quicker than that. You say many different types of people can work with NeurOptimal® for many different reasons and purposes. How can one program do that, especially when there are no settings to change? How can “one size fit all”? An excellent question! It sounds almost too good to be true, doesn’t it! The answer is actually quite simple. Let’s go back to the analogy of the mirror. No matter who looks into it, the mirror can always be exactly the same mirror. But every image is going to be different, and even the image of one person is going to be subtly changing, never the same one minute (or second) to the next. NeurOptimal® is like that mirror, giving information micro-second by micro-second. Not only will two people never have the same session, no person will ever have the same session twice! It’s impossible because as the brain shifts in response to the information it is getting, the image being reflected back also changes. It’s a unique dance between the person and their own brain, or, described another way, of the brain dynamically dancing with itself. So no, NeurOptimal® can never be described as a “one size fits all”.