When I heard about Two Minds Training (205–1118 Homer St.), a neurotraining brain clinic offering neurofeedback sessions that claimed to improve mental focus, memory, productivity and, well, inner peace, I was all ears. Or, rather, I was ready to face that giant organ in between my ears.
At the clinic, “non-invasive” sensors were placed around my head that seemed to be monitoring my brainwaves; that data was then fed through software that creates a visual map of information.
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I started to feel a little like Arnold Schwarzenegger in Total Recall just before he was about to have memories of a wonderful vacation implanted into his brain (and though the sci-fi film is meant to be a cautionary tale, I thought, That might not be so bad).
Strapping on a set of headphones playing calming nature sounds, I closed my eyes and settled into the chair for a 45-minute session with the NeurOptimal machine. The thing is, the music kept skipping.
But, according to co-owner Heather Wheaton, that’s exactly how you know the modality is working: the NeurOptimal software translates data from your brain activity into sound, so when blips and skips occur in the soundtrack, it’s telling your mind that it’s gone off on another tangent, essentially steering you back to balance.
By “training” your brain to recognize the activity that “undermines optimal brain function,” the experience aims to calm the central nervous system.
While I’m not sure that my anxiety was entirely healed by listening to a skipping nature soundtrack, I left the office having learned something new, and that itself is in the pursuit of happiness, is it not?
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