The Science of NeurOptimal

SCIENCE OF NEUROPTIMAL

NeurOptimal® is quite simple actually. Because your brain’s function is to ask constantly, “what is different about this moment”, and at the same time to minimize energy expenditure to sustainable levels (this has to do with adapting to life’s constant changes or simply said, survival) we can train your brain to recognize that your brain is producing its own perturbation or turbulence, or simply said, dysfunctional states. And the reason this approach has such good results is when your Central Nervous System is healthy then all parts of the system - your digestive, cardio-vascular, immune and endocrine systems (glands and hormones that are the basis of all moods, thoughts and physical sensations) is in sync. So an improved functioning CNS means a better functioning you.

When the brain recognizes that it is producing an event that causes you to suffer, for instance, when you are lacking focus, feeling depressed, feeling stressed or anxious, or simply lacking motivation, that event is actually being produced in your brain in the present moment; of course these become "bad habits" based on actions and responses that began long ago during moments of trauma or overwhelming stress.

Because NeurOptimal® monitors your brainwave activity moment to moment (some 256 samples per second where we pick up 96% of the energy usage throughout the entire CNS), and being that your brainwaves produce all your feelings, emotions, and thoughts, the NeurOptimal® system knows a few seconds before you are even aware that these turbulent events are about to occur.

NeurOptimal® gives your brain that feedback about what it just did in your brain’s language of audio and your brain must respond immediately to this cue by stopping the turbulent event it is about to produce and return to the present moment

With NeurOptimal® the brain is simply interacting adaptively with itself moment by moment, not striving to produce "more" of some frequency and "less" of another according to an outside “expert”. While those kinds of changes may be observed, they occur as part of an intrinsic self-organizing principle rather than an artificially imposed constraint. This is to a large part of both the inherent power and safety of NeurOptimal® and how it invites very seamless change.

The unique dynamical targeting of NeurOptimal® helps to naturally release the places where you are “stuck” by providing information to the brain across a very wide range of frequencies (0.01 to 42 Hz). Many of these frequency bandwidths Zengar has itself "discovered," described and developed over a period of years and tens of thousands of client hours. Other systems train with a very small “toolbox” of frequencies, creating states which, if over trained, can create major instabilities and side effects. NeurOptimal® targets sixteen different sets of frequencies across the right and left brain, each target naturally balancing off the effects of others. This means you will not “over-train”, nor create unwanted states and — instead of just getting a limited possible “cure” for a problem — you get everything. So whether you come in with issues you want to address, improvements you’d like to make, personal growth or peak performance—you get it all.

This dynamic perspective is extremely different from the other, traditional neurofeedback systems. These systems require you to be diagnosed ahead, sometimes via what is called a QEEG or brain map, which is a decision on which direction the practitioner feels the brain needs to be pushed as a result of a single static picture taken days or weeks earlier. These are called protocols. Diagnosing and then treating in this way is actually a VERY awkward and slow feedback loop from NeurOptimal®’s perspective that does not offer the on-going “self-correction” that naturally happens as part of the brain’s dance with itself.

During a session, the client listens to music. The music plays continuously when the brain is running “on course” (whatever that course is for that particular brain) but as soon as NeurOptimal® detects that the brain has “veered off” its path or has become less stable than what it just was, feedback is provided to the brain via a very brief pause in the sound. By offering this information NeurOptimal® gives the opportunity to the brain to adapt itself in response to the information, which then provides yet new and different information for NeurOptimal® to mirror back. Like a dance, NeurOptimal® and the brain adapt to each other microsecond by microsecond, dynamically adjusting their steps based on what the other has just done.