NeurOptimal Study Shows Improvements in Several Key Emotional Areas

Last month I gave a presentation at the Zengar Conference in Palm Springs.  I had conducted a study of 31 of my clients who had 12 or more NeurOptimal sessions.  They were interviewed after each session and at the end of their course of treatment, I asked them to complete a questionnaire to assess changes in six emotional areas. These areas, drawn from Richard Davidson’s book, “The Emotional Life of Your Brain: How Its Unique Patterns Affect the Way You Think, Feel, and Live--and How You Can Change Them”, are defined as follows:

Outlook is how long you're able to sustain positive emotions.

Resilience is how slowly or quickly you recover from adversity.

Social Intuition is how adept you are picking up social signals from others around you.

Self-Awareness is how well you perceive bodily feelings that reflect emotions.

Sensitivity to Context is how good you are at regulating your emotional responses to take into account the context you find yourself in.

Attention is how sharp and clear your focus is.

A NeurOptimal training session lasts 33 minutes and is divided into four segments of different lengths. It starts with increasing SMR (12-15Hz) which is designed to improve sleep, and that is followed by Beta (15-19Hz) which is designed to increase mental clarity and focus.  The third segment is Alpha (8-12Hz), which produces a deep calmness. The final part is Gamma (38-42Hz), which integrates all four lobes of the brain and is designed to increase spiritual awareness. 

The study results showed that 74% (23 of 31) had a positive response to NeurOptimal. The 23 clients who reported progress rated their improvement at 75% or greater in the areas of outlook, resilience, self-awareness, and social intuition. They also reported 50% improvement in attention and social context.  As part of the study I included three additional questions dealing with anxiety, assertiveness and people-pleasing. The same 23 clients reported a 75% reduction in their anxiety, a 50% increase in their assertiveness, and a 50% reduction in their people-pleasing thoughts and behaviors.  

The benefits of this training seem very similar to the outcomes of long-term mediation, with the major advantage of NeurOptimal training over meditation being its relative speed. Rather than taking countless hours over many years to achieve these benefits (as is commonly required with meditation), NeurOptimal has the potential to get people to a calmer and clearer mental state with 10-15 hours of training.

The statements below were excerpted from the client questionnaires where they were asked to provide comments on their improvements in each emotional area.

Outlook

·        I have a greater sense of peace and well-being.

·        I'm in a much better mood.

·        My negative thoughts seem less powerful and further away.

·        I’m more positive about the future.  

·        I don’t have that constant mild depression anymore. 

Resilience

·        When I'm in stressful moments, I can bounce back much faster.

·        I can be in a stressful situation and I'm able to tolerate the anxiety.

·        When conflict comes up I can stay centered and calm. 

·        I can go with the flow much easier. 

·        Before, would let little things bother me a lot. Now, I just find a solution to them and not worry about it. 

Social Intuition

·        I am no longer dazed and dissociated in social interactions. 

Self-Awareness

·        I feel I’m developing another level of consciousness, one that watches my emotions without becoming embroiled in them.

·        Before I was always under stress and didn't recognize it – and now I do.   

·        Something got released that allowed me to see the world around me more clearly and be aware of what's going on.

·        It’s easier to think clearly and to question my negative thoughts and assumptions. 

·        There seems to be more space in between me and my thoughts.

Sensitivity to Context

·        I'm much more social and more relaxed around people.

·        I'm getting rave reviews from my boss. 

Attention

·        I can be highly focused when I need to be.

·        At work, I’m able to remember things easily and multi-task better. 

·        I can read a book for the first time because I can focus. 

·        I can follow through and complete projects now.

Anxiety

·        I have much less fear in general. 

·        I stopped living in fight-or-flight all the time. 

·        I’ve always been a shy person and that began to change. 

·        All my life, I’ve had a monkey mind that made me worry about everything, but now I feel confident that I can handle everything and things can be processed.

Assertiveness

·        I’m speaking up more. 

·        I am more able to say what I think instead of shoving my feelings down. 

·        I can talk to my mother now without getting irritated at her.

·        If I do get mad about something, it boils up to my consciousness much faster and I spontaneously express the anger and am done with it.

People-Pleasing  

·        I'm worrying less about what people think about me.

·        I take things less personally now.

      I have stopped worrying if people are judging me or don’t like me.