What is Anxiety disorder?
Fear is a valuable response for human survival. It serves like an innate guard that can detect potentially life-threatening situations in split-seconds and prepare humans for the so called fight-or-flight response.
While fear is an automatic response to threat, anxiety is more subtle and generally involves imagining and worrying about possible future events. It is a milder form of fear and a disproportional reaction to generally ‘harmless’ situations. Each person responses individually to anxiety-eliciting situations, however, the physical and psychological symptoms can be similar to experiencing real life threatening situations.
Commonly known symptoms of anxiety can include sweaty palms, blushing, stomach distress, increased heart rate, dry mouth, short breath etc. Anxiety disorder can be extremely uncomfortable and therefore those concerned often try to escape anxiety-provoking situations. This however is counterproductive and leads to shrinking of life experience while anxiety remains.

How can Neurofeedback help with anxiety?
Neurofeedback is a scientifically accepted method in addressing anxiety. It leans on the basis the certain mental and physical conditions are associated with specific brain wave frequencies. Neurofeedback can measure such brain wave patterns in real time and with the therapist’s supervision the brain can be stimulated to create more advantageous brain wave patterns. In short, this means that Neurofeedback does not directly work on diminishing anxiety symptoms but it operates directly on the causes which as a result lead to diminishment of symptoms.

What happens in a Neurofeedback session?
Neurofeedback is a very simple procedure that can be accomplished by anyone, from school age to senior and no computer literacy is required. The client is connected to a computer through electrodes which monitor brain wave frequencies. While the practitioner adjusts the computer program to stimulate the desired frequencies accordingly, the client is equipped with an own computer screen, receiving positive feedback – e.g. in form of a computer animation or sound – when the brainwave patterns are advantageous. Because the brain is extremely plastic and operates on the basis ‘use it or lose it’, it learns already after a few sessions how to bring itself into a balanced state.

How many sessions will I need?
It is not easy to answer this question as everyone’s case as well as their learning progress differs. However, from our year-long experience we can say that on an average fifteen to twenty succeeding Neurofeedback sessions are advisable for anxiety.

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