Brain-Training for Anxiety
Anxiety is more than just feeling stressed or worried. It is a serious condition, characterised by persistent excessive worry, that makes it hard for a person to cope with, and take pleasure from, daily life. We all feel anxious from time to time, but for a person with anxiety these feelings cannot be easily controlled.
Anxiety can affect people of all ages, with approximately 14% of all adults suffering from some type of anxiety disorder. Anxiety can affect children too, and research suggests that about 8% of children suffer from anxiety, with symptoms starting as early as 6 years of age. We do not always know what causes anxiety, however some research shows that people with anxiety may have abnormal activity in specific regions of the brain.
November marks Perinatal Anxiety & Depression Australia (PANDA) Week. PANDA, now in it’s 18th year, is all about supporting the mental and emotional wellbeing of expecting and new parents.
November marks Perinatal Anxiety & Depression Australia (PANDA) Week. PANDA, now in it’s 18th year, is all about supporting the mental and emotional wellbeing of expecting and new parents.
Screens can really upset our sleep, and disrupt other hormones including oestrogen, and there is absolutely no place for them in the bedroom. The next time your teens are pleading with you, desperately searching for the reason why you are turning off devices and locking them away in cupboards, get them to watch this 4 minute clip from SciShow
Dementia Awareness Month is Dementia Australia’s national awareness-raising campaign held every year throughout September.
Its aim is to encourage all Australians to become more aware of dementia, to get a better understanding of what it is like to live with dementia and how we can support people living with dementia.
This year’s theme is Small actions Big difference.
There are many small actions people can take to create a big difference for people impacted by dementia, their families and carers.
There are many ways to get involved in Dementia Awareness Month.
Earlier this month was OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) and Anxiety Awareness week in Victoria. However, with nearly 240,000 people in Western Australia experiencing anxiety this year it seems really important to talk about anxiety disorders here as well.
The best way to learn about someone is to take the time to listen to their story, the best way to understand someone is to step into their shoes. It is important for all of us to feel understood, this way we break down barriers and we find solutions. August brings a time to build our awareness of anxiety disorders, so, first, we went looking for real people’s descriptions of what anxiety feels like:
In one article from The Independent a woman explained the constant feeling of being anxious ‘as if she tripped and the moment where you don't know if you are going to catch yourself or not is how she felt all day long', and someone else describes ‘[It’s like] when you tap your pocket to get your wallet, and it is not there (and like the woman above said), it’s like that all the time.’
For some, particularly those living right now with a chronic pain experience, this may be a painful question to read…it may be one that has been posed by a health professional sitting across a desk in front of you…it may have felt, and still feel, unfathomable that they could have said that to you…they may not have known the truth in their statement, but we are going to explain it to you now. We feel pretty confident you will feel better informed, and hopefully, even a bit better after you have thought about it…
I have just returned from The 2018 International Neurorehabilitation Conference in Boston run by Harvard Medical School. I was one of hundreds of delegates from all over the world attending to get the latest updates on cutting-edge treatments to help people with brain problems. We had experts presenting on a large range of topics ranging from neuroplasticity to proven and state-of-the-art brain therapies.
Treatment can help people manage, reduce and even eliminate the symptoms of anxiety. Some treatments can be provided by a GP, or they may give a referral to a psychiatrist, psychologist or other suitably-trained healthcare professional. The Perth Brain Centre focuses on providing Neurofeedback Therapy, which was featured in Dr. Norman Doidge’s book “The Brain’s Way of Healing”, the sequel to his international best-selling book “The Brain That Changes Itself”, as an effective treatment for anxiety.
Neurofeedback is a brain-based treatment that uses a sophisticated brain-computer interface to “strengthen” or retrain the brain. The Perth Brain Centre uses special brain scans, called QEEG, to pin-point the “problem” areas of the brain. In many cases of anxiety there is too much fast brain activity in regions of the brain involved with stress and emotion. Neurofeedback can reduce the symptoms of anxiety by “strengthening” or retraining this “weak” part of the brain by normalising brainwave activity.
Neurofeedback is suitable for people of almost all ages. Patients sit comfortably whilst sensors precisely detect and measure brainwave activity. This information is analysed in real-time and presented as audio and visual feedback which is used to “strengthen” and retrain the brain. Changing the brain takes time but people can notice improvements within a few sessions.
