How does a person with insomnia improve when treated with Neurofeedback?

In the field of mental health, the brain is the structure of the human body to which researchers around the world have devoted the most time and effort for several decades, creating various methods for monitoring brain functions in real time.

Thanks to the knowledge about the brain that we have achieved through the combination of scientific and technological development, today there are resources such as neurofeedback, very valuable in the treatment of various alterations. In this article, specifically, we will focus on explaining how neurofeedback is used in the treatment of insomnia .

What is neurofeedback?

Neurofeedback, or neurofeedback technique, is a form of psychotherapeutic intervention that links psychology and neuropsychology, since it is based on keeping the patient informed in real time about the patterns of nerve activation in their brain.

Neurofeedback uses the electrical impulses emitted by brain neurons during their connections or synapses and transcribes them into a clear image of that brain activity , at the moment it occurs.

In this way, these electromagnetic impulses emitted by the neurons can be monitored, measured and observed by the patient who becomes aware of the logics that operate behind these brain activation patterns.

How does neurofeedback work?

As indicated, through the use of neuroimaging we can identify what type of electrical signal corresponds to each psychological state , that is, to altered states such as anxious or stressed, or calm, for example.

These brain impulses are measured by placing electrodes on the person's scalp and clips on each earlobe, which will function as a neutral reference to measure brain activity. It is, therefore, a painless and non-invasive procedure .

When starting the neurofeedback session, the person receives a series of visual or auditory content such as certain music, a sound, a movie or a video game that is interrupted every time the person presents an abnormally intense or variable electrical activity.

This interruption informs the person of the negative patterns that their brain is having and forces them to modify them for more positive or adaptive ones, which is known as neural feedback.

In this way, the brain is trained to change its maladaptive responses each time a high variation in the electromagnetic impulses of its internal activity is experienced.

This training, in the long run, will allow the person to manage to modify their brain activity by themselves and without the need to resort to neurofeedback again, since these brain correction processes will have become automatic.

The use of neurofeedback in the treatment of insomnia

The main uses for which the neurofeedback technique was created were classic psychological disorders, that is: cases of anxiety, depression, stress, insomnia, autism, hyperactivity, ADHD or chronic pain .

However, there are currently many other uses and benefits of neurofeedback to improve any type of skills and abilities in a wide variety of professions or diverse human activities. In the case of insomnia, neurofeedback is used on the premise that problems such as the inability to fall asleep when going to bed are due, at least in part, to thought patterns that lead to self- sabotage , and more specifically, to keeping stress or anxiety at high levels (when just the opposite should happen to enter a state of deep relaxation that precedes sleep).

In this way, neurofeedback offers a context in which the person trains himself to detect in time the dynamics of thought management that fuel stress , so that he interrupts them when they occur and can redirect his attention to other mental processes. more compatible with relaxation, before falling into psychological rumination (the vicious circle of intrusive thoughts that keep us on edge).

Thus, the possibility of the patient ending up in a vicious cycle of anxiety and stress that causes insomnia is prevented. The objective is that, spontaneously and almost without realizing it, the person quickly detects the routes of thought that will not do him any good when going to sleep , so that in this way he does not contribute to expanding and intensifying those ideas, mental images, catastrophic predictions, etc.