Brain-Time™ Training
BrainTime™ Training is a surprisingly simple and delightfully profound approach for improving mental and physical health. It has helped people suffering from a wide variety of conditions including:
- Learning and attention challenges
- Confusion and poor memory following brain injuries
- Balance problems
- Visual disturbances
- Parkinson disease and other movement disorders
- Chronic pain
- Allergies, digestive disturbances and more
The wide variety of benefits from BrainTime™ Training result from improved brain function. You can read stories of people who have used BrainTime™ Training for a variety of conditions on my web site.
BrainTime™ Training uses precisely timed pairs of sounds, some faster and others slower. Different rates of stimulation affect different areas of the brain, and the rates of stimulation are prescribed based on your particular needs. You will hear a different set of sounds in your right and left ears. This asymmetrical stimulation helps the two sides of your brain to work independently and to share information effectively. This reduces the tendency for one side of the brain to ignore, distract or dominate the other side, and it improves overall brain function. See the footnote ‘How it Works’ for a more complete explanation.
The two sides of your brain have different but complementary functions. For example, the left side of your brain understands the verbal aspect of language, and the right side understands body language and the tonal aspect of language. The left side favors approach behavior, and the right side favors withdrawal. The left side stimulates the immune system, and the right side calms it down.
BrainTime™ Training uses simultaneous presentation of different sets of sounds in your right and left ears to help the two sides your brain both work independently and share information efficiently. BrainTime™ Training sessions are five minutes long, and are practiced twice a day.
Do the five-minute BrainTime™ sessions twice a day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon or evening. It is OK to take a break on the weekends. Sit quietly and pay relaxed attention to the sounds that you hear in the headphones. Adjust the volume so that it is the lowest volume you can still hear. BrainTime ™ Training is designed to be comfortable and enjoyable. If at any time you experience strain or discomfort, discontinue the training sessions until I see you again, or contact me for further instructions.
BrainTime™ Training depends upon proper right-left orientation of the headphones or ear-buds. Most headphones are labeled left and right but some are mislabeled. Please test the alignment of your headphones with a recording that delineates right and left. (I will provide this for you.)
Footnote: How it works
Precise timing is the foundation for efficient brain function. Each nerve cell in your brain turns on and off many times a second, or in more technical terms; its membrane potential oscillates between conditions of more and less depolarization. Some cells oscillate slowly and others oscillate quickly. Nerve cells with different rates of oscillation have different tasks in the brain and the rate of oscillation varies from less than one oscillation per second to several hundred oscillations per second. In a general way, primitive parts of the brain oscillate slowly and new areas oscillate quickly, and the right side of the brain favors a different set of oscillation rates than the left side of the brain.
When nerve cells send messages to each other, they synchronize their timing so that messages arrive when the receiving cell is most receptive. The brain uses timing mechanisms to ensure that the nerve cells come in and out of synchrony smoothly; much like the conductor of an orchestra helps coordinate the orchestra members. Injuries, stress and illness all impair the brain’s ability to coordinate the timing of nerve cell oscillations. As a result one area of the brain might function poorly, or it might impose its rhythm on another area that should be functioning independently.
James Otis DC, DACNB
Diplomate, American Chiropractic Neurology Board
Fellow, American Academy of Functional Neurology
510-832-6848
www.jimotisdc.com
