At a training session, sensors are placed on your head. The sensors pick up information on your brain’s activity at very specific locations. (No electricity enters your brain. The sensors merely read information from the brain and relay it to the Practitioner’s computer.)
You then sit back in a comfortable chair as you watch a computer monitor that displays a computer game, a movie, a bar graph, or simply colors that change as your brainwaves change. The Practitioner monitors your brainwaves and sets training parameters which are based upon information obtained during your comprehensive intake process.
The most common method of receiving feedback is via a dimmer on the monitor display while you watch a movie or a Netflix show. When your brain produces favorable brainwaves, musical tones will sound and the screen will become brighter. On the other hand, when your brain produces brainwave patterns that are unfavorable, the monitor will become dimmer.
This process gives your brain instantaneous feedback about its performance during the training session. On a subconscious level it begins to learn what it needs to do to make your computer screen bright. It then begins to produce more of the helpful type of brainwave patterns and less of those that are correlated with the symptoms you wish to address. With practice, your brain adapts new patterns. Desirable neuronal pathways are strengthened and new pathways may be created.
As your brain learns what it needs to do to make your computer screen active, the Practitioner gradually makes the goals a bit more difficult in order to challenge your brain to do even “better.” This is analogous to weight training workouts: as your muscles become accustomed to one weight, a little more is added until over time you build new muscle. With neurofeedback training, gradually your brain learns how to work at a more optimal level.