Marvin Sams

What does it take to perform at the top??

There are big differences in the brain power between peak and elite performers and those suffering from attention, focus, memory, mood, learning, and low creativity problems. The high performer’s brain has both specific and diverse resources available at its beck and call, it manages its energy efficiently, there is flexibility in shift gears to move from task to task, and communication networks are well-organized and connecting and disconnecting efficiently. Those with attention, mood, and memory problems, on the other hand, have a brain that is over or under firing certain nerve cells, energy that spins out of control or is locked into a redundant loop or pattern, or communication networks are too densely connected or inadequately coupled. The good news – make that great news – is brain performance problems can be discovered and the brain coached to function at much more efficient levels. And, it can happen very quickly.

A personal trainer starts by evaluating your current physical status: Your strength, cardiovascular condition, dexterity, stamina, etc., then comes up with a plan that lays out what can be accomplished with the right commitment and equipment. A Neurotherapist does much the same. The evaluation begins with a series of questionnaires to evaluate mental fitness, then moves on to an Auditory and Visual Continuous Performance Test (CPT) to evaluate you and your brain’s ability to respond and attend to environmental demands, and a Quantitative EEG (computerized Brain Wave Analysis) to reveal your brain strengths and weaknesses. Problems found are then remediated with NeuroMatrix Neural Efficiency Training™, a process that provides the resources your brain needs to correct its short comings.

Frequencies – Cycling to the top

Your brain does much of its work by managing a highly complex and variable mixture of frequencies (being produced by nerve cell firings). If the brain over or under produces a frequency inappropriate to the task at hand, performance or mood will suffer. If, for example, slow, lazy Delta waves over power fast, working frequencies, performance (focus, attention, and learning) problems will result.

To help break down this complexity, the continuum of frequencies is divided into groups of energy called frequency bands. From the slowest to the fastest:

Delta waves

Delta waves are the brain's slowest frequencies, measuring only 1/2 to 4 waves in a one second period. Our brain increases the amplitude of the slow Delta waves to decrease our awareness of the physical world. For example, Delta waves increase as we go into sleep. To go deeper, our brain makes our Delta waves even larger and stronger while turning down certain faster frequencies.

Peak performers tend to decrease Delta waves when high focus and peak performance are required; most diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder increase Delta activity when attempting to focus. The inappropriate Delta response dampens and often severely restricts the ability to focus and maintain attention in the physical world. This can be thought of as the brain being perpetually under aroused and the person walking around “half asleep.”

Theta

At 4-8 cycles per second, Theta waves are faster than Delta waves but are still considered slow wave activity. As we get drowsy, the brain starts to increase Theta waves and we get a “drifty” feeling.

The highly efficient brain uses Theta waves for spatial navigation and some memory functions. However, excessive Theta is common in those with ADD/ADHD, especially in the frontal lobes, and is thought to represent a “drowsy” brain.

Frontal mid Theta

Many that can focus easily on complex tasks produce Frontal mid Theta, a rhythmic 6.2 cycles per second activity in the middle of their brain's frontal lobes. These “peak attenders” also have a tendency toward a good mood (are optimistic), see the world as it is (low neuroticism), and have a calm focus.

Alpha Waves

Our brain uses Alpha waves (8-12 cycles per second) to idle and rest performance areas. For example, when we close our eyes, Alpha waves typically come up in the now non-working visual centers in the back of the head (occipital lobes).

For best performance, Alpha waves should be responsive and decrease under task. Problem Alpha includes Alpha waves in the back of the head when the eyes are open; Frontal lobe Alpha is seen in some with attention issues; focal Alpha is always a problem because it means a performance center is “idling out” and compromised.

13Hz

Your brain uses 13Hz (Hz is an abbreviation for hertz, an engineering term for cycles per second), a 12-14 cycles per second frequency group, for sequential processing. It is the brain's most important frequency to learn and use information taught in the class room and on the job.

The brain produces 13Hz for "active" intelligence: Those with learning disabilities and attention problems may have a relative deficiency of 13Hz activity in certain brain areas.

Beta

The ability to easily perform tasks requiring sequencing, math calculations, for example, depends on how well your brain produces and implements 14-26 cycles per second Beta activity.

People with depression may show increased Beta activity; learning disabilities and traumatic brain injury may have either a Beta deficiency or excess.

40Hz/Gamma

Forty Hz (36-50 cycles per second activity) and Gamma (50-120 Hz) are the only frequency groups found in every part of the brain. When the brain needs to simultaneously process information in several different areas at the same time, it uses 40Hz activity to bind or consolidate the required areas (simultaneous processing).

A good memory is associated with well regulated and efficient 40Hz activity; a 40Hz deficiency creates learning disabilities.

Relationships – Connecting with teammates

Coherence

Our brain does much of its work by talking to itself – by rapidly connecting, disconnecting, and reconnecting to its many specialized areas. Coherence is the EEG efficiency measure of this self-communication.

Your brain’s Coherence is measured and compared to a Reference Database of brain waves from normal people. Excessively strong Coherence is a sign your brain's ability to process some types of information is restricted – certain specialized performance areas have become energetically "fused" and locked together. Weak Coherence means communication between brain areas is restricted so performance suffers.

Coherence problems are common in those with traumatic brain injury. Learning disabilities, mental problems, fuzzy thinking and confusion can result, and physical symptoms such as dizziness and headaches are common.

Phase Delay

The brain’s electrical signals ripple across the surface as waves of energy. Phase Delay is the electrical measurement of how fast these signals are moving compared to normal subjects.

If electrical signals are too quick, brain wave signals arrive too early for the brain to use the information. If “lazy” and slow moving, the information arrives too late.

Inappropriate timing of the brain waves creates performance difficulties. Signals arriving too quickly or slowly can be responsible for learning difficulties, and can account, at least in part, for symptoms following traumatic brain injury and stroke.

The High Functioning Brain

Focus and Attention training...Sticking to the point

The ability to focus, pay attention, and be mentally flexible is reflected in our brain wave patterning. Those performing at the top have low amplitude, highly variable brain waves that are responsive to the environment and task at hand. For the tens of millions less fortunate, over abundant slow waves and deficient fast wave activity cause attention to internalize, making intentional focus and decisions difficult and daydreaming likely. Others have poorly controlled high amplitude, rhythmic Alpha waves in one or more prime performance centers that prevent active participation in the task at hand. (The brain uses Alpha waves to idle and rest non-working areas.) In either case, it is maverick brain waves that prohibit or restrict the ability to focus and pay attention in the classroom and work place.

While ADD is a serious, life-limiting issue with its compromised ability to pay and maintain attention, the symptoms are often a matter of degree – we all have limits to our ability to focus and pay attention that varies on a hour-to-hour, day-to-day basis. We may, for example, feel a mild but unrelenting fatigue with "brain fog," or we may feel irritated, tense and anxious with scattered and racing thoughts. What’s behind these compromised feelings? If our attention repeatedly flags or our ability to change tasks is negatively affected, it may be because our brain is "stealing" physical and mental energy to do its job; we become exhausted by the end of the day. Our key to high efficiency with adequate physical and mental reserves is a brain that has the resources it needs to do its job.

Whether it is the severe attention problem commonly called Attention Deficit Disorder, the fuzzy thinking of fatigue from a brain chronically challenged beyond its resources, or the competitive situation demanding crystal clear focus and absorption in the process that just doesn’t come, the Quantitative EEG identifies the inappropriate brain wave patterning. NeuroMatrix Neural Efficiency Training™ then assists your brain in remediating the inefficiencies and lifting its abilities to meet performance demands.

Memory training...Remember the past, create your future

Remembering something as simple as where you left your car keys requires a lot of brain power. Our moment-to-moment experiences are processed in different parts of the brain, and then sent to the hippocampus, a structure located deep within our brain's interior. After residing there for a few minutes to several hours, the brain parcels out the memory's elements to many different areas of the cortex (our brains' thin nerve cell-packed outer layer). To recall the information, our brain must momentarily connect the cortical storage areas in a very rapid and precise way.

To give an example of the complexity, the memory of a field of sunflowers blowing in the breeze on a bright sunny day may be located in as many as 32 different brain areas. The variety of colors with their subtle shades, the vertical, horizontal, diagonal, and circular lines of the flower blossoms, and the textured components of the flowers' centers are all stored in different locations. To make it even more complex, the movement of the blossoms, the vertical and curved lines of the stalks and leaves, the vastness of the sky, and the white puffiness of the clouds must be brought into the mix to get the complete picture.

To "reconstruct" a memory, then, our brain must link all related storage areas simultaneously. Research shows our brain uses 40Hz, a 36 - 50 cycles per second fast frequency activity, to link these areas.

Those with inadequate 40Hz brain activity are not able to learn at the same pace as their peers; for some, 40Hz deficiency is the biological origin of their learning disability.

To assure the rapid, accurate processing of information coming in from our world and for a high performance memory, 40Hz enhancement training is routinely done for all trainees at The Sams Center.

Communication...You and your brain’s key to success

It is popularly known that the left hemisphere of the human brain is more analytic, sequential, and language oriented than the right, with the right side's nature being more non-linear, creative, and intuitive. Less well known and appreciated is our brain’s necessity to rapidly connect and disconnect its many specialized areas to communicate with itself. When healthy brain areas communicate with damaged areas, it receives bad data with which to do its job. Performance suffers, sometimes badly.

Your brain does much of its work by communicating with itself -- by rapidly connecting, disconnecting, and then reconnecting its many specialized areas. Coherence is the EEG efficiency measure of this self-communication.

A Quantitative EEG discovers problem communication issues; NeuroMatrix Neural Efficiency Training then builds enhanced performance by helping to restore energetic resources to the areas of neurological inefficiency. When high quality information is transferred from brain region to brain region, task-appropriate frequencies are enriched, inappropriate brain wave patterning is decreased, and side-to-side balance of energy is created and maintained.

Creativity...Our key to unlocking a positive future

Outside of Nature, did you ever stop to think that everything you see in your world, no matter how simple or complex, came out of someone's head? What's more, the creative person didn't stop with the thought. He or she had the motivation and found the resources to make the idea real, to bring it into reality.

Imagining and creating a vision for the future is dependent on physical, mental, spiritual and emotional resources and balance. Einstein, for example, was not a rigid, single minded scientist: The Theory of Relativity came to him in a meditation. He was also a competent artist, an accomplished musician, and a sailor.

It is the balanced, efficient brain, the brain with readily accessible resources to do its job that is more able – and more apt – to be inspired, creative and productive.

The troubled state of our world, our society laced with violence and negativism, and our seemingly unsolvable environmental problems, make it vital for us all to have an active, fertile imagination, and the desire and ability to manifest our Dreams. Our very future depends upon it.

A simple and elegant solution...for both the “haves” and the “have nots”

Over the past 20 years, NeuroMatrix Neural Efficiency Training™ has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to bring those with distressing neurological problems a life with new possibilities and opportunities. And, just as important, NeuroMatrix Neural Efficiency Training ™ can take our society’s bright and shining stars to even higher levels of productivity, insight, and creativity.

Solutions to today’s most pressing problems will come out of someone’s head. Will it be yours?

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