How Brain Training Changed the Way I Think

I was tired. Exhausted. Burned out. Work pressure was high, and I'd just ended a long and difficult relationship. My writing (what I do for a living) had begun to suffer badly, and my income dropped to its lowest point in over a decade. If I didn't figure something out quickly, my entire life was going to unravel.

The increasingly researched potential of neurofeedback ranges from sharper focus and calm to improved attention and mental clarity. It sounded intriguing. So when I was referred to a practitioner in the Stanford area, I jumped at the opportunity to see if neurofeedback could help me.

Typically, the way you do neurofeedback is to go into a clinician's office, where they apply some gel and electrodes to different places on your scalp to read your brainwaves. So I did that. The first session was pleasant and relaxing. I closed my eyes and listened to the sounds, which seemed to get louder and more consistent.

Later, I learned that those "louder sounds" meant my brain was responding to the feedback, learning to produce more of the patterns we were training.

What I Noticed in the First Weeks

I can't say I noticed any of that happening in the moment, but I did notice a real reduction in my stress, a boost in my mental clarity, and a sharper ability to focus. I was in a better mood, much of the time. Over the following weeks, I used neurofeedback to recover from the burnout and rebuild.

Things improved quickly. When I heard about a week-long neurofeedback intensive, I was intrigued. I looked into it and learned that some practitioners offer week-long programs that combine neurofeedback with deep inner work. I didn't have the budget at the time, but I made the decision to find a way.

Long story short, I experienced the intensive, and it went beyond what I had imagined. The shift I felt during that week, and afterward, was significant. It was like a cloud had been lifted. I felt clearer, calmer, and steadier than I had in years.

My experience really deepened when I began to explore gamma neurofeedback. Gamma is the fastest brainwave on the spectrum, typically measuring 40hz and above:

Higher gamma activity is associated with focused attention, working memory, and the ability to integrate information across the brain. The fact that you can train and increase gamma activity through neurofeedback matters, especially if you're trying to stay sharp under sustained pressure. By this point I had already trained my alpha and theta activity during the intensives, but not gamma.

Why I Wanted to Keep Going

By then I had spent more than $300,000 trying just about everything out there: coaching, retreats, brainwave intensives. Some of it had helped, some hadn't. With gamma training, I would get electrodes placed at select points on my scalp and listen through headphones to sounds like rain and chimes. My brain seemed to respond quickly.

I felt clearer and more present. I couldn't believe how my brain was running: more nimble, less reactive.

Back in my regular life, the benefits showed up right away. Stress rolled off me more easily. My focus held longer. My processing felt faster, in a way I hadn't been able to manage before. I could keep more things in my head and follow through on more of them.

The Research on Gamma

When I dug into the research, I was struck by what I found. Gamma is actively studied for its role in cognitive resilience and its potential to help protect against cognitive decline. Researchers are looking at whether sustaining and training gamma activity could be part of how we keep our minds sharp as we age.

I'd been doing personal development for nearly 20 years and had never heard of this. Why weren't more people talking about gamma neurofeedback?

The answer was probably the access problem. I had been lucky enough to come across the neurofeedback intensives, but not everyone has the time or the resources to attend one. And even if you do, finding a clinician who specializes in gamma is not easy.

That's when a friend introduced me to Sens.ai's founders, Paola Telfer (CEO) and her husband Geoff Telfer (COO). They were warm, kind, and thoughtful. More importantly, they had been developing a gamma neurofeedback headset that could be used at home, by anyone. It was the first time gamma neurofeedback was available outside a clinical practice, in a wearable system you could use yourself

They showed me how the headset, which works like a pair of headphones with no gel required, reads a clean gamma signal that meets the standards of much more expensive professional systems. They walked me through dozens of programs for training the brain, all built into the headset and the wireless app. There were gamma programs for memory, attention, and focus, among others.

There are also dozens of other brainwave programs covering alpha, theta, delta, and beta-SMR. All of them support stress recovery, focus, and creativity. Built into the app is a game you play through, an interstellar journey where you train your brain along the way as you try to save your home planet. It made the practice feel less clinical and more engaging.

More Than Brainwave Training

Paola, Geoff, and fellow founder and CTO Corey Julihn also built in two more technologies alongside multi-brainwave neurofeedback. The first is photobiomodulation (tPBM), which uses specific wavelengths of light to support brain health and performance. The second is heart rate variability (HRV) biofeedback, a researched approach to measuring and improving how your nervous system handles stress.

Given my experience in the neurofeedback world, where practitioners can charge thousands of dollars for a short course of treatment and intensives can cost $15,000 for the week, I was expecting their headset to cost a fortune. Then I saw the price. It surprised me, given how much I could use it over many years versus paying for sessions one at a time.

I cannot overstate what it means to be able to train gamma at home. A practice that used to require specialized clinics and significant time and money is now something you can build into your week, on your own schedule, alongside the rest of your life.