Can You Really Rewire Your Brain? Dr. Laura Hanson Explains

I just want my kid to be like everybody else. And so to any parent that feels that way, that also has a consequence. If your child is like every body else, well guess what?

One in somewhere between 12 and 20 are gonna get diagnosed autistic. One and six have some kind of learning challenge. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if your kid isn't like everyone else Welcome to Take Back My Brain with Lori Hammer, where real healing starts in the brain.

I'm Lori, a functional nutritionist and mom who's walked the path from anxiety and burnout to clarity and calm. Each week, we're going to dive into brain-based tools like amino acid therapy, gut health, fasting and faith to help you reclaim your energy, emotions and sense of self.

Hello, friend. It is so good to be with you again today. I have with me today, and we haven't had this topic before, so really, really pay attention. This is Dr.

Laura Hansen. And Laura is a nationally recognized neurodevelopmental specialist for, listen to this, over 30 years. She helps children, adults improve their focus, learning behavior, an overall brain function.

So Dr Laura, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much. I love being here. children during neurofeedback and some adults. And combined with everything, the amino acid therapy and what I do, we're seeing really great results.

But I think most of the audience maybe not even know what neuro feedback is. So could you explain that to them? Oh, sure. This is probably has become my favorite part of my practice to be able to really see these patterns that resonate in people's brains and match them to what it is that they're going through and show them like connect those dots of how a pattern can get set up.

in your brain. So when we talk about neurofeedback, we're actually first going to do a brain map. And I really want to emphasize that point because a lot of things have come up where people can buy little home units for themselves and start doing work with a program, but there's no brain math.

I would really add some caution. if you're gonna work on your brain, that you are literally having a map before you get started. So when we do that, we put a cap on somebody's head, there's 19 channels available, you fill it with some gel, and that is literally the gold standard, is to use a 19 channel cap in order to really get an understanding of what's going on in somebody brain.

there's typically two recordings. One with the eyes closed, one with eyes open. And you really try to have the person in a very relaxed state. I think one of the most common questions that I get, especially in the realm of pediatrics, my child is on medication, do I need to take him off of medication?

And, you don't have to them off medication. In fact, I The best way is let's look at their brain while they're taking medication because you're told that medication is going to do something.

Well, let really see if that's what's happening. Then we'll do our two recordings. We actually have a reporting group that we send, we upload our recordings to.

And these are people that have neurology backgrounds and they're able to generate the report. I've been doing it now long enough though, I can read raw data, but the information that you get with the reports is so valuable because there are patterns that are known to show up that really play a part in how that individual is feeling.

And it was really interesting because even this morning, I would say probably about 10% of my practice is adults, 90% is children. But I was talking to an adult this And one of the things that she really wants to work on is her dynamics with other people.

She's a professional, she's having a really rough time approaching other People in a manner that can be received by the recipient. And so it was really interesting to see the full pattern in her brain.

that it was more on the right side and that is your emotional quotient. So when I say more, the dysregulation of the brain was actually more right than it is on left.

There are absolute patterns that do show up that you can match and then once you get the map and you've reviewed it and connect the dot for the person, because the way this work is so beneficial is that individual's got to want it more than they've ever wanted anything else.

And I think that's true with all the work we do, that you got to get better. You've got to want to be open and try something that's maybe not considered mainstream.

So once we get that information, then we're actually going to create your program. And it's all put into the computer. But when you sit down to do a session, You're gonna watch something, something on Netflix or Disney.

It does matter what you watch. You don't want to watch anything violent or disturbing because you're working on your brain. But that's the conscious part of the brain and so the subconscious is where we are really trying to make our changes because that subconscious mind which begins in the last trimester of pregnancy and is formed to about seven and a half eight and half years that's where the majority of function is laid down in our brains and i bet you've noticed this to lori that if you go to an adult.

You might ask them, how long have you been going through this? And so many people will tell you, ever since I was a kid. Yes, all the time. All the times.

Adults, they've been struggling for a very long time, and they have built a lot of strategies and a a coping mechanisms that sometimes they can be under an enormous amount of stress.

Children, in my opinion, they really get neurofeedback so much easier because they just allow it to happen. But when you're doing the actual therapy, a filter is going to go over the screen and every time your brain is in the correct place that we have selected, then you're going to get a reward.

And that's the system of the brain you are going in on, is the reward system. So you will get the award and the picture will go bright and there's going be a little sound.

Vision and auditory are the two most powerful senses. Those are mechanisms that are used in neurofeedback in order to give that person on a subconscious level how well they are doing with their session at that time.

And I love like when I do it with kids, I'll have some kids that they'll be sitting there and we'll get everything started and they go, Dr. Hanson, could you please make the picture bright?

And go no, no I can't, but you can. and then all of a sudden they're like, what do I do? And then things start to happen and they figure it out very, very quickly.

And, then I'll say to them, you know, over time we're teaching what this is showing them and what I want them to think about when that picture is bright.

So, maybe they have to work on being focused or maybe, they to have work not being so argumentative. When that pictures goes bright, I want you to see yourself as you are focused.

And so now kids can begin to understand that word. Sometimes we just use words and kids have no idea what we're even talking about. That is true. But as they get the hang of it, then I'll say, well, how did you do today?

Oh, I did really well. I go, How do you know? Well, the picture was bright most of the time. So that's when This becomes really dynamic. And then I can start sending it home.

Mom, when you need them to settle down, get them sit down. Take a couple of deep breaths. Now imagine that your brain is brighter. We're taking this everywhere we go.

That's the power behind this therapy. It's pretty incredible. Hey friend, just a quick break to remind you if calming your brain is the missing piece in your practice or in you're home, my Mind Thrive certification course teaches you exactly how to do that with targeted amino acid therapy.

So it's real science, real results, no band-aids. Enrollment is now open. Link is in the show notes. Back to the Show. Yeah, so you're literally just retraining the brain.

You're giving them specific stimuli and then their brain is figuring it out and you are mapping that each and every time? Well, you don't map it each time.

The map gives you the protocol. Maybe the powers are off. So you have all these different brain waves and they're everywhere, but they are supposed to dominate in certain areas.

Okay. Delta and Beta, especially for the adult brain, should dominate more in the front. And Delta is your sleep wave and beta is you brain that knows how to focus like we are right now.

But if all we had was beta in front and we didn't have a way to turn it off, we'd never go to sleep. So there's a relationship of when beta goes up and then as the day ends, Delta goes out.

And then alpha is in the back of the brain. Then your low beta is your sensory motor cortex. So there's dominant areas of where these brain waves should be.

The map lets you know how is the power. Where is it off? Do you have too much? Too little? And that's how you actually build the program that they're going to practice.

That is so fascinating. I've never personally had neurofeedback done, so I kind of would like to have that done. That would be really fun. Yes. Yeah. So you talk about four different kinds of networks.

You're assessing those two in the brain map, or is that something different? Well, networks are built. So when you come into the world, you're fully formed, but you are not fully functioning.

Babies have really big heads, so they have a lot of neurons. And it's through the physical practice of a baby that begins to take what they practiced in the womb, because they're moving in their womb.

And then when they come out, they've got to really put on a lot of movement in order to practice to make those pathways efficient. Okay. And so babies do not read, write, and do arithmetic.

when they come out of the womb, they are moving. And that's why movement is so important for all humans, not just for babies. But that is actually how we built our brain.

Then over time, as you practice these pathways, you should be going through a process In the womb, up until around your 20-some years, you would go through what's called pruning.

And this is one of the things that does not seem to happen in the children that are identified that they're in this spectrum. They are not going through this prunning.

What that means is the more that you practice a particular pathway, then it will become efficient. Now, because you practiced it doesn't always mean it's efficient.

It just means you practice it, right? Efficiently or inefficiently, correct? Exactly, exactly. And what you're really hoping is that you are going to be able to build circuits in the brain, and that's what the networks are narrowed down to is a circuit.

So that when you build these patterns together, let's say it's when, you just wanna chill out and relax. That's the default mode network. You should be able to go in to your internal compass and begin to see yourself where you're going in the world, but relaxing.

And then the other circuits are when your really focused in on things. So these are all built over time. And it's built based on your individual experience.

So this to me is a very big part about understanding our brains. It's not always about that there's always a trauma, even though that can absolutely happen.

Sure. But let's say I have a couple of patients right now that have some serious genetic issues going on. And so their body is getting less input and it's going to impact how their brain is actually going develop.

okay? Because they're not getting the typical input like you should have. What's some typical output? Following a milestone acquisition and let's just say getting up and walking by age one.

So both of these little people that I'm thinking about are almost three years old and they are not walking or crawling. So imagine not getting that input.

One of the sad things that has a tendency to happen is that child will never get the gravitational input at their hip joints. And so they actually become softened and they're labeled with hip dysplasia and potentially will end up needing surgery at some point in their life.

And we've got another little kid who just went through that surgical procedure because his hips did not develop correctly. And so if you can't be to that child what they cannot do for themselves, it's very difficult on parents, on families, because it does, It takes an enormous amount of work.

So that's a more drastic kind of an example. So let's take a child that didn't crawl. I think crawling is one of the most misunderstood milestones and what it actually does for our brain.

And again, all of this is about how we build our networks. So what's your experience? What is this child's experience, what is my experience. And so the CDC changed all the developmental milestones, making it okay to do everything later.

Now it's saying it is okay if you don't walk until you're 18 months. I would love to tell your audience that's not true. On top of it, crawling is no longer even listed as a necessary milestone.

Why do you think that is before you go on? Do you Yes. Yes, on the spectrum. So it still looks and not just a spectrum, but it's giving this longer period of time where it doesn't really become something that is going to be considered developmental delay.

And with all the developmental. It now just kind of normalizes it. If people do not look into other pieces of information, then they begin to think it's okay too.

And where is it really gonna fall back on? Absolutely the child, but also the family. Yeah. So you gotta crawl, you have to crawl. When you're developing, when you come into the world, like I said, your dominant in your brain stem, but also the right side of your.

Okay. And the back of the brain is really pushing in order to get that baby to go in the direction that it'll develop its frontal lobe. If that right.

Side of. The brain becomes dampened. So it's big muscles. It's the need to talk, need versus work. Its the big picture of the world. So if for any reason this child isn't going in that direction, he'll lose power on that right side of that brain.

And then they may go over and push the left side the brain to come on prematurely. So if I don't crawl, that also happens to where I am not getting both sides of my brain talking to each other.

So like I just said, the need to talk is on the right. The work of talk on is the left. Wonder if all these kids with delayed language, wonder if it's just the side of their brain is dampened and they're just not perceiving the needs to think about what it was like during COVID.

You know, everybody was stressed out. Everybody was talking like this. And a child couldn't even perceive facial expression, mirror neurons. The ear, you come into the world, You hear low frequency sound.

You acquire middle and high the first three years of life. So if that was your experience, You are going to build patterns in your brain that's going make it very difficult for these circuits to grow.

For these networks to be able to communicate. That is fascinating. So if that gets missed, so say crawling gets miss or the kids that went through COVID and they didn't experience what a normal experience should be like, can you rewire those networks, those pathways?

Absolutely. And that's why a map is so important. You need to see what's really happened rather than a program. I don't have anybody's program in mind, but I know that they exist out there, where if your child has or you have as an adult attention issues, our little hardware is going to help you.

But maybe the attention problem is not because you didn't develop the ability to pay attention because all humans have the Ability to Pay Attention. There has to be a reason why.

And it could be metabolic, right? It could mean too many slow waves in the front of the brain. It can be combination of both. Let's say somebody was on medication for a while.

Well, now you've trained the synapse to follow the chemical influence. If you combine it with something like neurofeedback, you can train the neurons to go that way and then begin to lessen up the amount of medication that you're actually using.

And you could just simply go and tell the person who ever prescribed it, hey, I'm doing some neurofeedback. I want to be able to see if I can get off my medication and I wanna train my brain to know how to do this without it and you should be able to get from a provider somebody that would be willing to say sure just let me know when you're ready to start exploring that and then if you are bringing in that supplementation that they need Now we're addressing the metabolic piece and that is just life-changing.

I couldn't agree more. That's what I do too. Think of it as a three-tier approach, mechanical, body chemistry, and brain, because you are all three of those at the same time.

Yeah, and that makes so much sense, Dr. Laura. So what do you see when people are on medications? Do you any specific pattern that's going on? So let's just say like an SSRI.

What patterns are you seeing? Yeah. We call it ants on a picnic. And it literally, where the beta wave should be about like this, it looks like Yeah, so there'll be certain parts of the brain, because medications do target certain part of brain.

And you'll literally be able to see the sine wave has been impacted because they're on medication. I had a really good experience with an adult who was on some medication and really wanted to get off.

The cool part was it was really hard to not have artifact in setting her up. because the medication was so drastic on her brain that what happens on the machine part of neurofeedback, it can't differentiate between tension, tension from many different sources, and brainwave, so you'll get artifact.

And so it took a really long time for her to get into a place where her brain became regulated and you didn't get that artifact. I found that so fascinating.

What do you mean by artifact? When you're training, you've got a live screen showing all the different brainwaves at the difference locations. So let's just say, let say I was doing a four channel cap, meaning I had four active sites.

And so on the left hand side of the screen, those placements are listed. Let's call it F1, F2, F1, F2, C3, and C4. So even numbers are on the right, odd numbers on on left.

And so those four sites would be on a left-hand side. Then you're picking up the electrical energy at each of those sites. If there's tons of activity going on, almost a hyperarousal state for the brain.

then you're gonna still see the sine wave, but there's going to be a red cast over the section that artifact is being picked up. So in real time, you are able to see, okay, we gotta try and calm the brain down, because right now the machine can't differentiate between It could be muscle tension.

It Could be eye blanks. You could Be squeezing your teeth really hard. All of that stuff would create artifact. So some of the things I love your yellow tinted glasses, because that really color in front of our eyes.

Sometimes that's enough to just help calm the brain down. Sometimes we need to put a weighted blanket on the individual. sometimes I'm going to use essential oils in order for them because the nose is a direct pathway to the Brain.

The nostrils are the only sense that don't cross over. and the right nostril picks up pungent aroma, and left nostrils picks sweet and flowery. So again, depending upon what you need, if I need to get a child to focus, I might use vetivir.

That's a very pungent aroma. Frankincense is a pangent. And sometimes that's enough just to kind of down regulate that nervous system so that they can properly engage with the process.

That is the cool part is that it's real time. You can make adjustments in real-time and you can support the patient in real time. I love doing photomodulation, why people are doing neurofeedback.

So we might use a red laser while they're doing neural feedback and be putting it on like the vagus nerve so that too could down regulate their nervous system.

That is awesome. I love all those things. There's so many different things that we can do for the brain. So I loved the nutritional metabolic piece, which is, you know, my big thing.

And then the neurofeedback and then, movement and all of that plays into this. and I think so people are looking for like that one size fits all. Like this one magic bullet.

It's just not. You're an orchestra. You know? So you gotta bring your strings in. Yes. You gotta have the conductor. All of it is needed because it's not just one system inside of us.

Right? Yeah. And I think it super encouraging that you said that these new patterns can be created and I really think people get really worried, especially when we're talking about our kids.

You know, well, if we missed it from zero to three and they haven't had it by seven or eight, you know are they doomed for the rest of their life? And I don't see that either, even with the nutritional piece, like all of a sudden things in your brain just start turning on.

And then you go to somebody like yourself or a movement specialist or just started moving for heaven's sakes. That'll turn the brain on just in general.

So we're trying to forget about those foundational pieces. How big of a piece do you feel nutrition plays in? Oh, it's huge. It's absolutely huge! I tell parents, you know, I can be really good at neurofeedback.

I could be good figuring out where we need to push the domino back in and go back far enough. But if you don't have the raw material, You can't make it stick.

And that's just the reality. So I too am a huge proponent in that nutritional piece. Yeah. What about gaming? Kids that are addicted to gaming, what are you seeing when you're mapping the brain of these kids that That's what they have on their phone or, you know.

Yeah, phone. We, we really are in a crisis with the devices. Okay. And I had gone to New York a few weeks ago. and when we were heading back there was a magazine that was talking about how anybody that puts down devices is just a naysayer and you know you see information like that and as a parent you're trying to coordinate everything you're trying to get your kids on board and something like that i feel like could be really detrimental for that parent that is trying so hard to understand what's going on and how can i help my child there is so much evidence And it's true for us, too.

It's not just kids, but they've actually done imaging of the brain, and it is called DTI imaging, dense tensor imaging. And that's where they look at the white matter of their brain.

So you have two parts to your brain – you've got gray matter and you got white. Gray matter is where you process White matter is how you get it from one part of your brain to the other, which kind of creates our big circle of what we've been talking about.

Those networks rely on the white matter to communicate with other parts of the circuit. Now, this could be front of brain, to back of a brain. It could from left side of their brain the right side, it could front right, back left.

And so that's how we communicate. Think of it like trains on a track. And, so what they found though, is devices are actually creating more white matter in our brain.

So meaning too many trains, on the track, and I believe the vulnerable population is our children because their brains are wide open in development. You need that experience to crawl.

You needed that physical opposite arm and leg movement to get both sides of the brain talking to each other. So there's the stimulus, the crawling. The outcome is the communication between both side.

So devices become the stimulus and the outcome, one of the outcomes is too much white matter. And so these kids, they can't filter. And it's not just small kids.

We've seen lots of teenagers and early in their 20s. They're just constantly scrolling. And the phones were manipulative in the way that they designed how you go through it.

Right. cascade of dopamine in your brain and you feel good. And now we've got young people that are addicted to gambling, pornography, shopping. It can be anything.

Then the other new one is the posture. So you're always looking down. And at first they called it Tex neck, but now they call it the posture of dementia.

So if you're constantly looking down, your eyeballs are the only piece of neurology that's on the outside of your skull. And it influences the frontal lobe, the parietal lobes, cerebellum, and the brain stem.

So how you see the mechanics. You have six muscles wrapped around each eyeball. and their neurological influences back in the brain stem. And they are neurologically connected to your ears and your vestibular system as well.

When we are constantly honed in on our phones, that is central vision, and you create an imbalance between central and peripheral vision. Central vision is 6% of your vision Peripheral is 94% of your vision.

Wow. And literally, it's the vision you use to know if you're safe in the world. So I mean, how far reaching could we bring up? How far this goes? Sure.

Sure, we've just lost our perception. of really 96% of our life. Exactly. That's great to think about, Dr. Laura. It really is. And people are so stressed out.

We all talked about that. There's no margins. But you're also, that's feedback, just like neurofeedback. So we know that these behaviors that we participate in can have negative impact.

Your screen is 4D, you see 3D. So you can do little practices. Okay, maybe I'm just going to cut back a little bit. Maybe I am going take a break and go out and look at a tree and try to see the leaf.

and then bring it close to me for near far vision. Try to exercise these things that we're kind of loose inside of. Yeah. I'm always telling my clients, go outside, try to eat your meals outside.

Right? So you're eating, you are looking down, your eating. You're looking around all your devices, put your toes in the ground, enjoy nature as much as you can because that naturally you know, send your vision to the bird up there and the tree that's blowing and there's a cloud in the sky.

Well, and you heard it. You heard the Bird, which made you see. That's peripheral vision. Yes. Which is so, so important. So I can't stress that enough.

And I love the fact that you brought that up. I see a difference between and I loved this movement. We have like the 25 to 35 year old parents. that I'm really seeing them not doing devices with their kids.

I know we're not giving them a phone. They're like, no, can't have that. And they're trying to not be on their phone very much. and they don't even have a TV in their house.

It's amazing. We were pretty good about it, but they still got the TV piece. We didn't do any gaming. They didn' have phones until they were 15 and 16. So we delayed all of that.

But I can see a huge difference between the little babes that don't have TV even and definitely are not on devices compared to the kids that… I do, and there's just, there is a tension in those children that have these devices compared to the children.

The children, that don't, I'm just seeing them so much more content. They go to sleep better, they're fine playing by themselves, They're not bothering mom and dad, you know, quote unquote, with needing, needing something all the time.

Entertainment, entertainment. I mean, their just chilling out and looking at their little board books and being fine with it. And it's such a beautiful thing to watch.

I was talking to a soccer coach over the weekend and he was like, kids just can't even be bored anymore. I go, no, they can. And some of it is devices and some Do we keep our kids scheduled?

We're so scheduled. All the time. And you're not teaching, especially those first eight and a half years when you are building the subconscious mind, if you teaching them, okay, we got to be in soccer and dance and art class and karate, then that's what you teach.

So take advantage of, don't schedule them for everything. One thing is enough, and it's also the same thing. Don't introduce sugar. Oh my goodness. Thank you.

Don't introduce it. They won't know until you do. Yeah. I know people say how to, cause I make like organ meat pate and stuff for my little grandsons.

How do you get them to eat that? I'm like, because they don't get the other garbage. So that's where their palette is. If you never give a kid McDonald's, they're not going to create McDonalds.

My daughter's never had McDonald, my son had like their yogurt parfait when he was little, but like we just don' go to those places. We never eat the Chick-fil-A.

you can do those things you just choose not to do them as a family and their palette is geared towards all the healthy foods and then they're not gonna eat the garbage because.

It's designed to make us addicted. It has excitotoxins. Oh, my gosh. So bad. People are like, well, we have to have convenience food. Well, an apple is super convenient, so is an avocado, a thing of sardines.

And I know my generation, our generation here, probably is like I am not eating sardsines, but guess what, your babies will. If you introduce it, they will.

They absolutely will and I think the other struggle that parents really have because something I've heard very, very frequently is I just want my kid to be like everybody else.

And so to any parent that feels that way, that also has a consequence. If your child is like everybody else, well guess what? One in somewhere between 12 and 20 are going to get diagnosed autistic.

One and six have some kind of learning challenge. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if your kid isn't like everyone else. Well, and what if you're the parent that says, I'm going to do this different.

And then other people say, oh, what are you doing? And you create a movement. That's right. I love that. While my kids were growing up, being the odd parent, we homeschooled, ate weird, all those kind of things.

But I didn't care. My kids don't. They're like, my daughter will go to McDonald's with friends. She's not going eat any of that, she's never had it. She's like, I'm putting it in my body, not putting in in body.

Yeah. Well, have two kids and they were raised very particular ways. But then as they got older and there were more independent, it was like do you know how hard it is to be your child?

And I was, well, really sorry. I had to do what I have to, but now the two of them they both have such incredible judgment on how to look at their body and how pick food and cook.

They both are brilliant cooks. So I love that part. We have our benefits that we've been able to bring to our children. And anybody listening, you can too.

Anything, we can coach and guide because there's many ways to do many things. so many and never feel guilty about it. You don't know what you don t know.

Exactly. Now, you know, so pick something and just try it, just trying to change something for yourself, your family, all those kind of things. If there's one thing that you wish parents knew, what would it be?

Make a move. One of the big parts of our program is movement. And every kid from two and a half and older learn how to walk on a treadmill. When they're walking, they are also looking at a trail like out in Colorado, the mountains.

When you're on the treadmill and you following all these curves, your brain actually thinks that you are on a trail. And so you can actually watch their bodies.

Then as we get close to the end, we turn them around and make them walk backwards. And even two and a half is walking backwards. And you really get your brain's attention because your mind is expecting you to go forward.

So it's a really easy way to help your brains have a little charge and say, okay, you have captivated my attention. The brain loves novelty. The brain is always looking for something to learn differently so that it can experience a challenge.

Don't get stuck. Always go after the challenge." I love that. Oh my goodness. And where can everybody find you? Our website is connectmybrain.com. On there, you can hit the contact us and reach out.

I will be the one that calls you back. We have a couple of events, I don't know where everybody is, but we have couple events coming up in June. One is to teach parents about primitive reflexes and the second one is helping young people be babysitters four children with challenges so that we can get these parents out for a date night.

And then, of course, I've got my podcast, Connect My Child's Brain. Yeah, anything you want to do, reach out and we're happy to give you just some insights about some ways that you can change your brain.

I love it. Dr. Laura, this has been a great conversation. You are my great sister. I'm so glad to have this opportunity too. Oh, what a blessing to the audience.

Thank you so much for being here. Absolutely. Thank you all for listening. I appreciate you very, very much and if you feel like this is something that somebody else needs to hear and I know you know somebody, make sure you're liking, subscribing and sharing this.

God bless each of you and i will see you in the next episode. Thanks for If today's episode helped you connect with hope or direction, I want you to follow the show, leave us a review and share it with someone who needs it.

And if you're ready to start your own healing journey, explore our courses and our coaching programs at lorihammer.com backslash store. So until next time, remember you cannot medicate away a nutrient deficiency and healing your brain isn't just possible, it's powerful.