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How to Get Your Brain Back to Optimal Cognition with Dr. Andrew Hill #Clip

Access Flow Whenever You Want and Become Indistractible: http://GetMoreFlow.com Founding Director of Peak Brain Institute and Lead Neurotherapist. Dr. Hill is one of the top peak performance coaches in the country. He holds a Ph.D. in Cognitive Neuroscience from UCLA’s Department of Psychology and continues to do research on attention and cognition. Research methodology includes EEG, QEEG, and ERP. He has been practicing neurofeedback since 2003. In addition to founding Peak Brain Institute, Dr. Hill is the host of the Head First Podcast with Dr. Hill and lectures at UCLA, teaching courses in psychology, neuroscience, and gerontology. RESOURCES: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andrewhillp... LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewhil... Website: https://peakbraininstitute.com/ STEVEN KOTLER is a New York Times bestselling author, award-winning journalist, and Founder and Executive Director of the Flow Research Collective. He is one of the world’s leading experts on human performance. His books include The Art of Impossible, Stealing Fire, and The Rise of Superman. His work has been translated into over 40 languages and appeared in over 100 publications, including the New York Times Magazine, Wall Street Journal, TIME, Wired, Atlantic Monthly, The Harvard Business Review and Forbes.

Episode Summary

Understanding Neurofeedback: From Laboratory Discovery to Real-World Brain Training

For a comprehensive technical breakdown of SMR neurofeedback, including mechanisms and research, see: SMR Neurofeedback: The Calm-Alert Brainwave That Trains Sleep, Focus, and Self-Control. This article focuses on the practical experience and broader context of how neurofeedback actually works.

The most common question I get about neurofeedback isn't whether it works—the evidence is solid. It's "What does it actually feel like?" People struggle to understand how you can train something you can't consciously feel. Let me walk you through the fascinating story of how we discovered this and what the experience looks like.

The Accidental Discovery That Changed Everything

Neurofeedback was discovered by complete accident in the late 1960s by Dr. Barry Sterman at UCLA. NASA had asked him to study the toxicity of rocket fuel vapors—specifically methyl hydrazine—because astronauts were getting sick from exposure. The research protocol was straightforward: expose cats to increasing amounts of vapor and document symptoms.

Most cats followed a predictable dose-response curve. Minutes of exposure led to vocalizations, panting, drooling, unsteady gait, seizures, coma, then death. Twenty-four of the thirty-two cats behaved exactly as expected.

But eight cats were different. They were "super cats"—completely resistant to seizures even at doses that incapacitated the others. At 40-50 minutes of exposure, when other cats were showing serious neurological problems, these eight remained stable for over two hours.

Sterman couldn't figure out why until he remembered: six months earlier, these same cats had participated in an unrelated experiment. He had trained them to increase a specific brainwave called SMR (sensorimotor rhythm, 12-15 Hz) by rewarding them with chicken broth whenever the brainwave increased.

It turns out this brainwave makes your brain resistant to destabilization. The cats had accidentally been "vaccinated" against seizures through brainwave training.

From Cats to Humans: The First Clinical Success

Sterman's lab manager was an uncontrolled epileptic on heavy medication but still having frequent seizures. They built her an auditory feedback system that beeped whenever her SMR increased. Over several months of training, she was able to go off all medications and remained seizure-free for over a year.

This was the birth of clinical neurofeedback.

What SMR Actually Represents: The Cat on the Windowsill

To understand what we're training, picture a cat lying on a windowsill watching a bird outside. The cat's body is completely still—liquid stillness—but its mind is laser-focused. Maybe the tail twitches slightly, but the body remains motionless because you can leap into action much better from relaxation than from tension.

This mixed state of physical stillness and mental focus is a high SMR state. Most mammals produce SMR as a way to inhibit unnecessary movement and maintain attention. If you have poor SMR tone, your brain tends toward instability—seizures in extreme cases, but more commonly distractibility and hyperactivity.

The cat on the windowsill represents the literal opposite of ADHD. High SMR with low theta (4-7 Hz) is the anti-ADHD state. When this reverses—high theta (like "air in the brake lines") and low SMR—you get the classic picture: high movement, high distractibility, reactive to every external stimulus, poor goal focus.

How the Training Actually Works

Here's what a typical SMR neurofeedback session looks like:

We place an electrode over the sensorimotor area of your brain (usually C4, right hemisphere) and measure two things in real-time: SMR (12-15 Hz) and theta (4-7 Hz). These measurements feed into software that creates a simple computer game—maybe Pac-Man, a puzzle, or a spaceship.

Here's the key: the game only moves when your brain moves in the desired direction. When your SMR happens to increase and your theta happens to decrease, the software rewards your brain with visual and auditory feedback. Pac-Man eats dots, puzzle pieces fill in, the spaceship flies smoothly.

A few seconds later, your brainwaves shift in the wrong direction—SMR drops, theta increases. The game immediately stalls. Pac-Man stops, the beeps disappear, the spaceship struggles.

Your brain notices: "Hey, I was getting information. I liked that information. Where did it go?"

Then your brainwaves happen to move in the right direction again, and the feedback resumes. "Good job, brain. Good job. Nope. Good job, good job, good job. Nope."

The Mysterious Nature of the Training

The crucial element is that your conscious mind cannot feel its own brainwaves. This is why neurofeedback is so mysterious and why many people struggle to understand how it works.

If you moved your arm and a game responded, you'd quickly figure out the connection. But when a game responds to your theta or SMR changes, your conscious mind has no direct access to that information. Your brain treats the feedback like any other environmental stimulus—like learning to play a musical instrument or drive a car.

We also continuously adjust the thresholds throughout the session. Every few seconds, we "move the goalposts" so your brain gets rewarded for trends and improvements rather than absolute levels. Over a 30-minute session, your brain receives thousands of tiny pieces of feedback about its electrical activity.

What the Experience Feels Like

Most people describe neurofeedback sessions as relaxing and mildly engaging. You sit comfortably watching a simple computer display while your brain does the work unconsciously. There's no effort required—in fact, trying too hard often interferes with the process.

The real magic happens between sessions. Usually after 3-4 training sessions, your brain begins reaching for the trained state spontaneously. People report:

  • "I asked my kid to take out the trash and they just did it—no argument"
  • "I felt calm but alert at the same time"
  • "I could focus but also felt relaxed"
  • "My sleep improved and I felt less reactive"

These changes emerge naturally as your brain learns to produce the trained patterns more consistently.

The Operant Conditioning Connection

Neurofeedback uses operant conditioning—the same learning principles B.F. Skinner demonstrated with pigeons. But instead of shaping behavior, we're shaping brainwave patterns.

This isn't Pavlov's classical conditioning (I promise I won't make you drool). We're not creating automatic responses to stimuli. Instead, we're taking brainwave patterns that already exist and gradually shaping them toward more optimal ranges through positive reinforcement.

Your brain naturally produces SMR and theta throughout the day. We're simply providing information about these patterns so your brain can learn to optimize them.

The Individualized Approach

Effective neurofeedback requires individualization. After an initial assessment, we select specific protocols based on your brain's patterns and your goals. We might use different electrode locations, frequency bands, or training approaches.

The process becomes like personal training for your brain:

  • Assess current patterns
  • Set specific goals
  • Start with gentle protocols
  • Monitor subjective responses
  • Adjust based on results
  • Build gradually toward stability

If you report being "charged up and focused but unable to sleep," we might adjust the protocol. If you feel great the next day—focused and able to sleep—that becomes your workout protocol.

Beyond ADHD: Broader Applications

While SMR training was initially developed for seizures and later applied to ADHD, the applications have expanded significantly. The calm-alert state it promotes benefits anyone who needs better executive function, emotional regulation, or stress management.

The training builds what we call "inhibitory tone"—your brain's ability to inhibit irrelevant information and maintain focus on goals. This capacity underlies everything from academic performance to emotional stability.

The Bottom Line

Neurofeedback works through involuntary learning. Your brain optimizes its electrical patterns to receive rewarding feedback, but your conscious mind remains unaware of the specific mechanism. The result is gradual, natural improvement in the cognitive and emotional capacities supported by the trained brainwave patterns.

It's not magic—it's applied neuroscience using your brain's natural learning capacity. The mysterious part is simply that consciousness doesn't have direct access to its own electrical activity. But your brain as a whole system can learn to optimize these patterns when given appropriate information.

The cat on the windowsill achieved that perfect calm-alert state naturally. Neurofeedback gives human brains the same opportunity through structured, individualized training.

For detailed information about SMR mechanisms, research evidence, and clinical protocols, see the full technical article: SMR Neurofeedback: The Calm-Alert Brainwave That Trains Sleep, Focus, and Self-Control.

Full Transcript
when i mention neurofeedback around people who are not that familiar with it they often struggle to understand sort of how it actually happens as well so i would love also a breakdown and maybe an example of what it actually looks like to do neurofeedback training as well biofeedback is a form of modifying the body essentially by taking things that are not normally appreciable like your heartbeat your body temperature and making them under your voluntary awareness so you can then learn to like change them and this is something like hrv biofeedback like the heart math devices or old school stuff like hand warming to drop headaches is biofeedback you can look at your activation level and stress level and some breath work and change that as a way of doing some biofeedback but generally when we say the word biofeedback what we mean is peripheral nervous system control things that are outside the skeletal system you know the controlling your heart maybe your skin your parasympathetic to sympathetic activation is biofeedback in the body neurofeedback is a form of biofeedback that has some unique properties by definition it's just stuff that's on the central nervous system so stuff inside the bone you know the skull in the spine that's the cns and because it's the cns you're not really aware of it the same way you are in the peripheral body so neurofeedback is measuring the brain usually and training it to change but the process of change becomes involuntary operant conditioning or or involuntary shaping so this is how it actually works and i'll give you a concrete example let's say you wanted better executive function you wanted to control your distractibility better which we all you know many of us want to do some of us have adhd some of us don't but many of us could benefit from some resource building in the distractibility way there's a brainwave called smr sensory motor rhythm which is a low beta brain wave and if any of you have seen a cat lying on a windowsill watching a bird you've seen smr it's this liquid still body and laser-like focus that cat seeing a prey animal outside maybe it's the tail is twitching but the body is just still mostly because you can leap onto an and you can you can leap into action from relaxation much much better than from tension so that mixed state of still body and focused mind is a high smr state and mammals most animals make smr as a way to inhibit if you will or stop things from happening if you have poor smr tone your brain tends to make seizures and neurofeedback was discovered by mistake in the late 60s by dr barry sturman so dr barry sturman was at ucla in the in the 50s and 60s and uh he's still an emeritus faculty he's still occasionally doing lectures but he was exposing cats to rocket fuel vapors on requests of nasa to figure out how dangerous this stuff was this methyl hydrazine because the astronauts were not enjoying breathing in vapors when they were exposed to it so there was a research study and on the 60s we had much more lacks animal research so this is the part of the story it's hard but dr sturman found that minutes exposed to the vapor would create increased symptoms where they would had vocalizations they would pant they would drool become unsteady in their gates and ataxic have seizure then coma then death it was a perfect dose-dependent curve where minutes equaled symptoms more so more and more symptoms for 24 of the 32 cats he had in his little subject pool eight of them super cats refused to have seizures while the other cats were falling over and having major problems at about 40 50 minutes in the other cats were showing mild instability events in the brain two and a half hours exposed couldn't figure out why one group of cats seemed very different than the others and then he remembered that these cats had been used in a prior experiment six months before to see if he could get them to raise this brain wave the cats make a lot of whenever he squirted chicken broth into their mouth to applaud it happening he could they raised it great back in the subject pool well this brainwave makes your brain resistant to being destabilized it turns out and later on he stumbled across this by mistake and then his lab manager was in medication uncontrolled epileptic they built her an auditory feedback machine beeped whenever her smr went up and over the next few months they trained her smr up and she was on huge meds and having lots of seizures and they eventually went off all her meds remained seizure free for a year so this was the start of the field of neurofeedback clinically so to speak in the late 60s and we still train this smr frequency and now we often train it for things like adhd as well as seizures but the cat and windowsill still body and laser-like focus is the opposite of adhd literally high smr low theta is anti-adhd state when it reverses high theta means like air in the brake lines and low smr support inhibitory tone you're moving a lot distractible your brain's like squirrel you know it's very outside world reactive and it's not focused on the goal so literally that calm cat is the opposite of an adhd state if you stick a wire in the part of the brain which is involved with monitoring if you're paying attention and measure smr and measure theta which is a release state in some ways as they change moment to moment as your smr happens to go up and the smr sorry the theta happens to go down you supply the brain and say yeah good job brain and make a little game on the screen move so your pacman eats some more dots or your puzzle pieces start to fill in or your spaceship starts to fly better and a couple seconds later your brain moves in the wrong direction for the workout your smr goes down your theta goes back up and the software slows down the pac-man stalls the beeps go away and the brain's like hey i was watching stuff i don't like no stuff where's the stuff and then a couple seconds later happens to move in the right direction and the software resumes good job brain good job brain nope good job good job good job nope again and again and the big trick here is every few seconds we move the goal posts so over half an hour sitting there your brain gets little bursts of applause for runs or trends it engages in of reducing its theta and raising its smr and the mind can't feel its brain waves that's why it's so mysterious and no one knows how it works if you know as they do it because the mind can't tell that the computer game was happening only when a certain if you always moved your arm and the game always moved you'd know what it was doing but it's moving whenever your theta moves it moves or something or beta moves it moves so your brain however likes the information and has no idea it's not a real thing in the world like a musical instrument or a car you're trying to drive and you're changing the rules so it's trying to adapt a little bit as you go in that half an hour session and usually after about three sessions or four sessions later on that day or the next day your brain reaches for the state and says hey wait i want information what low theta high smr and the person goes oh i feel calm and if you ask your kid to take the trash out when that happens they get up and do it and i get frantic calls my kid took the trash out i asked once it was weird or whatever you know like you get to get weird subtle effects showing up and the process of getting the change in neurofeedback becomes one like personal training where you sort of look at your brain on an assessment pick some goals start gently working the resources out in this involuntary exercise way but then you report the next day or later that day how was your sleep how was your stress how was your attention how was your drinking how's your trauma and you get effects so it's mysterious but not a blind process for you and after you know as you try different things you feel different things you know beta on this side produces more self-control beta on this side produces more alertness so if you come in and say oh i was super charged up and i could focus all night but i couldn't fall asleep i might do some you know different beta wave for you and say how was that oh it was great i could focus and i could fall asleep okay great that's your workout there let's do that a few times and then it builds up and becomes more stable as you experience it again so it's involuntary exercise on brain waves using operant conditioning or shaping like skinner's pigeons you know i promise this is not pavlov's dog i will not make you drool but we take things that already exist you know brain waves we shape them a little bit like pavlov did with his pigeons if what you've heard on flow research collective radio has been helpful please consider doing us a solid and leaving us a review on apple podcast spotify or wherever you are listening to this reviews help us connect to a wider audience so we can get these peak performance principles out to more people [Music]
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