Amazing Brains is dedicated to teaching people about noninvasive, alternative brain therapies. The creators behind the Colorado wellness company are eager to make mental health care more widely accessible. Their mission is to “support as many people as possible to feel their best and perform their best,” says founder and CEO Micah Shanser. The team focuses on creating welcoming and empowering environments in their Frisco and Avon locations. Individuals struggling with focus, anxiety, chronically low energy, poor sleep, and athletes seeking enhanced performance are a few of the many people Amazing Brains guides towards finding renewed vigor.
Shanser expresses that an important part of the Amazing Brains mission is the accessibility of care. He believes that mental health care should be attainable regardless of financial status, language barriers or other factors that can make mental health care unreachable. By partnering with organizations like Eagle Valley Behavioral Health and Vail Health, Amazing Brains is able to help people at a price that works for them. This is one of the ways they strive to reach their accessibility goal. Amazing Brains is passionate about serving communities, investigating the causes of struggles and implementing strategies that create lasting improvements.
Amazing Brains recognizes that the idea of feeling better and performing better can look different from one person to the next. For this reason, they value a highly individualized approach. Melanie McAuley, who oversees many of the processes at Amazing Brains, says, “We’ll start with goal setting … helping someone be more aware of what it is that they want and need, what will help them feel better [and] what is not helping them.”Once a person’s goals are established, the Amazing Brains team will conduct a brain mapping. Shanser compares the brain map to a snapshot of a person’s brainwaves. The graph makes a goal more attainable. They use the brain map to determine the electrical activity of a person’s brainwaves, then they associate that information with, “known neural or bio markers to help understand what someone is going through,” explains Shanser.
Shanser shares that the brainwaves are measured in cycles per second (hertz) on the brain map, and they are categorized as Delta, Theta, Alpha, Beta and Gamma. Specific brainwaves are associated with specific mental states. For example, the wave known as Theta can be identified as feeling “zoned out,” but it can also be associated with states of creativity and empathy, according to Amazing Brains. High Beta can be related to anxiety, but it can also be attributed to periods of focus and planning. Through brain mapping, the professionals can recognize which brainwaves are measuring too high or too low, and they can then use brain training to balance those frequencies.
Photos courtesy of Amazing Brains
Brain training involves the use of a person’s goals, their brain map, a customized protocol and a neuromodulation device to “stimulate and shift brainwave patterns,” explains Shanser. This process also involves breathwork, strategies for coping and exploration of belief structures. By balancing the brainwaves, Amazing Brains can help people tap in to their Flow State; this can be felt as “an effortless, selfless and timeless experience,” according to Shanser. The Flow State is experienced when a person is feeling and performing their best. Shanser emphasizes that at Amazing Brains, they do not look at people through a diagnostic lens. Rather, they simply strive to understand what feelings a person may be experiencing.
The data helps them understand that a person may have brain frequencies that are associated with a specific mental state, such as ADHD or anxiety, for example. However, they hold fast to their humanistic approach; they work through what a person is experiencing without losing sight of the human being. A few of the abundant, tangible results from brainwave stimulation include increased energy, improved mood, better sleep, and decreased stress, headaches and anxiety. One of the most notable aspects of brain training with Amazing Brains, according to Shanser, is that outcomes continue to get better with time. Even months after a person’s neuromodulation therapy is finished, follow-up brain maps often emphasize that positive developments are still occurring. “We’re actually making meaningful pattern changes that are stable and lasting,” Shanser says. Amazing Brains is deeply proud to help their communities — one brainwave at a time.