Daily Overview: Friday, April 7th

I was fortunate enough to have a relatively restful night’s sleep, which set the stage for a productive day.

However, my morning commute was met with an increase in aggressive tics, which presented a challenge while driving- this is nothing new to me. Despite this, I arrived at work feeling energized and focused, eager to tackle the day’s tasks. Throughout the day, my tics fluctuated in severity, ranging from light to moderate, primarily consisting of facial grimacing and wrist rolling.

Abdominal tics caused me to feel short of breath during a client meeting, I was able to maintain control of my tics during most interactions. However, abdominal/breathing was particularly distressing and could trigger feelings of hyperventilation or light-headedness, which makes driving particularly less enjoyable. I was determined as usual to keep my tics in check and stay focused on my responsibilities. I left work early for the second day in a row, which was nice.

IMPORTANT COGNITIVE BIAS BEING ADDRESSED:

Due to my tendency to be a very positive person, or having a long-standing personal acceptance of my tics, I have come to realize that my perspective on tic disruptiveness or lack thereof may be clouded by a degree of cognitive bias, as I am now beginning to acknowledge the subtle, yet significant impact they may have on my daily life. As I reflect on my behavior today, I am becoming increasingly aware of the number of times I may have turned my head to conceal a grimace, covered my mouth, or stepped away from social situations due to my tics. I am making a conscious effort to stay attuned to these unconscious actions, but I don’t want to overcompensate by becoming overly self-conscious and unintentionally exacerbating my tics, and I don’t want to hinder my progress in managing them. In short, will try to create a non-stressful recording process by logging my tic activity 2-3 times a day, so that I am not overly concentrated on them OR struggling to recall everything at the end of the day. This should improve accuracy of YGTSS scores.

I arrived home, talked with my fiancé and went to the office. My tics were calm at this stage of the day. I sat down and completed a YGTSS evaluation for a score of 28. Please keep in mind that a fluctuation of tic severity is completely normal. There is very little consistency or predictability of day-to-day severity. Anyway, I then filled out a psychotherapy questionnaire in writing. After this, I took 15 minutes to complete the following exercises:

Technique: Grounding Techniques
Demonstration: “Use the 5-4-3-2-1 technique, where you identify five things you can see, four things you can touch, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste. This helps you anchor yourself in the present moment and reduce anxiety.”

Technique: Diaphragmatic Breathing
Demonstration: “Place one hand on your chest and the other on your abdomen. Breathe in slowly through your nose, focusing on expanding your abdomen rather than your chest. Exhale slowly through your mouth. This type of breathing promotes relaxation and can help manage tics.”

Technique: Body Scan Meditation
Demonstration: “Starting at your toes and working your way up to your head, mentally scan your body for areas of tension or discomfort. As you identify these areas, take a deep breath and imagine the tension melting away as you exhale.”

I then completed (3) games, for a total of 30 minutes.

DAY 2 SCORES:

(A) 10 minute (Warm-Up) 33% 19s 2168p

(B) 15 minute (Endurance) 36% 22s 4226p

(C) 10 Minute (Cool-down) 13% 10s 1322p

BEST SCORE (B):

During my first session session, I threw all of the rules out after being interrupted by my cat yet again. Instead of becoming frustrated, I moved to the couch and let my cat lay beside me. Upon this, I will be changing the name of this study to:

Investigating the Efficacy of Integrating fNIRS Neurofeedback Training with Psychotherapy Techniques in Minimizing Tic Severity: A Longitudinal Train wreck Under the Conditions of Domestic Feline Antagonism”

Anyway, I decided to see how my already interrupted game would be impacted by different environmental stimuli. I soon decided to pace around the room, carrying my phone with me, while maintaining laser focus on the game. I was surprised with the level of focus I was able to maintain while in motion or kicking a toy around for my cat, but then again, I always seem to have the most productive phone calls when I’m pacing. After the first game, I sat back down and attempted to execute two more games uninterrupted.

The second game was very successful. I almost felt like I was starting to “get it”, in the sense that I was understanding what other users of this platform may have been talking about when they described “training your brain like a muscle”. I felt at times like I was focusing on and/or feeling “drawn” to activate my PFC, similarly to how you want to move a part of your body. SO WIERD. I’ll try not to get too abstract or meta in my thinking about this, as I don’t want to create any kind of complex mental roadblocks for myself that could affect performance. I do wonder if it’s possible that eventually I will develop the ability to activate PFC neural activity, but it will be less dependent the specificity of my thoughts. This concept concerns me about the longevity of it’s effectiveness, similarly to how we develop tolerances for prescription drugs. If I am only passively activating neural activity, This is only a thought and a theory but if this is possible, than I think I it would be wise to continue to limit the use of the headset.

Third game was tragic. First of all, I went for 10 minutes instead of 5 on game C. I’ll go back to 5 tomorrow. I started to become very tired and wished I didn’t get home so late, otherwise I know I could have enjoyed a better session overall. All in all, very interesting progress today. On to tomorrow.

If you’ve read this, thanks for reading. Hope you’ve enjoyed it.