CFS Recovery Brain Retraining - with Dan Neuffer 

TIMESTAMPS: 01:05 - What is brain retraining? 06:44 - Is brain retraining the answer? 08:44 - Looking at the trigger of ME/CFS 10:24 - Our role in recovery 12:27 - Are there things to fear with brain retraining? 16:37 - Finding what works for you 21:23 - Why some people aren’t ready yet for brain retraining 24:55 - Which brain retraining program is best? 28:35 - How to learn more about ANS Rewire

One thing that has been key for me and only spoke about it certain recovery modalities (TMS/Dr. Sarno and Dr. Cathleen King's Primal Trust program , Dr. Kim D'eramo and a few others) is learning to feel emotions. Some of us from a young age (due to emotional neglect, (which can happen even in loving families when the parents themselves are not emotionally connected with themselves) abuse or trauma) became very cut off from our emotions and feelings (and our bodies) and getting reconnected to our feelings (and in our body ) is a key part of regulating the nervous system. Recovery is all about nervous system regulation so of course emotional regulation is part of that. Just distracting and brain training when emotions come up can make people worse as. the only thing emotions want is to be felt in the body. We need to name our emotions if they have come up, feel our emotions, and THEN brain train.

Great conversation, super helpful! I started the ANS Rewire program about a month ago & already seeing large benefits (recovering from crashes much faster & waking feeling refreshed for the first time in years). Highly recommend!

I would love to see all the CFS/ME 'experts' come together on your channel... Dan neuffer, alex howard, and toby morrison!

i can vouch for Dan's programme too! i like to think of it as a blueprint i can tailor to myself. i was once bedridden n paleo-keto got me off of that, but then i plateaued. With Dan's programme i got to cantering in horse riding lessons weekly and volunteering at a charity shop 6-10hrs a week before the covid pandemic. this made me feel the world was unsafe, i went into isolation, got hooked on weed the first year. This time last year, i started psychotherapy, went clean and im recently back into ketosis. My meditation has been consistent and my selfcare has improved. I NEEDED covid to rein me in n re-teach me Dan's lessons that wouldve otherwise led to a significant relapse had i continued rushing out into the world pre pandemic. Dan got me back on track n laid a solid foundation. My mental health/CPTSD and inconsistency (self neglect) have been whats not yet led to a full recovery and im getting better with those bit by bit EDIT; Ive watched the whole programme 5 times now n gain new deeper understanding each time

I bought Dan's book CFS Unravelled. What a gem. I can highly recommend it.

Thank you Raelan this came just at the right time for me ❤ honestly if I ever recover I owe you a big hug because your videos have been there for me when no one else was.

Dan is one of the best at explaining things for idiots like me lol "Its not what you do its how you do it" Damn

Terrific interview! I did the ANS Rewire 3 yrs ago and saw improvements and got out of being bedbound, but for some reason I stopped and started trying other things. Among those things I tried a different brain retraining program and did it for a few months and just couldn't connect with it. I did feel like it was my fault that I it worked for other people and not for me. I just started back up with the ANS Rewire again and also realized that therapy was something I needed as well. Thanks Dan! And thanks Raelan for interviewing him!,

What a sweetie, he’s just a thoroughly nice person.

This is a really important message. A few months ago, I did a brain training program and felt completely gas-lighted by the experience. There was so much in-built pressure in the program to do well and recover, that I felt as though I couldn't match-up from the word go (and surprise surprise I crashed and burned!) I think it's important to see brain training as a valuable part of the recovery toolbox, but like this interview suggests, lead with self-compassion and not with a single-minded expectation that you'll be cured immediately. Thanks Raelan for everything that you do, love your work :)

I think that brain retraining might be the road to recovery for me. But I get stubborn and give up too quickly! My 2022 goal is to really focus on this and hopefully have a good outcome!

Being ready is so true. Because for the longest time I thought brain training was saying it was all in my head. Like if I recovered with brain training then my illness wasn’t real. It’s now interesting me because I’m understanding more about the brain is neuroplastic.

Gosh so fantastic!!! I just love you guys!!! I’ve listened to everything Dan has done since he began (Dan and Toby have been HUGE in my recovery!) I’m so grateful for you guys and Raelan, THANK YOU for bringing so many amazing speakers to us... our stories are SO similar. I feel like you are my spirit sister!!🌹😘✨

Dan is the man 💥 I still do his brain retraining 2-3 x’s /day, through Covid-19’s symptoms, almost all gone- I still do dnrs, Gupta, I did LP and a 2/ month coach with BRT coach , of course I had to set the foundation I learned from Dans program and your book. For me it is holistic however BRT helps with my mindset. I now stick to what works, now that I’m making significant progress again, I realized I needed help with PTSD, so now the brt and everything else is supporting me towards full recovery. Dans program was my first and it’s still my foundation with every dip that use to come, I learned to stop dips. Progress progress progress 💥💥💥👏👏👏💥💥💥thank you💥❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜

So good to hear Dan refer to people who have tried brain training and weren’t successful in the long term, not to feel a failure. It’s so important to realise we are all different and if something doesn’t work that’s ok , just keep looking and trying.

Thanks Dan for this video. I am doing ANS Rewire now and this interview has been very helpful in presenting nuances that I have missed in the program.

Ooooo Dan said it well, it’s just part of your life….. 💥

The thing abt GET is that is comes from the mainstream medical / physiotherapy model which means it was most likely invented by someone who had never had cfs/fibro/me . Dan is good value. If only medicine had this flexible honest attitude.

People think ANS Rewire is a brain retraining tool. It is not. It is a compleet framework for the person to make their own recovery plan. It handles a lot of topics and based on what works for you, you add it to your recovery plan. For example, if you have certain emotional anchors the program advises to seek additional coaching for that (Cathleen King is really thorrow with this topic). If you have a lot of food symptoms it advises you to seek a nutritionist. It does give guidance but some people need more healing on certain areas.

Fantastic interview. I agree 100% with everything you both said!! Thank you thank you ❤

I tried DNRS and it’s visualization and yet I have aphantasia and didn’t realize at the time my brain doesn’t do mental pics. I thought I was doing what most were but I wasn’t. I took a whole Lotta good stuff away and I did have measures of improvement in my condition but I could never fully recover on that particular program. Truly needed more audio and body movement. I tried Gupta and loved the mediations for calming but it didn’t seem to incorporate my body to the degree necessary. I did breath work protocol and changed my breathing from mouth breathing to nostril and working using breath to calm the ANS and resolved a very mast cell inflamed esophagus. These reduced my fatigue but did not truly remove my biggest mast cell environmental emotional triggers. Too much trauma in my home environment was not a safe space from abuse so I just couldn’t get there. I would go to in person training and make progress but then shortly after returning to my home I would be right back where I started despite doing the protocol diligently. I worked with someone doing EMDR but because I was still in that trauma abusive environment it just didn’t work. I’m finally out of that home environment but that kind of puts me in a very stressful homeless situation but man I would love to give it a go again I’ll have to look into this guys program. Struggling

I so appreciate Dan's honest and nuanced approach, and his genuine compassion

Hello Raelan and Dan. I like you guys both. A short summary on my side: I was born in 1979 and I have been sick since 2008. It just started while I was doing my PhD studies abroad and since then I have never fully recovered. I am much better than the earlier days of the onset of the CFS I have tried various programs from Alex Howard, Gupta's Amygdala training and also Dan's ANS Rewiring program. During all these years, I have worked as a fulltime research and development engineer (felt like hell sometimes) in a software company and spent most of my income on products that may help CFS conditions disappear. But they never did, eventually. In my experience the first and foremost thing is to understand that CFS patients that are experiencing it on the same lines as I do, have continuous stress in our systems. Even very basic stuff can increase our stress levels very high and somehow it remains as high unless we do deliberate action on it, like meditation. Coming to meditation and brain training, I have worked on Dan's techniques which are also included in Alex's and Gupta's programs in some different shape and form. Dan's program structure is great, Alex's Reset program is also one of the best I can. Gupta's is a bit outdated now and requires some different kind of work that not everybody may like or use effectively. Dan basically focuses on stress reduction and teaching the brain to stay in a calm and relaxed state through meditation continuously 45 minutes. It starts with 20 mins but the target duration is continuous 45 mins meditation. Now, I must admit that I am not the person that does everything perfectly but to be true to myself I did pretty much as correctly as I can what Dan's or Alex's programs instructed to me. It has been around 6 years now that I have worked through Dan's program but I had very little success on that. What bothered me on the program was even after 4 months of hard meditation for 45 minutes, eating habit changes and other brain training methods I just did not see a significant change overall. Not to discourage people on that but It simply did not work for me as is. After a year or so. I've retried the program with a lesser motivation and I of course failed again. But meanwhile I should admit that I had some gains as well. Earlier I did not have the awareness of the pain I had on my neck and back area and continuous low level ongoing stress. This program taught me how to deal with them. On Alex's program however, the mediation practice is also there but in shorter chunks. And this I could tell suited me much better since there are different times during the day that I started to have increased stress and the lack of intervention on it just lets it keep going during whole day. So Shorter amount of meditation everyday at different times helped me more I would say. My eating habits are already good since many years. The only point that I fail is sleeping. I simply cannot go to bed before 12pm and I usually sleep 7-8 hours. The amount is not too few but the time when you go to sleep makes a difference that I don't have data to prove. But anyway, I cannot usually go to be too early as it is recommended most of the programs. Anyway just wanted to make a contribution as an experienced CFS patient. Thanks for you on your work and all the other researchers, ex-patients new coaches and all the community on their contribution.

Thanks for this informative interview! I think the key is believing that what you are doing is healing you. I’ve noticed that theme in all of your recovery videos. People truly believed that they would recover and also that what they are doing IS helping, even when they regress at any given moment. I also think we need to change the name of this illness to something that involves nervous system dysregulstion regardless of the original source. CFS sucks as a name. In this day and age who isn’t “chronically fatigued?” Because the CNS is so heavily involved in the illness, I do think that brain retraining (central hub of the CNS) will always be part of the answer, whether we realize it or not. For you, Raelan, brain retraining was changing the way you viewed movement through scuba diving, for others it’s EFT tapping, energy healing, DNRS or pure meditation. So if one form of brain retraining doesn’t work, perhaps it’s not the subtype for that given person. We just have to keep trying and keep going. 💪🏼❤️ I just typed that with my eyes half open without fainting. #progress

Thank you both so much for your work; for this interview; and for your authenticity. Sarah, NZ

Thank you for confirming that brain retraining may not work if there is a serious underlying physiological cause. I was recently diagnosed with severe M.E/CFS and fibromyalgia on my 30th birthday after suffering for the past two years and I believe the cause is a 10+ years old infected dead root canal tooth. I have been considering trying brain retraining however I’ve now decided I need to extract the tooth first.

I hope your channel explodes Raelan, it is so helpful.

I did his program about a year ago and got a lot better- I did not follow it perfectly but I am 50 percent better- such a comprehensive program-so much good stuff in there - I gained a lot of personal insights - he is a lovely teacher and I think given the amount of content it’s an absolute bargain- I still go back to it from time to time- if you are thinking about it I would say this - I’d be very surprised if you didn’t get a few precious nuggets of wisdom from it ❤️X

Thanks to you Raelan, and the high praise of others, I began Dan's program six weeks ago. It's fantastic! And one of my favorite aspects is the way his method becomes the practical framework of my daily life. Dan has a soothing presence and is a gifted educator. For me, it's the right program at the right time.

Hi Raelan, do you know of many people that have fully recovered from having severe CFS? I find so many recovery stories are from people with mild and moderate symptoms and worry being too deep will be too difficult to get out from. Thank you! 🙏🏼

If you are able - please would you consider creating a resource which compares/summarises the different brain retraining programs? Would love to just know what is out there to try

Thanks!

Does this have to do with the fact that our brain is neuroplastic and can be retrained? I have heard Dr Caroline Leaf from South Africa on this.

❤️

What was the brain training/person he mentioned that uses a machine? I couldn’t quite catch what that was he referred to. Great video!!

Is ans rewire suitable for very severe, bedridden people? Can/did one make progress with this? I was homebound and went bedbound due to a stupid fysical activity.

Does Dan have a youtube channel

p.s. cant wait for the other vids you do with Dan

Hi Raelan, You mentioned that you use brain training in your recovery unconsciously. What was your personal brain training then? I've seen several video about it but still struggle to fully understanding it and put it into practice. Some guidance would be great! Thank you in advance. Fabi

Hi Raelan, where it says; How To Contact & Find Out More About Dan, just below for Website, I clicked on it and it took me to Alex Howard's page. Is that what you meant to put there? (Sorry, I used to be a teacher & trained to look for mistakes...)

Gee I like him.

This was very helpful. Many thanks. I failed the DNRS program as I was too sick to engage in 1 hour of visualization every day. Is there any other way I can recover without having to visualize every day?

All i heard was blah, blah, blah? Doesnt mention how he wants $849 for the program. Another quack to sell his over rated product!

Thanks!