Inside the Autistic Brain - THE RESULTS ARE IN! 

Is there anything we can do to win that sleep battle then, do you know?

@@burnyizland Dealing with this as well - finding ways to allow my brain to fully recover. Hope Paul shares more of his journey with this!!

@@burnyizlandI don’t know how relevant this is for you, but I recently was prescribed Vyvanse for weight loss by my family doctor. My sleep quality improved immediately after starting the medication. I’m fairly ignorant of body processes and brain function, but it is astonishing to me that a stimulant could help me sleep better than I have in 20 years. It also, weirdly, has improved - if not eliminated - my restless legs. I have more energy than I have since I was a teenager; it’s amazing for me.

@@Sinted That's a really interesting tip, thank you. My main doctor is very open to off label use of medications. He also usually has a good idea of what's going on in the body to utilize them in the ways we've used them. I'm going to talk to him about this the next time I see him, I'll let you know if I learn anything interesting - just know that it takes a while to get an appointment with any doctor in Canada these days so it could take a while. Thank you again. I'm so glad it worked for you!

​@@burnyizlanddo everything so your brain can shut off. Turn off all lights, at least an hour before going to sleep. Workout during the day, it will make your brain tired in the evening Play chess, sudoku, smartphone games etc. Where you need your brain to work and actually think. Read during the day and before turning off the lights in the evening Don't eat food like meat, Oil, Chips, Chocolate, sugar, onions, no cheese or fried food a few hours (5-6 hours) before going to bed Don't drink any coffe or energy drink 9-10 hours before going to bed. Get clean from any addiction: Weed, alcohol, stimulants, opiates, sugar, food, video games, tv series, etc. Don't watch tiktok or youtube a few hours before going to bed. Try to let your dopamine levels even out as much as possible, watch some long movies or series, instead of shorts which give you dopamine bursts Maybe that's just for me but a cold shower (mine is very cold) makes me very tired. My body raises temperature which is bad for sleeping but after a some time it goes down, especially if I lay down and put the blanket over me. Prepare to lie down for at least 30 minutes to let your brain calm down. Don't give it any new information where you have think, let your brain process your days experiences. You can put on some wave sounds, forest sounds, brown noise, pink noise, white noise, green noise, etc. To help you relax and sleep, allthough I get bored of those sounds pretty quick so for me it doesn't work all the time. Inform yourself about good sleep positions and aquire the right equipment like additional pillows for your back and legs and a matress that fits your body. There are also cooling and heating matresses that regulate your body temperature during sleep Before bed you can have some snacks like a half banana and some walnuts, just inform yourself on which food is easy to digest and helps you sleep and lets you produce more melatonin I think I mentioned pretty much everything that helps me. The most important points are: Turning off the lights and not being on your phone before bed. working out (strength training and cardio but you don't need to do much everyday, you also need rest and recovery days, listen to your body), using my brain in quizes, puzzles, chess, etc. Not eating heavy food at least 5-6 hours before bed And taking a cold shower in the morning and the evening (a warm shower is okay aswell because it lowers body temperature afterwards but it doesn't reduce inflammation) Inflammation is also a big factor why we can't sleep because it affects the sleep center in our brain and can cause neuro inflammation which you probably have if you have brain fog regularly. To reduce inflammation you should reduce meat, oil (not olive oil) and processed food and food and drinks with sugar in it because regular sugar consumption can cause chronic inflammation and neuroinflammtion and other illnesses like metabolic disorder which also makes it hard to sleep. Actually everything is kind of important but test it our for yourself. My tips will help you sleep better for sure And just one personal tip: if you have any addicitons, especially fast food addiction or any fried food, you develop strong cravings which also can make it very hard to sleep in the night and create a vicious cycle of insomnia because not sleeping good enough makes your cravings worse and your worse cravings make your sleep worse.

The training I was referring to is “neurofeedback”, or gentle biofeedback shaping the EEG, blood flow, etc to change the brain performance over time. Iterative and progressive - personal training for the brain resources.

By training, he means neurofeedback, where your brain is scanned in real time and you're given an auditory or visual signal when your brain is moving in the desired direction.

@@DrHill very interesting, I'll look into it thanks!

🤣

I thought the same thing, but actually I heard this here in Germany very often coming from older people as if it is just a phrase. But let´s be honest in a talk like this should he first tell us 15 minutes about how he slept? lol

It’s so hard to always answer these meaningless exchanges correctly. I expect “Have a good day.” and get “Thank you for the ride.” and end up responding “You too!”. 🤦‍♀️

P.S. Not only do I sometimes mask during the day, I wear a mask all night, too, haha.

This isn’t objective. The “researcher” is a scammer. I work in a neuroimaging lab and it is common knowledge among us that you cannot learn about an individual person’s strengths and weaknesses through a measurement of brain activity. Studies done using brain activity are only legitimate if they have a large sample size and the data are averaged (ex: 25 autistic people’s data averaged vs 25 neurotypical data averaged). There is no way to tell an autistic brain from a neurotypical brain using an EEG or anything like it!

100% relatable!

Complain, there might be a quiet area. I went to my GP for a new prescription for eye drops, I complained about the TV and we spent more time talking about autism than my eye.

a lot of how i think about QEEG is not about scanning for "truth" or looking for the diagnosis label, but looking at your brain for itself, in all its quirks, and learning to understand the different brain resources (physiology / function) that might be related to big features of stress, sleep, attention, sensory, social, verbal, speed, etc... but at a systems or cognitive neuroscience level - looking at the overlap of performance and physiology.. and then doing population level comparisons to see what sticks up, and see if it matters to you. but people are weird, so we dont assume that unusual QEEGs necessarily *mean* something - it just gives us some ideas about how things might work. The attention testing help restrict / validate some of those QEEG suggested ideas.. but the ones you think are true are the ones likely to be able to be most useful for you to try to push around with neurofeedback, meditation, sleep hacking, other biohacking.. and watch change as you try interventions, So yeah.. you can totally "have" ADHD, or Austim , or a dysregulated Trauma response... and a bunch of other things that doctors might agree on a file system for.. and that suffering totally sucks and is valid and not enjoyable.. but learning how your own brain works will change your relationship with any labels.. AND often gives you ideas about how to make the changes you want. Sorry if this is preachy. I can get on a soapbox on this topic of personal agency through data given any opportunity.

@@myhalowithin yeah big white or grey matter changes will totally change your brain. You will see some of speed changes, as well as some of the local stuff if "big" and progressed.. but you also might be surprised as how "typical" EEG can be broadly. or also how non-specfic some things are. for example - the signatures of "brain fog" look very similar, but can come from concussion, cvd19, trauma, sleep issues (apnea), etc.. and you cannot really tell the difference at a high level, but can guess about the fog and sluggish processing. For MS stuff you will see some of those focal changes maybe, but you also might just show general fog / fatigue stuff.

@@DrHill seems awfully expensive to have something that is a stab in the dark

@@DrHill I have been wondering whether the next edition of DSM might break autism into tiny pieces. There are so many different sets of traits that it seems to me that they might be different disorders. I hate that word. The first definition that comes up is illness. I'm NOT SICK. I did have a good alternative, but I've forgotten it. I wonder whether a diagnosis is actually useful? Whether I am diagnosed autistic or not, I have a set of traits, some of them disadvantageous. For those, I needed better help than being caned for not doing my homework. I was good at maths and sciences, perhaps my education in those should have been accelerated. And those without regard for whether I was diagnosed autistic, ADHD, OCD. Those are illustrative.

⁠“but learning how your own brain works will change your relationship with any labels…AND often gives you ideas about how to make the changes you want.“ This is the way I am going through life-educating myself about how and why everything happens inside me and reacting to the outside world. Finding out I am Audhd last year helped to see so much clearer! 😊 Now I am at the path of learning to regulate pauses in my everyday-life. After a very emotionally moving day one in Munich last month I spent a second day in the presence of two very special neurodiverse people-and beside some talking we spent 86% of our resources ( time, energy, open-ness) on feeling the drainage of those resources for one out of us three and instantly regulating it together ( one feeling the need for a brake of 5 minutes , me following and feeling my own need for a pause for the first time(!) ) thus keeping us all in a quite homogenically “chilled zone“ individually and looking out for each other. It was more co-regulation AND new: being able to feel the need for regulation myself than I have ever experienced 😌 It was pure bliss😊 I had the thought: if I had this like once a week in my everyday life it would be like a deeply satisfying therapy! I felt refreshed and… regulated. Now I wonder how to implement this in my day to day life. I am not quite there and I wonder if I can do it on my own, since I seem to need „people“ to feel myself… So what I started to do is to order myself a break or half a day of in the swing after doing one hard thing a day. Although it’s quite technical it starts working😊 Just giving myself free TIME to recover just in case -is working like magic! Also I am doing Taketina, a rhythm therapy that focusses on finding the sweet spot of „flow energy“ whilst being challenged by the work of doing 2 different rhythms with your hands and feet while singing ( it’s fun-Is swear 😂!) What this therapy actually does is train you to get to know the sweet spot of „perfect operating conditions ( you are encouraged to step out off any part that challenges you at any time! Be it: the clapping or the steps, the singing or the people. You may choose to rest, sitting or lying down. But you shall do it while staying connected-not stepping outside off the group. The second thing it does is train your vagal response to actually STAY connected and maybe even regulated through all the (created )overly challenging work-like situation ( initially everybody tries to „keep up“ 😂 before remembering to stay within the fun-flow-parameter) This is the part where I feel the most growth as an autistic person. At the moment I am taking part in a clinical study regarding Taketina that will show some results within a year maybe. Dr.Hill what do you think about the Safe and sound protocol by Dr. Steven Porges to regulate the nervous system through sound? Would be very interested if there are overlapping studies regarding the polyvagal theory and neurofeedback? Greetings from Germany, Julia

When I looked it up, seems not much credibility

Agreed. The confidence with which he makes his claims ("X value on the chart might mean you are like Y") is way too strong compared to the overall confidence of that area of research for being able to make such claims based on the evidence.

look at the literature behind the Neuroguide QEEG database. That is what this population metric is created from. They are Z-scores, not significant figures, as well.

@@memyselfandchristina also, calling it a "brain scan" is misleading. More like taking an EEG & trying to deduce more from it than intended.

I was also concerned with how much was known about Paul before the results were read - it is very easy to bias the "results."

I also would like a deeper explanation of what he was describing, and I’m super fascinated to understand what can be done to alter the brain, given this info.

I felt overwhelmed as well. Too much too fast for me.

I need Cliff Notes. I would have to watch this 30 times to get it. He talks too fast (or I process too slow).

I felt the same...

Yeah, I had to pause it every few words and process. The best I could derive from it is that high-quality sleep seems fundamental; and that there's such a thing as EQ alongside IQ (and SQ too). I hadn't known there was a term for it. I found a short but thorough summary of those three, entitled "Our Three Main Intelligences," on a website called minessence, and that was pretty interesting. To suddenly deduce some nonsense from that and experience: it seems like my learning in the EQ "field" may not neuronally bind or stick properly, and that whereas that stuff is usually tacit learning people aren't aware of, I become indirectly aware of it as I puzzle over my difficulties with it; gradually build up a rule-based simulacrum of it based on self-observation; and then insistently try to rationalise it via that abstraction, unaware that the essential "form" of the abstraction I'm puzzling over is fundamentally incompatible with rational processing and can never be solved. 30+ years of introspective self-study ensue, never to conclude. I'm doing it right now! I see you, Brain! Get out of my head! If my silly musings are vaguely realistic, I wonder about the odd mixing (or whatever it was) of social and sensory processing, which I related to quite a bit in the video. Perhaps that's what leads to both my inability to ever develop a concrete sense of what's socially safe or correct; and to my continuously finding my favourite songs/subjects/etc. to be almost as profound and exciting as when I'd first encountered them.

Thanks for sharing, sounds like you are dealing with a lot of uncomfortable activation of your system, and sorry if so - but some great intensity. Hang in there - there are lots of ways to gain control of the stuff that is in the way, and keep the magical stuff that serves you well. There is a really easy to use tool called HRV biofeedback (heartmath makes a good one) that might support you - it can teach more control over that sympathetic/parasympatheic balance, over time. sorta like tech-assisted meditation.

Your brain isn’t offline. A lot of people here are having trouble following because this doctor is a scammer and is talking nonsense. :(

It’s because he’s making things up as he goes along, based on what Paul says. He is a scam artist.

Yes, you noticed the thing correctly. Sounded more like aba/conversion style, the idea of training your brain to work more like nt, instead of knowing your own wiring so you can drive the thing. He also kinda tried to impose his own metaphors but Paul did an amazing job replying with his own experience, bringing forth sleep as a priority instead of some other social-behavioral micromanagement.

No you don’t. This is a scam! Get neuropsych testing done. That will give you real insight on your brain’s strengths and weaknesses.

Lack of introspection is a Cluster B trait, not an autistic trait.

Never heard of lack of introspection as an autistic trait, though some say autistic children have no imagination (I disagree). Emotional awareness and interoception, on the other hand, can be a challenge.

I absolutely disagree that lack of introspection is autistic. In my own family it is the spectrum members who tend toward introspection and the NTs who do not.

A lack of introspection has never been an issue about me. It is more like I have too much introspection compared to the stereotype neurotypical.

@@lesliegann2737 That’s interesting. I guess it’s the two poles issues, can’t smell or smells are overwhelming for example. Maybe? I hope.

thanks!

98% of people with Autism have the MTHFR gene mutation. Besides Methyl B12, I also use Methyl form of Folate, too. I keep bringing this up but none of the Autism Channels pay attention to this necessity.

@@judylandry302 I hadn't heard of that, will look into it.

@@judylandry302 Same experience here! x'D

It looks like cold reading to me

@@uq473 I didn’t want to be that harsh right away but I considered that as a real possibility, yes

I think you’re right to be skeptical! I work in a neuroimaging lab, and as of current technology, we are not able to scan an individual and tell if they have a serious mental illness or if they are completely healthy. So how can one tell if a person has auditory processing disorder or a spiky profile based on these readings? This is especially dubious when it comes to measurement of brain *activity!* Brain activity studies are only good when done on groups.

I’m sorry. They don’t explain enough because these guys are scammers. I can explain in more detail. But if you want real testing to help your son, look for legitimate neuropsych testing. There is no need for imaging or scans. I’m going to be doing a neuropsychological evaluation for myself very soon.

That's because, unfortunately, it is. Even if Dr. Hill actually believes what he is saying (I'll give him the benefit of the doubt that he is merely interpreting artifacts from noise, rather than intentionally trying to scam the population), I've yet to see a peer reviewed scientific study that shows any efficacy in neurofeedback (that isn't also shown in things such as meditation, for example). I'd be open to reading something, anything, that was part of a controlled study, but as it stands now, the evidence is quite weak.

I work in a neuroimaging lab, and I can confirm that our technology is not advanced enough to learn this much about an individual from measurements that come from *brain activity.* This smells like a scam to me.