Running a business can be an exhilarating and rewarding journey, but it can also bring a unique set of stressors. While the beginning stages of a business can be exciting and feel full of possibilities, the realities behind the day-to-day grind of owning and operating your own business can take a massive toll. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, 49% of entrepreneurs are dealing with mental health struggles. There are any number of unknown factors, perhaps the most intense being the unknown itself, that can create anxiety and fear.

Being an entrepreneur requires facing the stress of the unknown—as well as a flood of paperwork and administrative responsibilities, including taxes, licensing, contracts, or inventory. The mountain of organizational tasks that accompany business management adds up quickly. And, often, particularly in the early stages, it’s common for business owners to wear multiple hats—or every hat, in some cases.

“You have to be wherever your business needs you to be, and whoever it needs you to be,” says Olivia Amitrano, founder and CEO of herbal supplement brand Organic Olivia. “Sometimes, that’s the photographer, the copywriter, the marketer, or HR, especially when you’re small. Multitasking can take a mental toll, and I feel like I need to be especially careful about my nervous system and brain health—aka protect my attention span—as I’m switching between so many tasks in a day.”

Even being successful can be stressful when you run a business. The more successful you are, the higher the demand for your time. Meeting deadlines, delivering on promises to clients, being solely responsible for the well-being of employees or your own financial security can be a heavy burden to bear. These stresses can lead to feelings of isolation, imposter syndrome, and burnout. Now, a growing field of researchers believe that neurofeedback could help many manage these kinds of stress.

WHAT IS NEUROFEEDBACK?

Neurofeedback is a non-pharmaceutical approach to improving brain health, mood, and cognitive disorders. By measuring, and assessing, real-time brain activity using an electroencephalogram (EEG), neurofeedback research can help people rewire their brains and improve their mental heath.

“EEG is a noninvasive way to map the brain and understand brain dynamics. It measures symptoms using neuropsychological evaluation as well as establishing a cognitive profile such as memory retention and other executive functions,” says Kamran Fallahpour, clinical psychologist and director of the Brain Resource Center (BRC). “We look at data and establish a personalized assessment of brain function and cognition. We then match that with the needs and goals of an entrepreneur, which are usually things like reducing stress-flow states, memory, sleep, and other goals to enhance their ability to manage the goals of their business, personal health, and longevity.”

The final step of any neurofeedback treatment is making sure a person isn’t facing underlying cognitive issues or disorders and implementing a treatment plan. Fallahpour says that it’s common to see positive changes within 20 to 60 sessions: “The BRC has used this method, along with other neuroscience-based interventions, successfully for the past 20 years, helping children and adults with ADD, ADHD, anxiety, depression, sleep disturbances, concussions, chronic pain, and peak performance.”

One reason figures like Fallahpour are so bullish about neurofeedback therapy is that it incorporates cutting-edge technology with a noninvasive platform. “I believe that brain training is going to be the focus of the future, and it is going to help the global mental health crisis. There are many methodologies for brain training and hacking the brain, but we believe neurofeedback and brain computer interface are going to be the center of that because they are effective and noninvasive,” he says. “We have developed hardware, software, and protocols that have proven to be quite effective in helping people with cognition, mood regulation, chronic pain, ADD, brain injury, concussion, and even peak performance.”

HOW ENTREPRENEURS CAN BENEFIT FROM NEUROFEEDBACK

Neurofeedback provides entrepreneurs a proactive approach toward their mental health. It allows a way for them to not just relax, but also release pent-up emotions and rebuild the way their brains manage anxiety and stress. By eliminating and managing stressors, neurofeedback can help entrepreneurs reach heightened levels of focus, unleash higher levels of productivity, and unlock their fullest potential.

By monitoring the way a person’s brain behaves and reacts in real time, neurofeedback can help individuals pinpoint specific stressors and train their brain to manage them. Take, for example, the stress of imposter syndrome. Amitrano says she often struggles with imposter syndrome, which she says “can be exhausting, at times.” But by examining the way a brain reacts to a stimulus like imposter syndrome, people like Amitrano gather more tangible data with which to approach their mental well-being—or even avoid stress by anticipating and confronting triggers in healthy and constructive ways.

Neurofeedback can also help train the brain to recognize healthy and unhealthy patterns, changing the way a person’s brain recognizes stress and how it manages it. For instance, neurofeedback can let entrepreneurs know when they are losing focus. With this information, entrepreneurs can train their brains to trigger more productive and focused responses.

Running a business is hard work. There’s no shortage of difficulties that accompany it. Long hours, wearing many different hats, uncertainty, instability, and pressure all can cause stress and reduced productivity. Neurofeedback therapy goes directly to the source—the brain—and is revolutionizing mental health for business owners by giving them a noninvasive approach (without pills or medicines) to managing stress and focus.