The Balanced Brain

06/23/2026

The brain is not a bowl of soup.

For decades, we’ve talked about mental health mostly through chemistry:

Serotonin.
Dopamine.
Norepinephrine.
GABA.

And chemistry matters. Medications can help. Sometimes they are necessary.

But the chemical story is too small.

The brain is also electrical.

Neurons fire. Circuits activate. Networks get stuck, overreact, shut down, recover, or fail to shift when they should.

Medication changes the soup.

Neurofeedback trains the sparks.

That doesn’t make one good and the other bad. It means they are working on different layers of the same system.

The brain needs chemistry.
It also needs timing, rhythm, regulation, recovery, nutrition, sleep, and capacity.

That’s the fuller conversation.

I wrote more about this — including an old fuse box, a penny, gut serotonin, and why neurotransmitters are not delivered to the brain like an Amazon package — in my latest Substack.

Link in comments.

06/09/2026

A quick look inside a neurofeedback training session at The Balanced Brain.

Many people are curious about neurofeedback but aren’t sure what the process actually looks like. A session is quiet, comfortable, and collaborative. The brain receives real-time feedback, giving it an opportunity to learn better self-regulation, flexibility, and calm over time.

Learn more at:
https://www.thebalancedbrain.com/

05/25/2026

“Cognitive health is the next frontier in self-care.”

That line from the New York Times stopped me because it names something I think about a lot.

I’m 76.

So yes, I think about my brain.

I think about memory.
Word-finding.
Processing speed.
Mental sharpness.
The quiet little moments when you forget why you walked into a room and wonder, Is this normal aging… or something else?

And maybe you’re younger than I am.

But be honest.

You think about it too.

Because we live in a culture that has taught us to take care of almost everything except the organ running the whole show.

Skin.
Weight.
Muscles.
Metabolism.
Heart health.
Longevity routines.

But the brain?

Too often, it gets whatever is left over.

We push it through poor sleep, chronic stress, alcohol, overstimulation, endless screens, and nutrition that doesn’t support stable energy or clear thinking.

Then one day we forget a name.
Lose a word mid-sentence.
Feel slower than we used to.
Notice stress knocking us off-center more easily.

And suddenly, the concern gets real.

Because looking younger is not the same as functioning better.

Brain health is not just about avoiding decline. It is about building capacity.

Capacity for focus.
Memory.
Emotional regulation.
Sleep.
Resilience.
Mental flexibility.
Feeling like yourself.

I don’t say this from a distance.

I’m aging too. I have the same concerns about memory, sleep, stress, sharpness, and long-term brain health that many people have.

The advantage I have is my work.

I’ve spent years working with neurofeedback brain training, and I’ve seen personally and professionally that the brain remains trainable.

I know I function better than many people in my demographic, and I don’t think that’s luck.

It’s not because I found the magic supplement.

Supplements may support the body, but they do not substantially train brain performance by themselves.

Your brain needs what every adaptive system needs:

The right inputs.
The right environment.
Repetition.
Feedback.
Recovery.

That’s where neurofeedback brain training comes in.

Neurofeedback gives the brain real-time information about its own activity, so it can begin learning more efficient, regulated pa

03/26/2026

There are now dozens of technologies that claim to influence the brain.

Neurofeedback.
Transcranial stimulation.
Photobiomodulation.
Vagus nerve stimulation.
Hyperbaric oxygen therapy.
rTMS.

Each is often presented as if it might be the solution.

But the brain doesn’t work that way.

It’s a layered biological system.

Different approaches influence different layers of regulation.

Some improve the biological terrain the brain depends on.

Some stabilize the nervous system.

Some influence neural circuits.

And some—like neurofeedback—help the brain learn how to regulate itself.

I’ve been thinking about this as the Brain Regulation Ladder, a simple way to understand how these approaches may fit together.

Ultimately, the goal isn’t just changing brain activity.

It’s helping people live more meaningful lives.

I wrote a short piece explaining the idea here:

https://johnmekrut581505.substack.com/p/from-biology-to-meaning

03/06/2026

I’m looking forward to joining this expert panel on March 10 to discuss neurofeedback in practice—what it is, where it helps, where caution is warranted, and how it can support self-awareness, focus, performance, and regulation. It should be a grounded conversation beyond the usual hype.

You're Invited to an Exciting Expert Panel: Neurofeedback in Practice-Insights into how biofeedback and neurofeedback can enhance self-awareness, focus, and performance!

🗓️ Date: March 10th (90 minutes)

Get ready to dive deep into the world of neurofeedback on March 10th with our expert host, Edward Macdonald, MCC, MBA, and an incredible lineup of panellists, including John Mekrut, David Hardy, Leonard Khirug, Dario Nardi, and Ramamurthy Krishna, PCC,CMC,EMNL,!

Why Attend?
➡️ Unlock the Secrets of Your Brain: Discover how neurofeedback can enhance self-awareness, focus, and performance.
➡️ Real-World Insights: Engage in candid discussions that cut through the hype and reveal what neurofeedback truly offers.
➡️ Expert Perspectives: Gain clarity from leading practitioners on ethical practices, client engagement, and integration into therapeutic frameworks.

Join us for a lively and informative session where we’ll explore the power of neurofeedback and its practical applications. Don’t miss this chance to elevate your understanding and practice!

Register here: https://www.linkedin.com/events/7430522011459870720?viewAsMember=true

02/15/2026

Some childhood environments don’t teach us “love.” They teach us how to survive connection.

When love isn’t given safely, we learn to take it wherever we can find it—sometimes even when it hurts.

For many people with trauma histories, closeness can feel like a mixed signal: comfort and threat braided together. Hyper-vigilance, shutdown, people-pleasing, emotional reactivity—these aren’t character flaws. They’re protection.

In our work, we’re not trying to “think” the nervous system into safety. We’re helping it practice safety—gently, repeatedly—until calm becomes more familiar than chaos.

If this lands for you: you’re not broken. You adapted. And patterns can change.

What has helped your nervous system start to feel safe again?

Quote attributed to Lauren Eden

01/06/2026

I keep seeing wellness posts claiming the gut “controls” mental health — sometimes even invoking the FDA to sell supplements.

That framing is misleading.

Yes, the gut and brain communicate.
Yes, nutrition matters.
But support is not the same as control.

No supplement — natural or pharmaceutical — teaches a brain how to regulate itself.
If it did, mental health wouldn’t remain such a persistent challenge.

When we oversimplify brain regulation, we don’t become more holistic — we become less accurate.

I wrote a longer piece unpacking this, including:
• why “psychobiotic” claims are overstated
• why supplement sourcing actually matters
• and why regulation is a learning process, not a product

Full piece on Substack (link in comments).

12/27/2025

You can’t cut food-safety surveillance and still claim you care about health.

This STAT article explains how funding cuts are weakening FoodNet — one of the systems that detects food-borne illness early, before people end up sick, inflamed, or struggling with unexplained symptoms.

🔗 https://www.statnews.com/2025/12/22/american-food-safety-funding-cuts-foodnet/

At The Balanced Brain, nutrition is foundational — not because it’s trendy, but because the brain is exquisitely sensitive to inflammation, blood-sugar instability, and immune stress.

We see it every day:
• Gut issues showing up as anxiety or brain fog
• Poor food tolerance disrupting sleep and mood
• “Clean eating” failing when the food system itself is compromised

Nutrition doesn’t start at the plate.
It starts with safe food and early detection.

When surveillance systems are weakened, the cost shifts downstream — onto families, clinicians, and already-stressed nervous systems.

Health isn’t built on slogans or suspicion.
It’s built on measurement, feedback, and prevention.

Cut the instruments, and you don’t get freedom.
You get blindness.

More Americans will be exposed to foodborne illness as a result of this year's funding cuts, food safety experts predict