Transformative Neurotherapy Podcast

Learn How To Prepare For An Accurate EEG And What To Expect During Testing

• Dr. Heather Putney • Episode 7

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How Do Clients Prep For An EEG?

Want a brain readout you can trust? We dig into the simple, science-backed prep that turns an EEG from a noisy snapshot into a clear baseline you can act on. Dr. Heather Putney explains why timing, sleep, hydration, and a protein-forward breakfast dramatically improve signal quality, and how small choices like skipping caffeine for 12 hours prevent false “high performance” that hides the real issues you want to solve.

We walk step by step through the full session flow: eyes-open and eyes-closed resting state to map your idle networks, followed by auditory and visual go/no-go tasks that reveal attention, inhibition, and processing speed. You’ll hear how we reduce artifacts with clean, dry hair and careful electrode placement, why ear clips help separate room noise from true brain signals, and how we keep both adults and kids calm with equipment walk-throughs and practice rounds. If you’re worried about nerves, we share how anxious fast-wave activity and eye or jaw tension show up and what we do to settle everything so your data reflects you at your best.

Not every day is baseline, and that’s okay. We talk about when to proceed, when to reschedule, and how illness, new medications, or a sleepless night can skew results. The aim is actionable data: a reliable map of information flow, bottlenecks, and patterns linked to brain fog, chronic stress, and disrupted sleep. With a clean baseline, your care plan—whether neurofeedback, sleep hygiene, or cognitive training—can target what actually needs support. Ready to get a clearer picture of your brain and make smarter changes? Follow the show, share it with a friend who needs it, and leave a quick review to help more people find practical brain health guidance.

To learn more about Transformative Neurotherapy visit:
https://www.TransformativeNeurotherapy.org
Transformative Neurotherapy
570 Lincoln Ave.
Bellevue, PA 15202
412-204-7397

SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to the Transformative Neurotherapy Podcast with your host, Dr. Heather Putney, founder and executive director of Transformative Neurotherapy. This is the place where healing happens faster. Because let's face it, your brain doesn't come with an owner's manual until now. Here we take a holistic approach to brain health, bringing together science, mind-body harmony, and the tools you need to optimize your well-being. Whether you're a high performer, executive, athlete, longevity hacker, or just someone tired of your brain working against you, Dr. Putney is here to help you unlock your full potential. From brain fog to chronic stress, we're covering it all. So you can finally experience brain health, mind harmony, and total well-being. Ready to get on stuck? Let's get started.

SPEAKER_01:

Whether it's your first EEG or your fifth, preparation matters. Here's how to get the most accurate read on your brain's activity. Welcome everyone. I am Millie M., co-host and producer here in the studio with Dr. Heather Putney, founder and executive director of transformative neurotherapy. Dr. Putney, how are you? Doing great. Absolutely wonderful. Let's walk through the basics. How do clients prep for an EEG?

SPEAKER_02:

Well, the first thing that you want to for preparation starts before you even come into the office. So what we're trying to get out of the EEG is to understand what your brain looks like at baseline. So you want to give it the best, you know, possibility performance for the day that you come in for the EEG. So the so the prep starts, you know, a day or two before. We ask people to not be on caffeine for more than 12 hours prior to the EEG. So, you know, kind of starting, because it takes that long for caffeine to get out of your system. So if we want to say, like, what's your brain on caffeine? Well, go ahead. Don't douse yourself, we'll do the EEG. But that's your brain on caffeine, right? We want to see what your brain looks like without the caffeine, which might be the reason why you're reaching for the caffeine. So we ask people not to take, you know, not to take caffeine. We want them to get a good night's sleep. You know, do the best you can to get your a good night's sleep. We always do the EGs in the morning. And that time of day can shift a little bit between when people are the most alert. So if you're a late sleeper, you get up at 10, we can do this the thing a little bit later. But say you get up at six, we want to do that, you know, we want to do that EEG a little bit earlier because we want to kind of catch yourself like nice and fresh, you know, in the morning. So we always do our EEGs on a fresh brain, you know, kind of in the morning time. And we want you to come in having being really well hydrated without caffeine. Well, you know, we want you you had eaten a nice breakfast with good protein, not just sugar, but some protein. You can have sugar, you can have, you know, some sugar, but you just need to have that egg with it or something else. So you've got good energy for the brain during the task that we're going to do, because we're actually going to collect some data of your brain at rest with your eyes open for 10 minutes and closed for 10 minutes. And then we're going to do your brain on a task where you have to like have a listening task where when you listen to a sound, you click a click a button when it's the right sound and you ignore it when it's not the right sound. And the same thing for a visual task where when you see the go, you click, and when you see the no, you don't click. So we're gonna we were trying to get your brain doing at four different types of well, doing four different types of things. So at rest and active, but having different tasks, and that way we can kind of see how your brain is functioning and how information is flowing through your brain and where it might get stuck a little bit.

SPEAKER_01:

How do you help clients feel uh relaxed and comfortable during the scan?

SPEAKER_02:

Um well, the first thing we do is we show them all the equipment, you know, ahead of time. This is what it's going to be, you know, this is this is the the cap we're going to put on, which I've done before, you know, to kind of let the people see it. We try it on, you know, we have nice little pretty little earrings that we get clipped to the ears so we can make sure that we can tell the difference between your brain, e your brain waves or you know, EEG picked up or you know, electrical waves from the room. So we kind of click this, you know, extra brain so you can kind of cancel out the signal so we don't get artifact in the data. We think something's your brain that's not your brain. So we let the people kind of get used to the equipment. We answer any questions we can possibly answer. And before we do certain tasks, we'll let them practice just so they feel really comfortable, they're not nervous. So if they're gonna do the active task with the uh the visual or the hearing, we'll let them do a couple practice rounds so they get the hang of it so they're not they're not nervous, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01:

So um, I know this might sound silly, but similar to uh a lie detector test, if someone is in that heightened nervous state, is that going to affect the results?

SPEAKER_02:

Um, we'll probably see more fast wave like anxious activity in the brain. We could also see a little bit more like tension maybe in the eyes or in the jaw if they're not as relaxed. When we see some of that stuff, like it's more like looking at your brain waves live kind of across the street, and we'll just notice like, oh, okay, they're looking a little tense, and maybe we'll try to make sure like adjust their head or or whatnot, like help them to calm their eyes, the brains, you know, get into that like good brain space so they can kind of be nice and relaxed as they could possibly be. It's not gonna ruin the EEG, but we want to get them, you know, as as comfortable as they can be. And I and I did forget something else that's on the prep side is that we want people to come in with, you know, uh clean hair and scalp because we need to get a good read from the scalp to the brain. So we don't want a lot of product in the hair, the hair needs to be dry because water and moisture actually conducts electricity. So it kind of messes up, you know, messes up the conductance and we can't isolate as well as where things are coming from. So if people have hair extensions and so forth, that can be a little hard to work around, have to be, you know, careful. But yeah, so come in with you know, washed hair with no product in for you know, those days.

SPEAKER_01:

Let us get to your scalp. Great, great ice. Um, I know we talked about kids. Um, is the prep process different for kids? I know helping having them be able to physically touch and feel everything is is helpful for them as well.

SPEAKER_02:

It goes slower with the kids, they ask more questions, but no, the the it's the exact same procedure for the kids as it is for the adults. We just you know go slower. We take as much time as we need for them to be as comfortable as they can be.

SPEAKER_01:

And what happens if someone arrives unprepared? Can the EEG still be done?

SPEAKER_02:

Unprepared in what way?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, not following any of those. I guess I guess the question is, is there something a person can do or not do that would impede the EEG from being done?

SPEAKER_02:

I mean, if the person doesn't sleep at all the night before, they might come in and they're just gonna be so sleepy that they're actually like falling asleep during the EEG while they're doing the task. And we won't really know like, is this a good baseline for your brain? Like, do you actually have a sleep disorder, which we do see a lot of you know, disordered sleep with, you know, mental health issues, you know, for if you think about, you know, little kids when they're really sleepy, they can be cranky or irritable. It's not so different with us adults, right? So mental, like good quality sleep and the ability to get good quality sleep, you know, does toggle a lot with good mental health. And so sometimes what we will identify is maybe some some sleep issues, and we're kind of working with them around that. But yeah, we can always do the EEG. It's just uh, is it going to be the best data? Is it gonna tell us what we want to know? Or is like this is your sleepy brain? Congratulations, you were sleepy. Or is this, you know, but people can be like, I had a really lousy night's sleep, and they come in and they're like, but this is typical for me. Okay, well, then that's your brain on baseline. Some people just struggle with sleep, you know. But if it's so off, then we might want to reschedule for a different day. Someone maybe gets sick and has to take a bunch of medication or they're just feeling a lot of brain fog. We're going to reschedule because, like I said, the goal is to get the best, you know, view of your brain at its normal baseline without all these other things influencing it.

SPEAKER_01:

Makes perfect sense. Super helpful information. We'll catch you all the next time for more brain-braced brilliance.

SPEAKER_00:

You've been listening to the Transformative Neurotherapy Podcast with Dr. Heather Putney. Remember, your brain isn't supposed to hold you back, it's supposed to power you forward. So stop letting it crash your party and start letting it do its job. If you're ready to optimize brain health, sharpen your focus, and age like a fine wine, schedule your free consultation today at Transformative Neurotherapy.org. Or call us at 412-204-7397. Because here, healing happens faster. See you next time.