If we haven’t met…Hi! I’m Jessica Raaum Foster, a Neuro Performance Coach and a
Z-Health Master Practitioner with over a decade of experience working with brains! I help people get out of pain (of any kind) and improve performance by teaching them how to play with their brains. I use practical tools and techniques taken from cutting-edge neuroscience to help you understand, uncover, and overcome obstacles in your nervous system itself that may be blocking you from achieving your health or performance goals.
While I am not an expert in the field of mental health, my own mental health issues were what actually drew me into
Z-Health and Neuro Performance coaching.
I have battled anxiety most of my life and have had a few (thankfully short) periods of deep depression. I use humor as a defense mechanism, so I tend to mask these issues well; but they are exhausting and - in certain instances - downright debilitating.
For most of my adult life, I have felt like I am constantly swimming upstream. At times, that exhaustion has become so overwhelming that functioning as an adult in the world has seemed impossible. It was like someone had turned off the pilot light; I would just sit and stare at the walls, unable even to attempt to accomplish simple tasks.
I developed a binge-eating disorder in my teens that lasted for almost 20 years. It was clearly a coping mechanism, but it also fed (excuse the pun) the chaos to a point that, at times, had me contemplating suicide.
If I had one word to describe these experiences, it would PAINFUL.
I have worked with a therapist through most of this journey - having access to that level of emotional support is something I do not take for granted. (Nearly 40% of people suffering from anxiety and depression do not receive care.) That said, therapy did not resolve my issues. Neither did meditation, medication, yoga, 12 Steps, rebirthing myself, or any traditional methodologies of treating anxiety or depression. Those techniques all helped me manage the symptoms and decrease the external chaos in my world, but they didn’t solve the inner turbulence.
Things began to change when I found
Z-Health Performance Solutions, a brain-based training education company. I discovered some pretty severe deficits in my visual system, my vestibular (balance) system, and in my interoceptive system (the system that connects our sensory systems with our emotions.) In re-training these and other elements of my nervous system, I actually started to RECOVER.
The anxiety can still creep back in when life gets crazy or my self-care laxes too far, but I now have both the ability to recognize the symptoms before they become unmanageable and a vast toolbag of things I can do to help re-regulate my nervous system. Depression is even rarer for me, and the eating disorder has never returned.
Those are some pretty powerful results! As you can see, finding Z-Health, and learning how to improve my nervous system has completely changed my life. Everyone deserves a chance to live their life at full potential, and that's why I'm so passionate about making sure this information is widely accessible. Now that you have read my story, I hope you are ready to dive into the world of Neuro Performance Coaching and take the first step to YOUR positive change!