An Integrated Brain…

is a brain free to thrive and to perform to its innate potential. We help you free your brain safely and naturally, so that all your efforts are spent developing your personal excellence.

How it works

Our brain health training is a whole body system designed to enhance your brain wellness and your brain performance following established and emerging research. We target many areas of brain performance, all under the umbrella of what we call NeuroCognitive Excellence. We instruct you so you may better understand your unique-to-you brain, how it functions and what it needs from you to thrive. We use natural brain training to free your brain to excel. Whatever your goals, athletic, academic, professional, creative, relational,… NeuroCognitive Excellence is what affords you the brain prowess, agility, adaptability, resilience and stamina to meet them.

Our brain health training is structured into five programs designed to maximize your unique potential. Our programs are designed to be layered or to stand alone. You may do one program or multiple simultaneously. Our group programs are age-specific (8-10, 11-13, 14-17). In our Study Time Program, you may enroll to meet with your instructor as many days a week as you would like. Repetition is key to building your brain superpowers, so our offerings demand a commitment from you to attend a minimum number of sessions. Sculpting your own brain takes effort, but then, as your brain rewires itself, you experience flow. It feels so good when things that were once difficult come easily. It feels like swimming downstream for the first time, free to do more of what you want to do and with newfound power. There are few things in life more rewarding than living at your potential.

  • The near end of homework battles may be in sight. This program is designed to help your children naturally sculpt (keep and build on what is helpful and let the brain prune what is not helpful) their brain toward learning better and performing better on schoolwork and tests. We cannot promise you results, but our methods have a great track record. Your children and their instructors work 1:1 together, virtually, for 50 minutes a week while your children are completing their schoolwork at home. The instructors will prime your children's brains to be at their peak for receiving, processing and remembering material in their coursework. Your children will gain a skill or two a week and then practice them while they are completing their homework. Each week, they will build on these skills so that your children have whole toolkits and their brains has been trained to use them, not just while doing homework but also while studying and taking tests at school.

    The program is designed to transform your children into their own study strategists. When you have the power to optimize your own academic learning and performance, you have greater power to reach your goals even if one of them is more free time. Students can sign up for as many days of the week as they wish for our NeuroStrategic Study program.

    Structure- Dr. Swanson assesses your child's study strengths and areas of challenge. With parents, she develops a NeuroStrategic Study Training Plan (NSSTP). Après School study training sessions take place via teleconference Worldwide. Your children's instructors are closely supervised by Dr. Swanson with session monitoring and weekly session review. Dr. Swanson reviews with you, your children's progress toward their NSSTP goals. Schedule a weekly Aprés School/ Ski time slot at your convenience. Tuition is 1289.00 USD for 13 weeks.

  • The best of both worlds... our NeuroCognitive Excellence Curriculum and Peer Engagement to support your child's brain fitness. Our exclusive small group format creates an optimal environment for peer interaction and individualized skill/ neural pathway building with a focus on personalized attention.

    Your children will learn alongside their age peers for 75 minutes weekly in an action-packed experience of discovering their brain superpowers. Dr. Swanson designed this peer engagement format to optimize your children's brain fitness and, thus, their brain wellness and performance. This exhilarating class is designed to build brain prowess, agility and flow toward better attention and focus, better emotional intelligence, better problem-solving and critical thinking, better social intelligence and empathy, better planning and organization, better self-awareness and self-regulation, better leadership and collaboration.

    Structure- Dr. Swanson assesses your child for the Curriculum targeted NeuroCognitive Skills before, midway and after the class so that your children's progress is known to you and the instructors. Your children meet with peers in Après School or Après Ski (weekend) at the Red Brick Center for the Arts and outdoor locations in Aspen such as ACES. These small groups have an exclusive 1:5 ratio. Your children's instructors are licensed health professionals who review each student's progress with Dr. Swanson weekly. Tuition is 2450 USD for 13 weeks.

  • It is never too young to lay down the foundation of self care. Meet with your personal instructor for 50 minutes Aprés School / Ski each week to discover your brain superpowers. Dr. Swanson designed this private experience to help you/ your children strengthen your brain superpowers toward what you most want. This service is designed to build brain prowess, agility and flow toward better attention and focus, better emotional intelligence, better problem-solving and critical thinking, better social intelligence and empathy, better planning and organization, better self-awareness and self-regulation, better leadership and collaboration.

    Dr. Swanson assesses you or your children to develop a mutually informed NeuroCognitive Excellence Training Plan. Your/ your children's progress is monitored and discussed throughout the experience to insure success.

    Age 8-17 Structure- Après School /Ski individual sessions in Aspen or via teleconference Worldwide.

    Adult Structure- Mornings and Afternoons in Aspen or via teleconference worldwise.

    Your instructors are licensed health professionals. Tuition is 185-350 USD/hour scheduled in a weekly time slot at your convenience. The NeuroSphere Academy office location is 308 S. Galena St. in Aspen or you and your instructor may walk-talk on your favorite trail.

  • The best of all worlds... our NeuroCognitive Excellence Curriculum and Peer Engagement over the summer months to support your child's brain fitness. Our exclusive small group format creates an optimal environment for peer interaction and individualized skill/ neural pathway building with a focus on personalized attention.

    Your children will learn alongside their peers for 75 minutes weekly in an action-packed experience of discovering their brain superpowers. Dr. Swanson designed this peer engagement format to optimize your children's brain fitness and, thus, their brain wellness and performance. This exhilarating summer camp is designed to build brain prowess, agility and flow toward better attention and focus, better emotional intelligence, better problem-solving and critical thinking, better social intelligence and empathy, better planning and organization, better self-awareness and self-regulation, better leadership and collaboration.

    Structure- Dr. Swanson assesses your child for the Curriculum targeted NeuroCognitive Skills before, midway and after the summer camp so that your children's progress is known to you and the instructors. Your children meet with peers weekdays at the Red Brick Center for the Arts and outdoor locations in Aspen such as ACES. These small groups have an exclusive 1:5 ratio. Your children's instructors are licensed health professionals and elite interns, Aspen school alumni studying psychology at top tier universities, who review each student's progress with Dr. Swanson on a weekly basis.

    2025 tuition and dates TBA October 1, 2024.

  • As a proud alumna of Columbia University, Dr. Krista Swanson knows how transformative the perfect-fit university experience can be. She knows what it takes to get there and what it takes to thrive there. Dr. Swanson has designed the Columbia Catamount Program for families aiming to send their children to top-tier universities.

    Dr. Swanson and our top private instructors will guide your tweens and teens toward achieving your family's advanced academic placement goals through the Columbia Catamount Program. With this aim, NeuroSphere Academy will work privately with select individuals, even over a number of years.

    There are a host of customized tools to be designed and proprietary technologies tailored to your children's make-up and goals toward gaining and maintaining that strategic advantage. Your children may rely on Columbia Catamount’s rigor and support as needed even once in college to ever sharpen that edge.

Programs

Mission

To foster integrated, well-balanced and vibrant minds, so as to best nurture the well-being and success of generations.

As a clinical psychologist, my work is about freeing the body, mind and spirit to heal itself. As the body, mind and spirit heal, many people experience flow. Flow is the sensation of all parts of us being integrated and energized. The brain wants to thrive and excel. It seeks flow. That is how it is built. So, brain training is freeing the brain to be integrated and energized. It is in this flow that the brain seeks to thrive and excel. That is how we approach brain wellness.

So why have I founded a system for brain wellness? Well, I could no longer stand hearing my patients or their parents tell me things like “Good God, no one talks about this. No one knows this out there! You need to get this out there, I mean, to everyone!” when referring to my explanations of certain areas of brain functioning and what to do to optimize them. Some of the knowledge these patients were referring to were practical innovations I had made off of revolutionary advances in the field of neuroscience. The other parts of it were evidence-based (well researched to be the best) interventions for peak brain performance. Together, they are systems for applying this knowledge about our brains and how to enhance them for optimal well-being (to thrive) and for optimal performance (to excel). If I had a good answer for them, my patients would usually retort, “Not like this, not like how you just broke it down with your NeuroSphere model,… I never really got it until now, when you explained it, just now, just that way.” I could no longer stand hearing this without doing something about it.

So finally, it was time, time to put it all together in a system that could be transferred out of the psychotherapy world and into the rest of the world. I carved out and simplified what I had found to be the most helpful to the most people in 33 years of clinical experience and 40 years of scholarship. I streamlined that knowledge and practice, that technology if you will, into the most effective and most enjoyable human-to-human interactive learning and brain training formats. My team of instructors and I call this new tool “for getting it out there” the NeuroSphere Academy. I am wholeheartedly committed to making this brain wellness technology ever more accessible “I mean, to everyone.”

This system is designed to make your brain more resilient to the impacts of modern life stresses. I am all for global advancement. But, we are paying a high price for some of the ways we have gone about it. We have stretched beyond our human capacities to tolerate modern stresses, and our brains are telling us that they cannot thrive or excel without support. We all need this, humanity needs this, maybe now more than ever.

Our Story

“She has the best clinical training and skills of any psychologist that we have had in the 30 years that I have worked here.”

-Medina Kelly, PhD. School Psychologist, Clinical Psychologist, Basalt,CO

“Dr. Swanson has a natural ability to engage students and build relationships  with them so that they are able to access school and continue to grow both academically and socially/emotionally.”

-Katherine Lange, Special Education Director, Carbondale, CO

“Her technical expertise is of the highest caliber in her field. Dr. Swanson’s exquisite illustration… on a child’s neurophysiological development provided a clear understanding from which to inform and formulate a plan of action.”

-Francesca Morandini, Chief of Section, Social Protection and Governance for Child Rights, UNICEF Rwanda

“A warm and caring psychologist and delightful colleague. I highly recommend her for work with new moms/dads and babies, children and adolescents.”

-Eileen Escarce, PhD RN CPNP MSN. Pediatric Nurse Practitioner, Los Angeles

“We streamline it for you, but we do not cut corners. We build brain wellness from the ground up, naturally, wisely, upon the bedrocks of human brain development. That’s what sets us apart.”

-Dr. Krista Swanson, Founder and Executive Director

Dr. Krista Swanson is a distinguished, licensed clinical psychologist, developmental psychologist, and pediatric psychologist with over three decades of neuroscience-driven professional experience and four decades of scholarship in supporting human relational, emotional, physical, and cognitive development from conception through adulthood. A proud alumna of Columbia University, Dr. Swanson's academic and professional journey in the interdisciplinary neurosciences has been marked by continuous innovation.

Dr. Swanson's expertise spans multiple domains of neurodevelopment, with a particular focus on optimizing executive skills functioning, autonomic nervous system functioning and interpersonal nervous systems functioning. These, combined, form the neuroscientific bedrock of what we at NSA call NeuroCognitive Excellence.

Trained by luminaries in the field such as Bessel van der Kolk MD, Bruce Perry MD, Pat Ogden MD, Mary Main, PhD, Alan Sroufe, PhD, Connie Lillas, PhD, RN, and Stanley Greenspan, MD, Dr. Swanson stands alongside respected figures and friends such as, Dan Siegel MD and Tina Payne Bryson, PhD in advancing our understanding of whole-brain wellness and peak performance. Her work seamlessly bridges the gap between complex neuroscientific concepts and practical, life-changing interventions.

Dr. Swanson has pioneered practical methods for integrating neuroscience into neurological optimization over the lifespan. Her work in Interpersonal Neurophysiology, from the late 90’s on, has earned her international recognition, invited publications in peer-reviewed journals and leading to advisory roles at the United Nations. In many countries, she contributed to national policy, health protocols and medical school curriculum development. Dr. Swanson's approach is deeply rooted in the latest scientific research.

NeuroSphere Academy represents the culmination of Dr. Swanson's lifelong commitment to enhancing human potential through neuroscience. Born out of her interdisciplinary clinical practice and brain trust in Aspen and Los Angeles, the Academy stands at the intersection of rigorous neuroscience and practical education.

Dr. Krista Swanson: A Visionary in NeuroDevelopment

About NeuroSphere Academy’s Programs for Children, Tweens and Teens

As the Founder and Executive Director of NeuroSphere Academy, Dr. Swanson brings to a new generation, her wealth of knowledge and passion for nurturing human potential. Our child, tween and teen programs are structured to foster not only academic success, but to lay the groundwork for lifelong neurocognitive excellence and well-being.

At its core, NeuroSphere Academy is dedicated to optimizing Autonomic Nervous System potentials, Executive Functioning capabilities, and Self-Leadership as a way of being a solid, healthy human.

The Academy's innovative approach goes beyond traditional educational models, focusing on the 'how' of learning as much as the 'what.' By employing state-of-the-art neuroeducation practices, NeuroSphere Academy instructs and trains your children, tweens and teens in small, nurturing yet challenging learning groups or private sessions. We also coach your children through their study sessions to insure that they are studying not only hard, but smart. By priming the brain for peak learning, then putting NeuroExecutive skills into practice, your children streamline their study sessions and utilize their newly created neural pathways for approaching their learning and tests at school.

Throughout her career, Dr. Swanson has been at the vanguard of integrating neuroscience into teacher and parent accessible, practical skills for building healthy minds. What sets NeuroSphere Academy apart is our depth and rigor when it comes teaching children how to free their developing brains from the derailments and deprivations that modern life introduces every day. Once freed, your children’s brains can focus on meeting the potential they were born with.

At NeuroSphere Academy, we believe in the power of proactively engaging children's developmental pathways at the earliest stages, creating the broadest possible trajectory for optimizing life potentials. Our dream is to equip the next generation with the neurological tools they need not only to succeed, but to thrive in an ever-changing world.

Join us at NeuroSphere Academy, where we not only teach, we revolutionize the way young minds learn, adapt, and grow.

NeuroAutonomic Genius

We begin with breathwork and build from there, using all of your senses based on your unique-to-you nervous system. You build self-awareness and tools to become a “genius” at working with your Autonomic Nervous System to achieve optimum well-being and performance.

  • Our NeuroCognitive Technology

    integrates the leading advances in neuroscience toward enhancing your child's brain function. It is designed to foster improved learning, perception, processing of information coming in, organizing of information into memory, retrieving information from memory, problem solving, decision–making, complex attention, focusing and shifting focus, stopping impulses, delaying gratification, planning, sequencing, initiating a task, monitoring progress on a task, completing a task, organizing sense perception and movements.

  • Our NeuroExecutive Technology

    is designed to optimize executive functioning, that is the brain functions supporting our ability to focus and shift focus, to plan and organize, to sequence steps, to initiate a task, to monitor our progress on that task and complete that task, to inhibit unwanted behavior and to control our emotions, to effectively use our working memory to hold an idea while we analyze and manipulate that idea.

  • Our NeuroAutonomicTechnology

    leverages neuroscientific advances in the powers of the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) to ready us to learn, perform and relate to others. The ANS regulates emotions, attention, and our automatic response to stress or threat, helps us to maintain optimal arousal levels (homeostasis) during awake states and sleeping states.

  • Our NeuroAchievement Technology

    strategically harnesses the top neuroscientific advances in the field of human achievement. Our Curricula content and methodology are designed to optimize motivation and stamina, the drive in individuals for greater success in learning, performance and relationships. We nurture the personal grit that it takes.

  • Our NeuroSensoriMotor Technology

    builds the crucial integration of the brain and the nervous system connections throughout the body. As a critical component of our instruction and training, individuals optimize their ability to self-regulate attentional, learning, emotional, and performance states in various environments.

  • The neuroscience of utilizing the visual, movement and other sensory system arts to internalize the concepts and deepen skills enriches your gains and increases the sustainability of those gains in your performance across areas. You are welcomed to design and build your own 3D tools (or have us build them for you) that will help you apply all the technologies of the curriculum ongoing.

  • Neuro-education is the educational science term for a pedagogy (a method of teaching) which applies all of what we know about how the brain learns). NeuroEducation is our term for our pedagogy. We innovate off of the top advances in the neuroscience of education to improve the way the brain learns and performs. We will conduct research on our outcomes.

Our Big Words