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Biofeedback: A Reflection in the Mirror by Irene J. Sleight, MS

Biofeedback- Control stress and relax by deep breathing by Jerry Lopper

What is Biofeedback? by Jerry Loppe

Biofeedback: A Reflection in the Mirror by Irene J. Sleight, MS

Biofeedback is like a window into your soul. It picks up the subtlest physiological changes that occur in response to your thoughts, feelings, and emotions. Physiological monitoring devices measure, amplify, and reflect back information that may normally go undetected, and offers an insightful tool to help individuals improve self-regulation. Just as a mirror reflects your appearance, biofeedback reflects information about your physiology, so that you can make changes. It allows you to experiment with stress management techniques, and lets us know when we are changing our physiological response in the desired direction. Biofeedback training is an educational process for learning specialized mind/body skills. Learning to recognize physiological responses and alter them is not unlike learning how to play the piano or tennis. It requires practice.

Typically, biofeedback training is done over the course of 6-8 weeks, adjusted based on the severity of the symptoms. In the first session, a biofeedback clinician would do an initial history intake to become aware of any dietary or lifestyle habits that may correlate with their symptoms. Afterwards, a patient undergoes a physiological stress test. In other words, the therapist purposefully stresses the client in a controlled environment, while hooked up to a variety of modalities that measure various aspects of the stress response such as: breathing, heart rate, peripheral temperature, muscle and sweat gland activity (similar to the lie detector – very reactive to emotional stress).

The goal isn't to torture the client, but rather to discover their physiological signature. Everyone has a particular response pattern to stress that reflect the various accommodations to stress that he or she has made over the years. Some breathe irregularly, while others have an increased heart rate or muscle tension as their dominant response. The client’s most reactive stress response is known as their physiological signature that will be the focal point of retraining.

Subsequent sessions would focus on learning relaxation skills to cultivate lowered stress arousal. The client is seated in a comfortable chair, and hooked up to the physiological monitoring device with sensors attached to the surface of the skin at various locations on the body (usually the shoulders, fingers, back, and head). Electrical impulses from these locations are recorded and reflected on a computer monitor in the form of graphs or other visual and auditory displays. Visual and auditory feedback provides a way to gain control of one’s physiology and alleviate symptoms of stress-related disorders by using a variety of relaxation and visualization techniques.

Sessions are tailored according to the symptoms presented by each patient. For instance, migraine sufferers tend to have cold hands and feet as their physiological signature. Theold expression “cold feet before a wedding” actually comes from a real physiological response to stress. During stress arousal, the blood goes away from the outer extremities to support the major muscle groups, and causes the blood vessels in the hands and feet to constrict and hence become colder. In this case, sessions would focus on consciously raising one’s hand temperature by using visual/auditory feedback and imagery that focuses on images of warming the hands by the fire, wearing mittens, or holding a warm cup of coffee. Biofeedback sessions are often trial and error. Some individuals aren’t receptive to imagery, so therapists may experiment with a variety relaxation techniques until finding one that works.

Regardless of one's physiological signature, all patients benefit from learning diaphraghmatic breathing, which immediately helps to lower stress arousal. Most patients with any type of anxiety or stress-related disorder have a faulty breathing pattern, which tends to be fast,shallow breathing from the chest. By wearing a respiration strain gauge (sensors that measure one's breathing pattern & rate)around the chest and one around the belly, breathing rate and pattern can be measured and visually displayed on a computer screen. The visual feedback guides the client to learn to breathe correctly from the abdomen. By giving feedback, they can make adjustments accordingly. Similarly, if a client had muscle tension, they would focus on reducing the tension using the visual and auditory feedback to guide the process.

Although biofeedback training may focus specifically on one physiological system as a means of addressing a particular presenting complaint, clients are soon reminded of the holistic nature of the body as they observe that changes made within one system create changes in all other systems. For instance, controlling one's breathing can lower back pain. The lowered stress arousal decrease stress hormones that circulate in the body, exacerbating pain symptoms.

Biofeedback training is beneficial for a wide array of complaints, and provides relief from many conditions that helps reduce, and even eliminate the need for medication. It also goes beyond the notion of simply "fixing what ails you." It awakens the realization that we have the power to make lasting changes in our bodies and minds, and the accompanying opportunity to direct these changes for life-enhancing benefits.

Biofeedback- Control stress and relax by deep breathing by Jerry Lopper

Biofeedback: The conscious control of a bodily function.

Example: Jeremy had a very stressful job, but learned to control the impact on his blood pressure through biofeedback. He got a home blood pressure kit and practiced breathing slowly and deeply while monitoring his pressure readings. Soon, he found he could lower his blood pressure when stress overtook him at work by focusing on deep and slow breathing.

Activity: When you feel stress or anger this week, consciously turn your attention to your blood pressure. Imagine that you have a pressure monitoring kit in place while you take very deep and slow breaths. Breath in, hold it for a count of five, and breath out slowly while counting to five. Repeat this while imagining your blood pressure readings going down. Continue this for 30 to 60 seconds or until you feel more relaxed and calm. Repeat as necessary.

What is Biofeedback? Control body functions such as blood pressure and tension using feedback of the function by © Jerry Lopper

The definition of Positive from a personal development standpoint with an example of usage.

Definition: Biofeedback describes the process whereby a person learns to control a biological function, such as heart rate, blood pressure, or muscle tension. The biofeedback tool provides a visual or audio signal proportional to the bodily function, such as heart rate. A person can be trained to reduce the function by focusing conscious effort on the feedback mechanism and adjusting the effort until feedback indicates the function is moving in the desired direction.

Example: Jennifer learned to reduce stress using a biofeedback tool that measured the tension in her muscles and provided a light which flashed fast for tense muscles and slow for lack of tension. After some practice at focusing on the light and consciously relaxing her muscles in the lab, she was able to reduce stress on her own without the feedback device.

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