Learn the skills to manage your daily life.
Reduce or eliminate your anxiety and depression.
Improve your communication and relationships.
Live with less worry and concern.
Be positive and engaging with people and opportunities.
Create healthy behaviors and improve your wellness.
Move beyond negative and traumatizing experiences.
Get a good night's sleep.
Go beyond surviving to thriving.
Be calmer, more peaceful, and confident.
Be healthier, empowered, and positive.
Start on a positive path to growth and well-being.
How is Biofeedback Used Today?
Clinical biofeedback
techniques that grew out of the early laboratory procedures are now widely
used to treat an ever-lengthening list of conditions. These include:
- Migraine headaches, tension headaches, and many other types of pain
- Disorders of the digestive system
- High blood pressure and its opposite, low blood pressure
- Cardiac arrhythmias (abnormalities, sometimes dangerous, in the rhythm of the heartbeat)
- Raynaud's disease (a circulatory disorder that causes uncomfortably cold hands)
- Epilepsy
- Paralysis and other movement disorders
What is Biofeedback? Biofeedback is a treatment technique in which people are
trained to improve their health by using signals from their own bodies.
Physical therapists use biofeedback to help stroke victims regain movement
in paralyzed muscles. Psychologists use it to help tense and anxious clients
learn to relax. Specialists in many different fields use biofeedback to help
their patients cope with pain.
Chances are you have used
biofeedback yourself. You've used it if you have ever taken your temperature
or stepped on a scale. The thermometer tells you whether you're running a
fever, the scale whether you've gained weight. Both devices "feed back"
information about your body's condition. Armed with this information, you
can take steps you've learned to improve the condition. When you're running
a fever, you go to bed and drink plenty of fluids. When you've gained
weight, you resolve to eat less and sometimes you do.
Clinicians
reply on complicated biofeedback machines in somewhat the same way that you
rely on your scale or thermometer. Their machines can detect a person's
internal bodily functions with far greater sensitivity and precision than a
person can alone. This information may be valuable. Both patients and
therapists use it to gauge and direct the progress of treatment.
For
patients, the biofeedback machine acts as a kind of sixth sense which allows
them to "see" or "hear" activity inside their bodies. One commonly used type
of machine, for example, picks up electrical signals in the muscles. It
translates these signals into a form that patients can detect: It triggers a
flashing light bulb, perhaps, or activates a beeper every time muscles grow
more tense. If patients want to relax tense muscles, they try to slow down
the flashing or beeping.
Like a pitcher learning to throw a ball
across a home plate, the biofeedback trainee, in an attempt to improve a
skill, monitors the performance. When a pitch is off the mark, the
ballplayer adjusts the delivery so that he performs better the next time he
tries. When the light flashes or the beeper beeps too often, the biofeedback
trainee makes internal adjustments which alter the signals. The biofeedback
therapist acts as a coach, standing at the sidelines setting goals and
limits on what to expect and giving hints on how to improve performance.
Patients' Responsibilities
Biofeedback places unusual demands on patients. They must examine their day-to-day lives to learn if they may be contributing to their own distress. They must recognize that they can, by their own efforts, remedy some physical ailments. They must commit themselves to practicing biofeedback or relaxation exercises every day. They must change bad habits, even ease up on some good ones. Most important, they must accept much of the responsibility for maintaining their own health.
How Does Biofeedback Work?
Scientists cannot yet explain how biofeedback works. Most patients who
benefit from biofeedback are trained to relax and modify their behavior.
Most scientists believe that relaxation is a key component in biofeedback
treatment of many disorders, particularly those brought on or made worse by
stress. Their reasoning is based on what is known about the effects of
stress on the body. In brief, the argument goes like this: Stressful events
produce strong emotions, which arouse certain physical responses. Many of
these responses are controlled by the sympathetic nervous system, the
network of nerve tissues that helps prepare the body to meet emergencies by
"flight or fight."
The typical pattern of response to emergencies
probably emerged during the time when all humans faced mostly physical
threats. Although the "threats" we now live with are seldom physical, the
body reacts as if they were: The pupils dilate to let in more light. Sweat
pours out, reducing the chance of skin cuts. Blood vessels near the skin
contract to reduce bleeding, while those in the brain and muscles dilate to
increase the oxygen supply. The gastrointestinal tract, including the
stomach and intestines, slows down to reduce the energy expensed in
digestion. The heart beats faster, and blood pressure rises. Normally,
people calm down when a stressful event is over especially if they have done
something to cope with it. For instance, imagine your own reactions if
you're walking down a dark street and hear someone running toward you. You
get scared. Your body prepared you to ward off an attacker or run fast
enough to get away. When you do escape, you gradually relax.
If
you get angry at your boss, it's a different matter. Your body may prepare
to fight. But since you want to keep your job, you try to ignore the angry
feelings. Similarly, if on the way home you get stalled in traffic, there's
nothing you can do to get away. These situations can literally may you sick.
Your body has prepared for action, but you cannot act. Individuals differ in
the way they respond to stress. In some, one function, such as blood
pressure, becomes more active while others remain normal. Many experts
believe that these individual physical responses to stress can become
habitual. When the body is repeatedly aroused, one or more functions may
become permanently overactive. Actual damage to bodily tissues may
eventually result.
Biofeedback is often aimed at changing
habitual reactions to stress that can cause pain or disease. Many clinicians
believe that some of their patients and clients have forgotten how to relax.
Feedback of physical responses such as skin temperature and muscle tension
provides information to help patients recognize a relaxed state. The
feedback signal may also act as a kind of reward for reducing tension. It's
like a piano teacher whose frown turns to a smile when a young musician
finally plays a tune properly.
The value of a feedback signal as
information and reward may be even greater in the treatment of patients with
paralyzed or spastic muscles. With these patients, biofeedback seems to be
primarily a form of skill training like learning to pitch a ball. Instead of
watching the ball, the patient watches the machine, which monitors activity
in the affected muscle. Stroke victims with paralyzed arms and legs, for
example, see that some part of their affected limbs remains active. The
signal from the biofeedback machine proves it. This signal can guide the
exercises that help patients regain use of their limbs. Perhaps just as
important, the feedback convinces patients that the limbs are still alive.
This reassurance often encourages them to continue their efforts.
Should You Try Biofeedback?
If you think you
might benefit from biofeedback training, you should discuss it with your
physician or other health care professional, who may wish to conduct tests
to make certain that your condition does not require conventional medical
treatment first. Responsible biofeedback therapists will not treat you for
headaches, hypertension, or most disorders until you have had a thorough
physical examination. Some require neurological tests as well.
How
do you find a biofeedback therapist? First, ask your doctor or dentist, or
contact the nearest community health center, medical society, or State
biofeedback society for a referral. The psychology or psychiatry departments
at nearby universities may also be able to help you. Most experts recommend
that you consult only a health care professional a physician, psychologist,
psychiatrist, nurse, social worker, dentist, physical therapist, for example
who has been trained to use biofeedback.
Professional Associations
The Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback
(formerly the Biofeedback Society of America)
10200 W. 44th Avenue
Suite
304
Wheat Ridge, CO 80033-2840
Phone: 1-800-477-8892 /
303-422-8436
Fax: 303-422-8894
E-mail: [email protected]
Internet: http://www.aapb.org
AAPB is the national membership association for professionals
using biofeedback. AAPB holds a national meeting, offers CE programs,
produces a journal and newsmagazine and other biofeedback related
publications.
The Biofeedback Certification Institute of America
10200
W. 44th Avenue
Suite 304
Wheat Ridge, CO 80033-2840
The
BCIA was established as an independent agency to provide national
certification for biofeedback providers.
This Material Was provided
through:
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Division of
Communications and Education, National Institute of Mental Health
Public
Health Service - Alcohol, Drug Abuse and Mental Health Administration
5600
Fishers Lane
Rockville, MD 20857 USA
DHHS Publication
No (ADM) 83-1273
This Material was written by Bette Runck, staff
writer, Division of Communication and Education, National Institute of
Mental Health. NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF MENTAL HEALTH- Division of Scientific
and Public Information-Plain Talk Series- Ruth Kay, Editor
Public
Domain