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Biofeedback
A good way to understand the term “biofeedback” is to think of it as ‘biological information’, ( Bio-biological and Feedback-information). The body has the awesome capability of regulating its own functions such as heartrate, temperature, pain threshold, muscle tension and even how we pay attention. Normally this happens without much conscious awareness. That is…..until the body loses it’s ability to ‘self-regulate’ and the breakdown can be seen as chronic pain, generalized anxiety, chronic sleep disorders, chronic stress reactions, headaches and other various disorders of the body. Biofeedback is a practice used to train the body/mind to recover its natural self-regulatory capacity through a learning, or re-learning process. This can be beneficial for conditions ranging from incontinence to hypertension, from panic attacks to irritable bowel.
How Does Biofeedback Work?
 The biofeedback process provides information-usually on a meter or computer-about these various bodily functions so that the individual can achieve improved self regulation. Sensors are placed on the skin surface and are easily removed. A biofeedback computer picks up the information from the sensors and “feeds back” that information to the individual. The person then responds to this new information in an attempt to move toward better controlled function. For example, as you learn to decrease your muscle tension, the graph will point downward. As you learn to regulate your heartrate, the meter will drop to a lower level. As you learn to relax, your hands will begin to warm. This ‘biofeedback’ (biological information) allows one to know that they are succeeding; then success leads to more success and can be reproduced more often. Feedback is immediate and therefore learning can occur. A person begins to be able to “feel” the calmer, less tense state and can then reproduce that “feeling” outside of the office and generalize their new learning to the home, office or school. When one begins to “listen’ to their body and become more aware of their physiology, then one begins to learn to have better control over it. .
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