Biofeedback teaches how to consciously change and control the body's vital functions that are normally unconscious, such as breathing, heart rate, and blood pressure, through information provided by electronic devices. Biofeedback taps into the mind-body connection for healing purposes. The term biofeedback refers to a technique where a person receives extra feedback about the state that their body is in. This feedback can take the form of a tone that varies in pitch, lights that turn on and off, or a line on a computer screen.

How Biofeedback Works

Electrodes, with wires attached to them, are placed on the client's skin. The client is then instructed to use relaxation, meditation, or visualization to bring about the desired response, whether it is muscle relaxation, lowered heart rate, or lower temperature. The biofeedback device reports progress by a change in the speed of beeps or flashes, or pitch or quality of the tone. Biofeedback is often based on measurements of blood pressure, Brain waves (EEG), Breathing, Heart rate, Muscle tension, Skin conductivity of electricity and Skin temperature.

Biofeedback therapy is particularly useful with stress-related conditions where there is sympathetic or adrenal stress. It is also useful for conditions where there is inadequate control over muscle groups or muscle dysfunction. Conditions treated with biofeedback include stress, headaches, asthma, muscle injury, pain relief, high blood pressure, digestive disorders, poor posture, tennis elbow, constipation, twitching of the eyelids, esophageal dysfunction, etc.

Biofeedback treatment uses special equipment to help make you more aware of your body's reaction to stress and pain. Biofeedback helps you to learn how your body is reacting when tense or relaxed. Biofeedback techniques can help those with arthritis learn to better relax their muscles and control their response to pain.

Biofeedback Equipment

The equipment used in biofeedback range from a simple thermometer to a highly expensive EEG machine to monitor your brain activity. The most common biofeedback monitors are for heartbeat, blood pressure, skin temperature, sweat glands, brain activity, and muscle tension. To monitor muscle tension, an Electromyogram (EMG) machine is used. It is used to learn to control tension. It is mainly used as a relaxation tool to help ease muscles in people who have back aches, headaches, and bruxism.

Galvanic skin responses are monitored with a biofeedback device known as a GSR2, or common lie detectors. It monitors the sweat glands in your skin and shows the results which train you to be able to control your feelings and responses to stress, and also your sweat responses.

To monitor the brain, electroencephalography, or EEG, is used. The EEG monitors the activity of brain waves when linked to different areas and mental states, able to see how you are when you are awake, relaxing, calm, or sleeping.