BIOFEEDBACK
What can biofeedback help you with?
Biofeedback addresses many conditions that are caused or worsened by chronic stress. Biofeedback can also help people who want to optimize their performance at work, school, in sports, or the performing arts.
Tension headaches
Chronic pain
Asthma
Poor circulation
Sleep disturbances
TMJD
Optimal performance
Anxiety
Panic attacks
High blood pressure
Depression
Digestive issues such as IBS
Migraine headaches
Stress management
What exactly is biofeedback?
Biofeedback is an active and empowering training, like to exercise or physical therapy for your nervous system. Through your body, your mind learns resilience, flexibility, and recovery. Biofeedback teaches you how to regulate aspects of your stress response that are not typically in your conscious awareness such as:
Blood volume pulse (BVP) sensor gives real-time feedback on your body
Breathing
Heart rate
Muscle tension and posture
Blood pressure
Peripheral temperature
Sweat response
Sensors are used to show us what is going on in your body (bio) to provide us with information (feedback) in realtime. This feedback is crucial - it is a window into your inner world and increases your awareness of your own stress response.
Once you are able to observe something, you have the ability to change it. The feedback reinforces the new skills that you are learning so that you are able to master and integrate them into your daily life. Eventually, sensors and feedback are no longer needed when a person has mastered these skills.
How does biofeedback work?
The mind-body connection is a two-way street. How we are in our minds can affect our physical bodies, and vice versa.
There are three important steps of biofeedback training:
Awareness of your own body's stress response
Practicing new skills to help re-train your body and nervous system
Integrating your new skills into your daily life
Under chronic stress, your body's nervous system often gets stuck in 'fight or flight' (sympathetic) mode, or it can immobilize and freeze. In biofeedback sessions, you will learn skills that help break the cycle of chronic stress.
Over time, biofeedback helps restore balance in your autonomic nervous system by shifting it out of constant survival mode to a more peaceful, resilient, and relaxed (parasympathetic) state.
In addition to the personal goals people set for themselves, there are two main objectives:
Increasing overall resilience to stress, decreasing symptoms
Learning how to self-regulate in the moment and implement tools when they are needed
“For the first time in 20 years, my blood pressure has come down because of the skills I learned in my sessions with Dr. Debbie”