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Biofeedback and How It Can Help Stress Levels

Incorporating Biofeedback Helps to Improve Any Relaxation Regime

Jul 15, 2009 Kate Nivison

Being able to relax is a huge factor in good health. Biofeedback can help the individual to control how the body reacts to stress and gain benefit from proper relaxation.

People are increasingly aware these days of how important it is to be able to relax properly. It’s vital for reducing stress levels, general health, and to aid recovery after illness. But there’s a big difference between being genuinely relaxed and merely thinking it’s happening, and this is where learning to use biofeedback equipment with relaxation techniques can help.

Natural Biofeedback, Including Sweaty Palms

The simplest kind of natural biofeedback is when people are aware of how they are feeling about things. Tears, laughter, sweaty palms, heart pounding, hair standing on end and many other reactions are produced by the part of the nervous system that is on ‘automatic’, whether the individual likes it or not. Those kinds of reactions can be registered by the conscious mind, yet cannot be easily controlled – and these are the easy ones.

Biofeedback Hospital Monitoring

Biofeedback in a clinical situation isn’t a form of therapy as such. It’s a method of measuring and monitoring the tiny bodily changes people are not normally be aware of so as to show what’s actually happening inside the body. Hospitals and clinics have been using biofeedback for many years in the familiar forms of instruments such as the blood pressure gauge and the clinical thermometer. More sophisticated equipment, with electrodes taped or placed on the body, has also been in use for some time.

What Happens During a Hospital Biofeedback Session

Brain activity, pulse, heart beat, hand temperature and skin resistance – all body responses that can’t be controlled – are monitored and the results shown on a computer screen for patient and doctor to discuss.
Patients are often surprised by the readings because these often contradict their own assumptions – in particular they often show that a patient isn’t really relaxed at all.
Proper relaxation techniques, such as proper breathing and posture, massage or aromatherapy, can then be taught.
After a few sessions, the monitors show that learning correct relaxation techniques really can bring about beneficial changes in body functions, and patients begin to understand what real relaxation feels like.

Using Personal Biofeedback Equipment

Until recently, bulky and expensive biofeedback equipment was confined to hospitals and clinics.
Thanks to microchips, much cheaper monitors are now available that can be worn as easily as a wristwatch which can show heart rate, pulse and even skin responses to an increase in nervous system activity.
At a glance, it’s possible to tell just how seriously the body is reacting to that traffic jam, important meeting or the noise the kids are making.
The appropriate relaxation techniques can then be applied, and can be seen to be working.
This puts the individual in control, and even that very fact can be helpful in coping with some kinds of stress, anxiety, headaches, insomnia, and high blood pressure.

Using Biofeedback equipment, even in a coffee break, is a great way of understanding the body and monitoring how relaxation techniques are working. Use them to get a feeling of being in control, or even to find out that it’s not the kids or the boss, but something else altogether that is causing raised stress levels.

More information:

Biofeedback Definition

The copyright of the article Biofeedback and How It Can Help Stress Levels in General Medicine is owned by Kate Nivison. Permission to republish Biofeedback and How It Can Help Stress Levels in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Biofeedback Can Help Improve Relaxation Techniques