What Is Biofeedback?
Biofeedback therapy is a type of training program with the goal of teaching patients to control involuntary physiological processes — meaning those that are both mental and physical — that contribute to painful symptoms and distress. A report published in Mental Health in Family Medicine words the biofeedback definition as “a mind–body technique in which individuals learn how to modify their physiology for the purpose of improving physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health.”
Biofeedback therapy is sometimes used to manage high blood pressure, muscle pain or tension, anxiety, IBS symptoms and insomnia. What do so many of these health problems have in common? They’re triggered, or at least made worse by, chronic stress. For that reason, some experts believe that biofeedback is beneficial and able improve overall health and wellness because it’s effective as a natural stress relieving technique.
How The Therapy Works
Various forms of biofeedback therapy — performed using certain muscle relaxation, breath and mental exercises — are now being proven in numerous studies to treat more than a dozen health conditions. But how does this mind-body intervention work? At its roots, this therapy helps reduce a wide range of symptoms by lowering sympathetic arousal. Through identifying and changing certain mental activities and physical reactions, biofeedback trains patients to help regulate their own unconscious bodily processes and better control their stress response. Biofeedback therapy acts as a natural painkiller and a natural headache remedy, among other things.
Some experts use the metaphor of “learning to putt a golf ball” to describe how biofeedback works. As someone practices putting and seeing where the ball goes, the feedback helps to improve their next stroke. In biofeedback, a patient follows measurements of their physiological responses — and as they move in a healthier direction, positive reinforcement and learning take place.
After reviewing more than 60 studies related to biofeedback, The Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College London described the therapy as a “non-invasive, effective psycho-physiological intervention for psychiatric disorders,” concluding that over 80 percent of studies reported some level of clinical decrease in symptoms as a result of biofeedback exposure. According to their research, biofeedback interventions have been used successfully to treat common disorders including anxiety, autism, depression, eating disorders and schizophrenia.
But biofeedback therapies aren’t just useful for managing mental disorders — they’re also becoming more common in the treatment of injury recovery and chronic pain. Because therapists now offer several different biofeedback modalities, experts recommend patients try multiple bio-regulating approaches during their sessions. This has been shown to be most effective in significantly reducing symptoms.
Conditions that are commonly treated with biofeedback therapies now include: chronic pain, muscle tension or spasms, urinary incontinence (frequent urges to urinate), high blood pressure (hypertension), tension or migraine headaches, TMJ symptoms (temporomandibular joint dysfunction), trouble sleeping or insomnia, digestive symptoms including constipation, IBS and diarrhea, anxiety and depression, eating disorders, ADHD and autism spectrum disorders, epilepsy, cancer recovery, heart disease, and just about any other condition made worse by stress…
