Biofeedback is a training technique in which people are taught to improve their health and performance by using signals from their own bodies. The word "biofeedback" was coined in the late 1969 to describe laboratory procedures (developed in the 1940s) that trained research subjects to alter brain activity, blood pressure, muscle tension, heart rate and other bodily functions that are not normally controlled voluntarily.
Today’s devices pick up electrical signals from the muscles and translates the signals into a form that people can detect. This device triggers a flashing light or activates a beeper every time muscles tense. If one wants to relax tense muscles, one must try to slow down the flashing or beeping. People learn to associate sensations from the muscle with actual levels of tension and develop a new, healthy habit of keeping muscles only as tense as is necessary for as long as necessary. After treatment, individuals are then able to repeat this response at will without being attached to the sensors. Skin temperature, heart rate, sweat gland activity, and brainwave activity are examples of other biological functions that are commonly measured and used in similar ways to help people learn to control their physical functioning. Clinicians rely on biofeedback machines in somewhat the same way patients rely on a scale or thermometer. Biofeedback machines can detect a person's internal bodily functions with far greater sensitivity and precision than a person can alone. Both patients and therapists use this information to gauge and direct the progress of treatment.
Although some people initially viewed these practices with skepticism, researchers proved that many individuals could, in fact, alter their involuntary responses by being "fed back" information either visually or audibly about what was occurring in their bodies. In addition, studies have shown that we have more control over so-called involuntary bodily functions than we once thought possible. As a result, biofeedback can train individuals with techniques for living a healthier life overall – whether one is afflicted with a medical condition or not.
Source: Association for Applied Physiology and Biofeedback
Find a Practitioner
To find a Biofeedback clinician in your area, please click here.
Find a School
To find an institute in your area that offers Biofeedback as part of a clinic or offers classes or programs in Biofeedback, please click here.