Stress Management Summit
Biofeedback Resources International, USA
Title: Biofeedback as a therapy for stress related disorder
Biography: Harry L Campbell
Biofeedback is a tool to help people see things that are normally not obvious to them. Biofeedback uses computerized technology to help you learn to control or manage your stress responses. Sensitive instruments are used to measure physical processes with the purpose of “feeding back” the information to an individual in order to control these processes. Clinical Applications: Anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, panic attack all are related to an over active autonomic nervous system. What is going on in the mind is affecting the body. The overactive nervous system also affects the mind. It can become a cycle that feeds upon itself. Part of what biofeedback does is gives you a way to quantify what the nervous system is doing and how what you teach your clients changes the state of the nervous system. It is much easier for a person to learn to change the state of their nervous system when they have sensitive information on how it is reacting or responding. With these stress disorders we commonly use skin temperature, skin conductance (sweat), heart rate/heart rate variability, and respiration biofeedback. Chronic pain including headaches, neck pain, and back pain are often related to excess, chronic muscular contraction. This is why muscle relaxant medications are often prescribed for pain. Clients suffering from chronic pain are often unaware that they are contracting muscles as much as they are. EMG biofeedback can be used to quickly show a person an exact measurement of their level of muscle contraction. They can then learn to release the tension through this feedback combined with techniques such as progressive muscle relaxation. Some stress disorders are conditions that involve interrupted patterns in brain activity. EEG Biofeedback or Neurofeedback detects and gives feedback on the amplitude of the various electrical frequencies including Delta, Theta, Alpha, and Beta as well as other measures like coherence. This can help the brain to regulate and return to a more normal pattern usually improving symptoms.