About Biofeedback
Biofeedback is a form of alternative medicine that involves measuring a subject's quantifiable bodily functions such as blood pressure, heart rate, skin temperature, sweat gland activity, and muscle tension, conveying the information to the patient in real-time. This raises the patient's awareness and conscious control of their unconscious physiological activities.
Biofeedback Training and Software
Biofeedback is a treatment technique in which people are trained to improve their health by using signals from their own bodies. Physical therapists use biofeedback to help stroke victims regain movement in paralyzed muscles. Psychologists use it to help tense and anxious clients learn to relax. Specialists in many different fields use biofeedback to help their patients cope with pain.
Chances are you have used biofeedback yourself. You've used it if you have ever taken your temperature or stepped on a scale. The thermometer tells you whether you're running a fever, the scale whether you've gained weight. Both devices "feed back" information about your body's condition. Armed with this information, you can take steps you've learned to improve the condition. When you're running a fever, you go to bed and drink plenty of fluids. When you've gained weight, you resolve to eat less and sometimes you do.
Clinicians reply on complicated biofeedback machines in somewhat the same way that you rely on your scale or thermometer. Their machines can detect a person's internal bodily functions with far greater sensitivity and precision than a person can alone. This information may be valuable. Both patients and therapists use it to gauge and direct the progress of treatment.
For patients, the biofeedback machine acts as a kind of sixth sense which allows them to "see" or "hear" activity inside their bodies. One commonly used type of machine, for example, picks up electrical signals in the muscles. It translates these signals into a form that patients can detect: It triggers a flashing light bulb, perhaps, or activates a beeper every time muscles grow more tense. If patients want to relax tense muscles, they try to slow down the flashing or beeping.
Like a pitcher learning to throw a ball across a home plate, the biofeedback trainee, in an attempt to improve a skill, monitors the performance. When a pitch is off the mark, the ballplayer adjusts the delivery so that he performs better the next time he tries. When the light flashes or the beeper beeps too often, the biofeedback trainee makes internal adjustments which alter the signals. The biofeedback therapist acts as a coach, standing at the sidelines setting goals and limits on what to expect and giving hints on how to improve performance.
*Article by: Bette Runck, staff writer, Division of Communication
and Education, National Institute of Mental Health.
Biofeedback Training and Software
An interactive spiritual adventure for your mind and body where virtual reality meets biofeedback, right on your computer screen.
The Journey to Wild Divine
is the first "inner-active" computer adventure that combines ancient breathing techniques and meditation with modern biofeedback technology for total mind-body wellness. The graphics and interface resemble the game Myst. You progress through the realm using the power of your thoughts, feelings, breath and awareness. But it's not just a game, it's a tool to reduce stress and improve physical and mental health through the use of breathing, meditation and relaxation exercises.
More about the Journey To The Wild Divine
More Biofeedback Products
Healing Rhythms
Biofeedback Training for a Happy Mind & Healthy Body.
The first whole-body wellness program to bring together three of the most prominent leaders in the field of health and wellness - doctors Deepak Chopra, M.D., Dean Ornish, M.D. and Andrew Weil, M.D. Together with Healing Rhythm's beautifully interactive 15-Step Biofeedback Training Program, you will learn the tools to help build a happy mind and a healthy body.
Watch your body respond in real-time, on screen! Practice mind-body techniques along with your mentors as you listen to transformative music and watch soothing visuals rippling by on your screen. Or switch to the Grapher Mode and track your body's signals as they rise and fall in synch with your state of mind. Learn to build stairways with your breath, juggle balls with laughter, balance rock gardens through meditation and so much more...
Healing Rhythms from the Wild Divine Project
Back To:
The Mind-Body
Top of Page
[Related Pages]
The Wild Divine Project
Biofeedback Products
Meditation
Holistic Healing
Brain Waves
