Biofeedback is a way for you to monitor and learn to gain control over your body. Surface electrodes are hooked up to biofeedback instruments which detect and present to you immediate, specific information about your muscle tension, skin temperature, sweat gland activity, heart rate, and brain waves. Under stress, your body tends to contract your skeletal muscles, such as your shoulder, jaw, and low back muscles. Adrenaline is released into the blood stream, causing blood vessels in your extremities to constrict, making your hands and feet cold. Your heart beats faster and you sweat more. Working with a trained clinician, you can learn to relax your body and acquire mind-body awareness leading to an improvement in stress related symptoms such as back pain, high blood pressure, tachycardia, headache pain and insomnia.

In other cultures, such as India and Tibet, children are taught from an early age to exert exquisite control over their health and body from learning techniques of meditation, yoga, and cognitive enhancement exercises. In our fast paced Western culture, most busy adults and adolescents do not have the time to spend thousands of hours learning these techniques. Biofeedback can speed the process of learning to tune into and control your body by allowing you to make immediate mind-body connections while working with a trained clinician. Your therapist will facilitate this learning by giving you relaxation, meditation, and cognitive enhancement exercises while you are observing fluctuations in your physiology through the biofeedback monitoring. If your therapist is also a trained psychotherapist, he or she can also help you discover how your thoughts, feelings, and attitudes affect your body as well as you sense of wellbeing.

Since the availability of portable biofeedback equipment in the last 35 years, over a million individuals have received benefit and relief for the following areas of health and psychological problems:

  • Low back and shoulder pain
  • Migraine, cluster, and tension headaches
  • Sciatica
  • Fibromyalgia & Arthritis
  • High blood pressure & Tachycardia
  • Insomnia and sleep disorders
  • Anxiety and panic disorders
  • Attention Deficit Disorder through EEG/Neurofeedback
  • Cognitive deficits from strokes or acquired brain injury
  • Irritability, Anxiety and, restlessness typical of recovering alcohol & drug patients