BIOFEEDBACK NEUROFEEDBACK THERAPY AT HOME

Definition:

Biofeedback is a powerful, painless, and noninvasive technique for mind-body training. By using monitoring devices, it provides feedback about various body functions, such as heart rate, muscle tension, and nervous system tension. Through this feedback, you can learn how to use your mind to regulate your body. As a result, biofeedback training helps you gain control and alter your physiological functions for healthier behavior. Furthermore, developing such self-regulation skills enables you to move towards a more optimal level of functioning.

In addition, biofeedback is highly beneficial for reducing stress symptoms, decreasing anxiety, managing headaches, lowering high blood pressure, and improving overall health. For more detailed information on the indications and uses of biofeedback, refer to the page above.

Biofeedback therapy is a process of training rather than treatment. Similar to learning how to tie your shoes or ride a bicycle, individuals undergoing biofeedback training must actively participate and practice to develop the skill. Instead of passively receiving treatment, the patient takes on the role of an active learner. In fact, it’s like acquiring a new language.

Moreover, research has shown that biofeedback interventions are effective in treating a variety of medical conditions. As a result, clinical biofeedback training is gaining popularity worldwide, especially as more people seek out relatively new approaches to healthcare.

Biofeedback initially became popular in the late 1960s when the term ‘Biofeedback’ was coined to describe laboratory procedures that trained research subjects to alter bodily functions, such as blood pressure and heart rate—functions that are not usually controlled voluntarily.

Today, biofeedback is widely recognized in many countries, including the USA. The National Institute of Complementary and Alternative Medicine recognizes it as one of the mind-body therapies. Consequently, many doctors and patients view biofeedback as a form of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM).

Physiological processes that normally happen involuntarily such as heart rate, blood pressure, temperature, muscle tension, breathing, or brain wave activity are measured by sensors placed on your skin and displayed on the computer screen. Biofeedback training is the process where you learn to read your body’s feedback (biofeedback) to sense when your body is stressed or relaxed. It is just as looking into a mirror allows you to see and change positions, expressions, etc., biofeedback allows you to see inside your body. You receive immediate visual or acoustic feedback from a biofeedback device. By becoming consciously aware of the processes in your body you can identify which cognitive or behavioral processes are influencing it. You learn to use your CONSCIOUS mind to guide the part of your brain that runs your body.

Biofeedback training is proven to be highly beneficial and provides long-lived or permanent relief for a wide range of health conditions such as migraine and tension headache, anxiety, depression, respiratory disorders, sleep disorders, stress management, high blood pressure, chronic pain, and many others.
Using biofeedback you can learn how to achieve your maximum performance by enhancing your:

Attention & concentration
Relaxation & well-being
Intellect & Memory

More detailed information regarding indications and use of biofeedback can be found on this page above.

Several Biofeedback (BFB) techniques may be used to gather information about an individual’s bodily responses. The one used may depend on individual health conditions objectives and is determined by a specialist. Isolated one or combined many physiological parameters such as brain wave activity – Neurofeedback, heart rate variability – NRV BFB, muscles tension – EMG BFB, breathing (Breathing BFB), skin conductance (Electro-Dermal Activity (EDA) BFB) or temperature (Thermal BFB) and other can be used. A brief description of these types of BFB is above on this page.

Yes, it can!
It is very important to realize that biofeedback is a form of active learning rather than therapy. However, the degree to how effective it is depends on the combination of your ability to fully participate in the training and the efficiency of your body to respond to the learning process.

The main area that seems to prevent people from gaining benefits from Biofeedback training is if the person is unwilling or unable to practice the skills they are learning.

You will find the Biofeedback technique very fascinating and simple to understand and put to use, even on your own with a home use device. You will learn to reinforce your Biofeedback training with a series of simple guided exercises to do yourself. Your body will gradually re-learn how to recover on its own effectively from the disliked states and conditions.

Your goal with Biofeedback training is to FIRST gain Conscious awareness of the sensations of change in your breathing, your muscle tension, and your nervous system tension, and also learn to track changes in the tone of your thoughts. Your SECOND goal is to use and apply skills for guiding your body back into a sense of calm where your stress or pathological state is back in a recovery stage.

Yes, Biofeedback training has successfully worked with children and teens to teach them a drug-free way to deal with different pathological states and conditions, including stress.
Children and teens, just like adults around them increasingly experience stress in their lives.
Whether it’s the stress of “test anxiety” the desire for sports excellence or looking for optimal performance in an imperfect world, children and teens are not immune to the negative effects of too much stress in their lives.
Children and teens often learn these skills very quickly and enjoy the experience of gaining control of their bodies and feelings.

The techniques you learn through biofeedback can help you consciously regulate tension in the muscular, respiratory, and nervous systems. This is crucial because the nervous system also influences the cardiovascular system, digestive elimination, immune system, and respiratory system. Specifically, it plays a role in the development of conditions such as anxiety, migraine headaches, sleep disturbances, asthma, irritable bowel syndrome, hypertension, and immune system dysfunctions.

By engaging in biofeedback training, your conscious mind learns to sense and guide these systems towards recovery. Consequently, this approach can gradually reduce ongoing tension and decrease the accumulation of symptoms like anxiety.

Biofeedback is a broader category of methods. These methods use the feedback of various physiological signals, such as the electrical activity of muscles (EMG), bladder tension, the electrical activity of the skin (EDA/GSR), or body temperature. These methods are applied to the treatment or improvement of organism functions as reflected by these signals.
EEG biofeedback or Neurofeedback belongs to the most sophisticated of biofeedback methods. Utilizing signals coming directly from the Central Nervous System has a wider range of influence. This allows the capture of some indicators of higher mental activities as well.

Successful outcomes, not limited to those listed below, have been reported by Neurofeedback Practitioners for:
• ADD/ADHD
• Addictions
• Anger
• Anxiety
• Autism
• Bulimia
• Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
• Chronic pain
• Closed head injuries
• Concentration
• Depression
• Fetal Alcohol Syndrome/Effect
• Headaches and Migraines
• Learning Disorders
• Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
• Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD)
• Pain management
• Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS)
• Reactive Attachment Disorder
• Reading skills
• Seizure Disorders
• Sleep Disorders
• Stroke
• Tourette Syndrome
Neurofeedback has also proven effective when used for Peak Performance Training, such as developing memory skills, focusing abilities, and increasing concentration.

During a training session, sensors are placed on your head, and these sensors pick up information about your brain’s activity at very specific locations. Importantly, no electricity enters your brain; instead, the sensors simply read information from your brain and relay it to the computer.

Next, you sit back in a comfortable chair while you watch a computer monitor displaying a game, movie, bar graph, or even colors that change as your brainwaves change. As you watch the monitor, your brain receives feedback through the display. For example, when your brain produces brainwaves that are favorable for addressing your problems, the game or movie will play, the bar graph will move, or a musical tone might sound. Conversely, when your brain generates patterns that contribute to your problems, the screen either freezes or goes dark.

This process provides your brain with instantaneous feedback on its performance throughout the training session. As a result, on a subconscious level, your brain starts to figure out what it needs to do to keep the screen active and to produce more helpful brainwave patterns, while reducing those associated with your symptoms. With consistent practice, your brain begins to learn new patterns, strengthening desirable neuronal pathways and even creating new ones.

As your brain adapts to making the screen active, you can gradually increase the difficulty of the goals to challenge your brain to perform even better. This progression is similar to weight training: as your muscles adapt to a certain weight, you gradually increase the load to build more muscle over time. Similarly, with neurofeedback training, your brain gradually learns to function at a more optimal level.

The brain is amazingly adaptable and plastic. It is capable of making adjustments to improve its performance if given cues about what to change. When the brain is regulating itself well and is alert and attentive, brainwaves (EEG) show particular patterns. Gradually, after 20 or more training sessions, the brain learns to stay in this high-performance state for longer periods and to retain these new skills.

In most cases, once the brain has learned to perform at its optimal level, it tends to stay there, and no further sessions are necessary. Think about learning to ride a bicycle. At first, it may have seemed difficult—did you fall? However, after some practice, you no longer had to consciously think about balancing. Subconsciously, your brain sent messages to your muscles, ensuring you stayed upright. Even if you haven’t ridden a bike in years, getting on one today would quickly remind your brain of how to maintain balance.

Similarly, this is how neurofeedback training works. Neurofeedback trains your brain to function in a way that keeps you “balanced.” Consequently, you won’t need to focus on what you must do to stay relaxed, for example. Instead, your brain will naturally operate as it should to keep you comfortable.

However, there are a few instances when several “booster” sessions might be necessary:

• If the client has been involved in a long-term traumatic situation, such as an abusive relationship or caring for a family member with a prolonged and difficult illness.
• If the client has undergone long-term medical treatment, like chemotherapy.
• If the client experiences head trauma after training, such as in an automobile or skiing accident involving brain injury.
• If the client’s primary issue is depression. In this case, people who receive neurofeedback for depression may benefit from one to three booster sessions a few times per year.
• If the client is still growing. Young children, in particular, might need booster sessions as their brains and bodies continue to develop.

Results from neurofeedback training are typically seen gradually, over time. Initial progress often becomes noticeable within 10 to 15 sessions for most conditions. A standard treatment program generally includes between 20 and 60 sessions, depending on the specific conditions being addressed, with the average being around 40 sessions. Currently, neurofeedback providers believe that a minimum of 20 sessions is necessary to consolidate learning, allowing clients to maintain the gains they’ve made. In some cases, a client may complete 20 sessions, take a year off, and then return to finish their training.

When starting neurofeedback training, sessions should be regular and frequent at two or three (or more) sessions per week. As learning begins to consolidate, the pace can be reduced.

Each session takes between 45 and 60 minutes. The actual training period lasts a maximum of 30 -45 minutes. Additional time is needed beforehand for sensor placement and adjustment.

Biofeedback is an incredibly powerful tool that helps rebalance your body, mind, and soul. With this in mind, during the treatment, you may notice you begin to feel more relaxed or even sleepy, (especially if you’ve been particularly stressed or busy).
Once your treatment has finished you may want to just go home to rest, give what your body needs.
Conversely, if your cognitive functions have been slower than usual it can stimulate that area of your brain as we’re bringing you back to balance.