Biofeedback: How to Make Your Body Work for You

Aug 20

Biofeedback devices give you information about your body’s functioning. With the help of a therapist, you can learn to control your breathing and heart rate to help regulate and self-soothe in moments of stress.

By changing your thoughts, emotions or behavior you are able to control your body’s reaction. Feedback allows you to see in real time how your body is responding to your thoughts. A therapist can then lead you through guided meditation or breathing exercises to help you learn how to alter your state of being. This can help the condition for which you sought treatment.

In my practice, I use a device called HeartMath. The device is clipped to the client’s ear and connects to a program, which provides information on the client’s heart rhythm.

HeartMath is based on over 25 years of research. Studies conducted with over 11,500 people have shown improvements in mental & emotional well-being in 6-9 weeks using HeartMath:

24% improvement in the ability to focus
30% improvement in sleep
38% improvement in calmness
46% drop in anxiety
48% drop in fatigue
56% drop in depression

Emotions play a major part in our health and bodily functioning. Health problems can occur due to an imbalance in the autonomic nervous system. For example, anger causes an increase in activity in the sympathetic system and a decrease in the parasympathetic system. If a person is angry or stressed a lot of the time, an imbalance develops in the system, which can lead to high blood pressure and heart attacks.

Appreciation, care, and compassion send very different signals to the brain than when an individual is feeling upset. These positive emotions allow the two branches of the nervous system to get in sync with each other and allow for the organs and glands to work together more effectively and the heart’s rhythms to become more smooth and even.

Deep breathing can be helpful to control emotions, but it is not enough. The heart’s rhythmic activity is one of the main factors that affect our breathing rate and patterns. When the heart’s rhythm shifts into coherence as a result of a positive emotional shift, our breathing rhythm automatically synchronizes with the heart, thereby reinforcing and stabilizing the shift to system-wide coherence.

Using HeartMath techniques has more benefits than those typically achieved through breathing alone. These include:

deeper perceptual and emotional changes
improved intuition and creativity
increase in cognitive performance
hormonal balance

To get all of the benefits of HeartMath tools, it is important to learn how to create positive emotion. However, this can be difficult for beginning users. Therefore, practicing heart-focused breathing at a 10-second rhythm can be useful and be a first step in the process.

If you are interested in learning more about the benefits of biofeedback and how it can help you reach your goals, reach out.