subject: Something called something as weird as "biofeedback" can change your life [print this page] Something called something as weird as "biofeedback" can change your life
A recent boom in mainstream medical use of biofeedback may have familiarized you with the term. After all, many prominent health institutions such as the Mayo Clinic use it, many insurers now pay for it, and schools and universities are beginning to incorporate it into their support for exhausted and pressured students at exam time.
BUT WHAT IS BIOFEEDBACK AND WHY YOU SHOULD CARE?
Let's start with why you should care: We all know that harmful stress is a fact of modern life, and most of us just live with it, doing our best. Hundreds of recent studies have, however, shown that biofeedback is an effective, drug-free, non-invasive tool for combatting temporary and ongoing stress, repairing damaged sleep patterns, achieving better results at work and in school, and even for forming more meaningful and balanced family relationships. And biofeedback can give you these results in just 10 minutes a day. Sound good? Read on.
Biofeedback starts with the simple process of showing a real-time display on a computer how an individual body is reflecting stress and emotion.
HOW IT WORKS
Reducing stress and balancing the body and mind through biofeedback is a process of learning what relaxed and balanced body signals look like, and watching your own signals reach those targets as you make a guided effort to breathe more regularly, recognize and release muscular tension throughout your body, and acknowledge any mental discordance within you until it is accepted as it is and then drifts away.
Until recently, biofeedback was only available through research institutes and impassioned enthusiasts with some funny-looking and cumbersome sensor hardware that required gels and tape to get body data from you to the computer. How embarrassing, and, well, complicated!
WHY IS IT GETTING SO BIG NOW?
Rapid technological advances, scientific documentation, and a better understanding of the way the unprecedented modern stress levels affect us have led to biofeedback systems that are ready to change your life the minute you clip an unobtrusive sensor device to your fingertip or ear.
TODAY'S BIOFEEDBACK
This sensor device connects to your computer, and on your screen you begin to see what's happening in your body and learn what those same signals look like when you are relaxed, free of mental static and anxiety, and ready to face the world with a great attitude and confidence. Then, train yourself to triumph over hard-wired responses to stress Is that a rabid wolf charging at me? It sure feels like it, even though it's a guy in a suit! by playing computer games.They look and feel like the fun computer games you have enjoyed in the past, but the difference is that your ability to rack up points, achieve a higher level, or enjoy a more successful gaming experience depends not on your ability to click a mouse like there's no tomorrow. Your success depends on what your body is doing. When your breathing is calm and even, effortless and paced right, your car will go faster, the fog will lift, the flower will bloom.
DELVING INTO BIOFEEDBACK
Anyone who has 10 minutes a day to spare and wants to create more space for relaxation, better thinking and decision-making, and more enjoyable family relationships in their lives should consider consumer biofeedback programs such as those offered by Wild Divine, HeartMath, and Somatic Vision. Here, I'll focus on Alive, a program by Somatic Vision.
Alive is currently the most user-friendly and fun way to create real and lasting change in your life and it is designed for a wide range of people. Abigail Hamilton, Marketing Director at Somatic Vision said, "Our first goal in designing Alive was to make the proven science of biofeedback friendly and accessible to the mainstream of people, including busy executives, athletes, performers, students, and even children. We wanted the experience to feel familiar, like a regular video game, but to introduce biofeedback tools to give the games purpose."
Purposeful gaming is a new arena with amazing potential in a busy world where time is chronically short. "We use our mobile phones as watches, timers, calculators, internet browsers, email monitors, and so much more. Why not use a video game you might play anyway to help you relieve stress and improve your life experience?" Hamilton asks.
Install the software on your PC, plug in the sensor, and you're off. You can take guided workshops that teach you breathing techniques you can use before sleep or a big challenge, or you can play immersive video games that challenge you to bring yourself into physical and psychological balance as you play!
HOW MUCH DOES IT COST?
Alive, and any other life-enhancement biofeedback system on the market, will cost you somewhere between $149 and $395. Compare that to a few sessions of therapy and it sounds affordable, right?
WHAT IF IT IS NOT WORKING?
Alive includes a built-in Coach that helps you achieve better scores and get better results in your life as you train. However, there are a lot of people who are in situations that require more focused guidance to triumph over enormous challenges.
Alive is well known among practitioners in the medical community, who use a boosted-up Clinical Version of the program to use their own therapeutic techniques in conjunction with Alive to treat these more complex conditions. Clinicians using Alive have access to detailed real-time graphs and can record comments about what is going on in the session that may need follow-up or specific treatment.
A BEST SOLUTION AMONG ALTERNATIVES
For many, biofeedback is simply the best way to confront stress and its negative effects. Coping behaviors such as smoking and over-eating compound the damaging health effects of stress and don't get to the root of the problem. Activities such as yoga and meditation might take too much time or might not be a good personality fit for some people. Medications are invasive and have side effects. And perhaps the worst alternative of all when it comes to stress is leaving it untreated. Relationships suffer, blood pressure rises, and we have a feeling of lack of control that hurts us both mentally and physically. Biofeedback gives us a way to confront stress by training ourselves to readily enter a state of clear-headed confidence and calm whenever we need it.
