How about making Stress Reduction and Peak Performance a game?                 Biofeedback Enhanced Stress Management is wonderful for the busy minded    individual and the kid in all of us.

"According to 30 years of medical research, Heart Rate Variability is the best test in existence of the the state of the bodies autonomic nervous system and is not even 1% susceptible to placebo."

--Peter Julian, Director, Advanced Cardiologics

"...analysis of HRV has become a standard tool for the evaluation of cardiac mortality with the general 'rule of thumb' that a reduced variability is a signature for disease and enhanced risk."

--Schmidt and Morfill, 1995

" In my opinion, within the near future all psychotherapies will necessarily be tested with this objective measure. This objective instrument is known to be free of placebo influence and, as more psychotherapists begin to use HRV, we will see an end to testing psychotherapies with a control group and statistical tests in an attempt to demonstrate that the miniscule effects of most feeble conventional approaches are greater than chance."

--Roger Callahan, PhD, Founder of Thought Field Therapy


Biofeedback is the means by which one can monitor how one functions on a physical and emotional level.  By using a simple, noninvasive electronic means of monitoring these functions. This method provides useful information, and signals the changes that we initiate with our intent, to alter any inappropriate circumstance or condition within the body, like lowering blood pressure, improving heart rate, controlling breath, and relaxing tense muscles. Biofeedback instruments record continuous information about subtle changes in physiological stress responses (such as muscle tension, temperature, respiration, skin resistance or heart rate). Using this information, various guided relaxation and stress management techniques are employed to control the appropriate symptoms, which can include anything from anxiety to muscle spasms.

This technique, used since the 1960's for stress management, is based on the principle that our thoughts can control our bodies; by watching patterns on a computer screen, people can consciously learn to change their breathing patterns and alleviate stress. Robert Fried, Ph.D., a researcher at Hunter College in New York says, "Breath controls brain waves." Freeze-Framer and Wild Divine are new forms of biofeedback that actually displays a person's HRV (Heart Rate Variability Waves) on a computer screen.

What are the benefits of Biofeedback?

You will learn to intentionally shift to a positive emotional state and will be able to see the changes in your heart rhythms immediately on the computer screen.  These shifts in your heart rhythms create a favorable cascade of neural, hormonal and biochemical events that benefit the entire body and mind.  Blood pressure drops. Stress hormones plummet. The immune system pumps up. Ant-aging hormones increase. You gain clarity, calmness and control.  The effects are both immediate and long lasting.

How does Biofeedback work?

Biofeedback operates on the notion that we have the innate ability and potential to influence the automatic functions of our bodies through the exertion of will and mind.

By helping you to become more attuned to your internal body functions, biofeedback teaches you to control certain unhealthy conditions.  Muscle biofeedback equipment, for example, can measure the tension of your muscles and relay this information to you. By focusing on this information, your mind becomes less preoccupied with the problems causing stress, which in turn causes fewer messages to be sent form your brain to your muscles telling them to stay tense. You can use the information from the biofeedback instrument to make connections between the feedback and the way you are thinking and feeling.  The Mind/Body Connection at it's best.

What type of Biofeedback monitoring do we do?

The two types of biofeedback that we measure are Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) and Heart Rate Variability (HRV).

GSR measures electrical conductance in the skin, which is associated with the activity of the sweat glands.  A very slight electrical current (unnoticeable to you) is run though your finger. The machine measures changes in the salt and water in your sweat glands ducts. The emotionally aroused you are, the more active your sweat glands are and the greater the electrical conductivity of you skin. GSR has been effective in treating phobias, anxiety, excessive sweating, and many other stress related symptoms, since these emotions/feelings will affect your skin's conductivity. It is used as a lie detector test. Athletes use this technique to prepare for games - to make sure that they are not too anxious or have pre-game jitters.

HRV is the beat-to-beat change in one's heart rate, it is an accurate indicator of autonomic nervous system activity that can provide important insights into the clients overall state of wellness.  The autonomic nervous system is the body's control center for stress.  When the HPA-axis (Hypothalamus Pituitary Adrenal) is stimulated, the autonomic nervous system activates the "fight or flight" mechanism and shifts cells from growth mode to self-protection.  The response is immediate, mobilizing the body's resources for immediate physical activity. During the alarm/stress reaction, immune, digestive, cardiovascular, neurological, and reproductive activities are inhibited.  When the threat is over, the body automatically shifts your cells back into the growth mode.  The "fight or flight " is healthy when it allows the body to react to avoid danger and then returns to rest. What is not natural is the chronic state of stress that most of us stay in.  If the body stays in this state for an extended period, illness, disease and disorder are likely to follow. (Remember up to 90% of all health related problems are caused by or exasperated by the stress response.)

The biofeedback programs the we utilize measure every Heart Beat to get your average HR (heart rate or pulse) and how much it varies. When you take your pulse, you get the average number of beats per minute.  With a computerized monitoring of your HR, you not only get the average but a picture of the differences between the faster and slower beats.  This difference is the HRV. This is important for many reasons, when the HRV is very low while someone is resting, this pattern typically reflects higher stress levels, and if sustained most of the time, is predictive of many illnesses and causes of death. For people under 50 years of age, a desired HRV is around 20 beats or more, e.g. your faster heartbeats might be 80 bpm followed by slower beats of 60, or 90-70, with a rhythm that alternates between them.

Negative Emotional States tend to be accompanied by low HRV.  For example someone feeling broken hearted or angry might find their HR bouncing around between 90-92-88-95-100...,so the average HRV would be 2-5.  Constantly staying in that pattern of negative emotions may be predictive of later health problems.

Positive Emotional States like feeling love, compassion, deep connection, sense of purpose, gratitude, or warm-hearted, etc. tend to be accompanied by greater HRV, like 20-30.  When you have high HRV it is easier for the brain and heart to synchronize and the brain performs better, the immune system boosts, and intuition is more likely to happen.


Conclusions
During biofeedback training, you gain understanding of your stressors, your interpretation of stressors and your physiological response patterns (i.e. how your body responds to stress).  You learn to change your physiological responses form abnormal to normal, how to recognize tension responses and how to eliminate the symptoms of stress.  You will come to realize the importance to daily practice and the Power You Have Within you to control the way you feel.  If your old patterns, behaviors and responses recur, you will have the knowledge and ability to regain control.  Biofeedback does take some time and attention to learn these new ways of control your inner environment, but the skills acquired are well worth the effort.


Cautions
Biofeedback therapy is not recommended for persons with severe psychosis, severe depression, or obsessional neurosis, nor for patients with psychopathic personalities.  You should also check with you Doctor if you have diabetes or other endocrine disorders, as it may reduce the need for insulin or other medications.