Biofeedback training provides the client with a glimpse into their own nervous system response. Clients receive “feedback” about their biology via noninvasive, state-of-the-art equipment. This feedback can include information on peripheral body temperature, breathing rate, heart rate and heart rate variability, muscle tension, and eccrine sweat gland activity.
Many clients who have received biofeedback training report less anxiety, a greater understanding of how physical pain works, and a newfound ability to manage stress. This can be especially useful for those experiencing chronic pain, chronic stress, or an anxiety disorder, and can be integrated into cognitive-behavioral and mindfulness-based therapeutic techniques.
Various forms of anxiety come with physiological hyperarousal, and I like to think of biofeedback training as "physical therapy for the nervous system." Clients learn, in real time, the impact that thoughts, emotions, movements/postures, and/or breathing styles can have on their physiology, and then together we explore how to make small adjustments to these elements in order to promote a more physiologically balanced state. There are various ways in which biofeedback can assist with this: EMG training can help with muscle tension, respiration training can help with achieving more relaxed breathing styles, and electrodermal training with learning to regulate the nervous system response more generally. When combined with CBT, I strive for helping clients better understand their specific cognitive interpretations about and beliefs around their nervous system responses and then assisting them in exploring the ways in which these cognitive processes may influence and/or be influenced by these responses, via experiential learning. When combined with mindfulness techniques, biofeedback can be a tool for learning to recognize these physiological responses without judgment or interpretation.
The end goal is for clients to walk away from biofeedback training sessions with a greater understanding of how to regulate the nervous system without the use of the technology. As clients gain fluency in how to achieve a more relaxed state in the body through making small adjustments and then noticing the positive impact on the nervous system, chronic pain, stress, and anxiety become more manageable.
-Megan L. Wagner, Ph.D., BCB, & Biofeedback Program Director
