Stressed Out and Anxious? Biofeedback Is A Proven Solution


by Sylvia Dickens - Date: 2006-12-23 - Word Count: 745 Share This!

How well have you learned to adapt to the high tech society we now live in? Do you feel constantly stressed? Do you experience loss of concentration, memory loss or poor motivation? Are you often tense and anxious?

These are just some of the signs that indicate you are stressed, most likely because of the rapid advancement of society and our need to adapt to this ever-changing technological world.

There are physical signs as well.

Scientists have proven that stress can trigger high blood pressure, tension headaches, asthma attacks, stomach problems, certain skin irritations, sleep disturbances, irregular or rapid heart beat and stroke, among other things.

We are becoming more overwhelmed today than ever before and it's in large part because of the rapid technological growth. We constantly must adapt to new hi-tech devices that are becoming more important to learn if we are to keep up. Meanwhile, we are trying to react to this increased pressure with primitive response mechanisms that protected early humans.

To deal with a threat, our bodies go through the process of preparation that will prepare them for running or fighting.

In preparation for dealing with the threat, our pupils dilate to provide more light, we sweat to reduce skin cuts, and our blood vessels contract to reduce bleeding. Our stomach and intestines slow down to reduce wasted energy, the heart beats faster and blood pressure rises. As soon as the threat is dealt with, however, these functions automatically drop back to normal.

Today, we haven't effectively learned stress relief and relaxation techniques, so our bodies remain in an elevated state of stress for an extended time. That's because what once worked, running or fighting, are no longer viable options, especially if we want to keep our jobs and our friends.

Consequently, it's become increasingly difficult to deal with the stresses that we experience on a daily basis. Our bodies have prepared to act, but we cannot. Consequently, the body changes do not go back to normal as quickly as they normally would. Often, we remain stressed for extended periods of time, eventually triggering permanent damage to our bodies as elevated blood pressure, increased heart rate, tense muscles and dilated blood vessels persist.

Fortunately, there are very effective ways of dealing with this build-up of stress, apart from physical exercise. There are very effective stress relief and relaxation techniques available to us. We can take a more active role in controlling these involuntary responses, a discovery that has surprised some scientists.

Biofeedback is proven to give people a means to do this whereas at one time scientists didn't think it was possible to control our involuntary responses.

Biofeedback works by teaching us how to change our habitual reactions to stress. This is done with a special apparatus that provides feedback from our bodies. The machine reads our skin temperature and muscle tensions to help us recognize that we are tense. It also teaches tense and anxious people how to relax.

In general, it entails watching a monitor that shows temperature changes and heart rate as we practice relaxing to make the readings go down. Through trial and error, we learn what action we must make to cause a change in the readings. This might be tensing a muscle or focusing on calmness.

More recently, programs have been developed that make the process of biofeedback much more entertaining and fun for the participant. They offer relaxing music set to computer animations that enable us to go through the scene and make things happen on screen. This can include watching a ball dance through a garden at a certain rate. By using our concentration, we speed up or slow down the action based on our body temperature and muscle contractions.

Feedback is gathered through tiny painless electrodes we attach to our bodies, similar to those used in lie detectors. These are connected to the computer software program that runs the graphic displays. Done well, these programs can be very effective in teaching people how to relax and focus.

Anyone suffering from any of the stress symptoms indicated, whether it's a racing heart or anxiety, can benefit from biofeedback exercises. They are suited to everyone - whether they are housebound for any reason or physically active.

As such things as road rage, air rage and shootings become more common, it's increasingly important that we must learn coping strategies that will enable us to survive the ever-increasing stress in society. By investing time into of our own responses, we can prevent the adverse effects of stress on our health and well-being.


Related Tags: anxiety, stress relief, biofeedback, biofeedback therapy, relaxation techniques, anxiety treatment

Sylvia Dickens is an award-winning journalist who has struggled and overcome , depression, panic and anxiety. Formerly with the Canadian Mental Health Association, she's written, "A Guide to Teenage Depression & Suicide" and offers several books to cure panic quickly and without medication, along with other popular topics. You can learn more at http://www.book-titles.ca Her travel magazine offers family vacation getaway ideas for fun and relaxation.

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