The scope of Biofeedback practice is relaxation and muscle re-education with the intention to reduce stress, pain and to improve the quality of life.  Biofeedback is a coaching and training process that helps people learn how to change patterns of behavior and physiological response patterns to take greater self responsibility for their health.

What is Biofeedback? 

Biofeedback is a treatment technique in which people are trained to improve their health by using signals from their own bodies. Physical therapists use biofeedback to help stroke victims regain movement in paralyzed muscles. Psychologists use it to help tense and anxious clients learn to relax. Specialists in many different fields use biofeedback to help their patients cope with pain.

The scope of Biofeedback practice is relaxation and muscle re-education with the intention to reduce stress, pain and to improve the quality of life.  Biofeedback is a coaching and training process that helps people learn how to change patterns of behavior and physiological response patterns to take greater self responsibility for their health.  Technology is used to provide extra information beyond the ability of normal senses about a particular physiological function.  The person first uses the information as feedback to increase awareness or consciousness of the changes in the body/mind function.  Then, the feedback is used to learn to develop new levels of voluntary self control over the function. The machines can detect a person's internal bodily functions with far greater sensitivity and precision than a person can alone. This information may be valuable. Both patients and therapists use it to gauge and direct the progress of treatment.

Studies have shown that after adequate training, including training to transfer self control skills to real life, people automatically and effortlessly use the skills they've learned in biofeedback.  Usually, people use the skills to bring aspects of their life into better balance and to function at a more optimal levell.  If they have anxiety, stress, attention, or performance problems, these will often respond very well to biofeedback training. 

Stressful events produce strong emotions, which arouse certain physical responses. Many of these responses are controlled by the sympathetic nervous system, the network of nerve tissues that helps prepare the body to meet emergencies by "flight or fight."

The typical pattern of response to emergencies probably emerged during the time when all humans faced mostly physical threats. Although the "threats" we now live with are seldom physical, the body reacts as if they were: The pupils dilate to let in more light. Sweat pours out, reducing the chance of skin cuts. Blood vessels near the skin contract to reduce bleeding, while those in the brain and muscles dilate to increase the oxygen supply. The gastrointestinal tract, including the stomach and intestines, slows down to reduce the energy expensed in digestion. The heart beats faster, and blood pressure rises. Normally, people calm down when a stressful event is over especially if they have done something to cope with it. For instance, imagine your own reactions if you're walking down a dark street and hear someone running toward you. You get scared. Your body prepared you to ward off an attacker or run fast enough to get away. When you do escape, you gradually relax.

If you get angry at your boss, it's a different matter. Your body may prepare to fight. But since you want to keep your job, you try to ignore the angry feelings. Similarly, if on the way home you get stalled in traffic, there's nothing you can do to get away. These situations can literally may you sick. Your body has prepared for action, but you cannot act. Individuals differ in the way they respond to stress. In some, one function, such as blood pressure, becomes more active while others remain normal. Many experts believe that these individual physical responses to stress can become habitual. When the body is repeatedly aroused, one or more functions may become permanently overactive. Actual damage to bodily tissues may eventually result.

Biofeedback is often aimed at changing habitual reactions to stress that can cause pain or disease. Many clinicians believe that some of their patients and clients have forgotten how to relax. Feedback of physical responses such as skin temperature and muscle tension provides information to help patients recognize a relaxed state. The feedback signal may also act as a kind of reward for reducing tension. It's like a piano teacher whose frown turns to a smile when a young musician finally plays a tune properly.