Biofeedback: What It Is, Purpose, Procedure, Risks & Benefits

Your heart rate speeds up, your muscles tighten, your blood pressure rises, you start to sweat, and your breathing quickens. You can see these stress responses as they happen on the monitor, and then get immediate feedback as you try to stop them. Biofeedback sessions are typically done in a therapist’s office, but there are computer programs that connect the biofeedback sensor to your own computer. One technique can help you gain more control over these normally involuntary functions. It’s called biofeedback, and the therapy is used to help prevent or treat conditions, including migraine headaches, chronic pain, incontinence, and high blood pressure. Many people are turning to complementary or alternative methods to improve health and wellness.

When should I call my healthcare provider?

While the study had promising results, more large-scale trials are necessary. Several studies found that when people with high blood pressure used HRV biofeedback, their blood pressure declined. It’s noninvasive, and there aren’t any side effects or potential complications. Operant conditioning is a method of learning that uses rewards and punishment to modify behavior. Biofeedback uses visual or auditory (sound) feedback to encourage desired actions. Coherence is a state of optimal function, marked by the development of smooth, consistent patterns in heart rate variability.

Over time, they may find this useful for minimizing the symptoms of a health condition. As part of physical therapy, biofeedback may help retrain the brain to control muscles more effectively. We often don’t consciously realize all the ways our body responds to things like pain, stress and anxiety. If you’re stressed or anxious, for example, your heart and breathing rates may increase, your muscles might become tense and you might start to sweat. With biofeedback, you become aware of these bodily changes and learn to modify them.

Sleep Disorders

While researchers are not sure how or why biofeedback works, they do know that it has shown promise in the treatment of a variety of conditions. It has been accepted by many in the medical field as an alternative treatment for mood and anxiety disorders. In order to be effective, biofeedback requires that people play an active role in their treatment. Success also usually requires that people regularly practice between training sessions.

• Biofeedback helps you make slight changes in your body, such as relaxing muscles, to help relieve pain or reduce tension.
• A 2024 randomized controlled trial found that ultrasound-based biofeedback improved symptoms in 48 participants over 5 weeks of treatment.
• Muscle tension and stress can trigger migraines and other types of headaches, and can make headache symptoms worse.
• Often we use medication to control our body’s systems and sometimes these medicines can cause unwanted side effects.

Which healthcare providers use biofeedback?

In time, you can practice the biofeedback methods you learn on your own. Don’t stop the medical treatment for your problem without talking to a healthcare professional. How many treatments you have and how long they last depend on your health problem and how quickly you learn to control your body’s responses. The goal of biofeedback is to learn to use these methods at home on your own without a machine or sensors. To find a person who teaches biofeedback, ask a healthcare professional to recommend someone who has experience treating your problem. Many biofeedback experts are licensed in another area of health care, such as psychology, nursing or physical therapy.

Other conditions

With electromyography, sensors are placed at various points on the body and connected to an EMG device. This device detects changes in muscle tension over time by monitoring electrical activity that results in muscle contractions. Respiratory biofeedback involves wearing sensor bands around the chest and abdomen to monitor breathing rates and patterns. With training, people can learn to have greater control over their breathing rates which can help in a variety of situations including when experiencing anxiety. Muscle tension and stress can trigger migraines and other types of headaches, and can make headache symptoms worse. There is good evidence that biofeedback therapy can relax muscles and ease stress to reduce both the frequency and severity of headaches.

Progressive muscle relaxation can help a variety of problems including muscle spasms, stress, and insomnia. You may use an electric myographical device attached to your muscles during this form of biofeedback. This device is worn on your chest and has a small wearable monitor that provides you feedback about the rate of your breathing. It then gives you an audible melody that helps you slow your breathing.

Please feel free to ask any questions related to how or how often to use biofeedback to your behavioral health provider. Studies show that these types of devices might be effective in improving responses during stress and inducing feelings of calm and well-being. Studies have shown that biofeedback therapy has many potential benefits and does not appear to be dangerous or risky. Working with a biofeedback specialist to supplement medical treatment for your condition can be helpful.

Your health care provider will describe a situation and guide you through relaxation techniques. The monitor lets you see how your heart rate and blood pressure change in response to being stressed or remaining relaxed. Since we can’t directly control our heart rate, we use our breathing patterns to regulate the activity of our heart and the autonomic nervous system. However, it is important to focus on not just slow and rhythmic breathing, but also on positive emotions. While breathing rhythmically is a useful intervention to initiate a shift out of a stressful emotional state and into increased coherence.

Providers choose the best method and technology for producing the most helpful feedback. For example, providers often use electromyography (EMG) biofeedback for muscle-related conditions so you can “see” how your muscles respond. Biofeedback therapy has been around for years, and there are several well-constructed studies that indicate its helpfulness in various conditions. Biofeedback for some conditions, like high blood pressure and asthma, has been proven to be quite helpful. For other conditions, it may be anecdotally helpful, but its efficacy is not supported by peer-reviewed and well-designed research. Some require special instruments that monitor your body’s functions and tell you what is going on.

Neurofeedback therapy can reduce intrusive thoughts, anxiety, and emotional dysregulation. Costs for biofeedback can vary considerably, often ranging from $35 to $85 per biofeedback session. Fees can vary depending upon the training, qualification, and experience of the biofeedback therapist.

Most importantly, you want to feel comfortable with the therapist you choose. Ask for an initial consultation online or in person to see if they meet your standards. It does so by reducing beta and theta frequencies in the brain, causing people to be less alert and sleepy. Areas of the brain that influence anxiety are in the right hemisphere, including the frontal lobe and cingulate gyrus. The brain stem, hypothalamus, and basal forebrain in the sensorimotor and central regions are responsible for sleep-related functions. Aside from the obvious thermoregulatory function of sweat, emotional stimulation can also easily trigger sweating.

For ADHD, the goal is to decrease theta frequencies and increase beta. This will produce a reduction Biofeedback Therapy in hyperactivity and an increase in focus and attention. A 2018 review of previous research found that overall, the quality of evidence on using biofeedback to treat nocturnal bruxism is low to moderate. Nocturnal bruxism is the clenching or grinding of the teeth and jaws during sleep. The researchers found that biofeedback was most beneficial in people with only partial external sphincter failure.

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• Such devices can range considerably in price, with some costing as low as $20 and more expensive ones costing thousands of dollars.
• For ADHD, the goal is to decrease theta frequencies and increase beta.
• These studies also reveal that biofeedback therapies help you learn how to self-regulate your physical and mental functions.

More research is necessary to determine if biofeedback produces more long-lasting changes. CES works by suppressing muscle movement to close the jaw during sleep. The study tried the therapy in 126 people, including 88 females and 38 males.

That being said, it’s nice to know where your starting point falls on the spectrum. Greater Heart Rate Variability (a higher HRV score) at rest generally indicates better health, a younger biological age, and better aerobic fitness. However, Heart Rate Variability is affected by everything from your mindset to air quality, to age, and exercise patterns.