Are You Stressed Out?

Relaxation training and biofeedback help you cope with stress, lessen general feelings of anxiety and feelings of panic, as well as specific anxieties such as speech or test anxiety. They also can be useful for headaches and pain control.

At the TAMU Student Counseling Service, biofeedback is used primarily in the treatment of stress and anxiety. Stress and anxiety often detract from one’s ability to perform both personally and academically to his/her full potential.

• Do you worry too much?
• Are you often troubled by anxious feelings?
• Do you find it hard to slow down and relax even when you have the time?
• Does it usually take you longer than 20 minutes to fall asleep at night?
• Are you easily upset or often feel “on edge”?
• Do you suffer from frequent and or intense headaches, neck pain or back pain?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, biofeedback and relaxation training may be helpful to you.

What is Biofeedback?

Biofeedback teaches self-regulation skills to assist people in improving their own health and well-being. Biofeedback can help individuals learn to control and better manage their own physical and mental processes. Biofeedback is a method of using electronic sensors to measure different physiological processes or states, such as temperature, heart rate, blood pressure, electrical activity of the skin and muscles, and brain wave patterns. This information is then “fed back” to you. The feedback may be visual or auditory, and actually allows you to see or hear what is happening within your body.

Once you become aware of what is happening, you can learn different techniques, and through practice, you can have a significant impact on both your physiological and mental states. Biofeedback is often and best used in conjunction with other forms of therapy and medical treatment.

It is a safe, painless, drug-free method of teaching the body and mind how to return to and maintain a healthier state. Biofeedback is not an active form of treatment. Nothing is being “done to you” when you are hooked-up to biofeedback equipment. You are simply being given some extra feedback about the state that your body is in.

What is it Used For?

Biofeedback has been shown to be an effective mode of treatment for a number of health related issues such as:

• Pain Management – tension headaches, migraine headaches, and other neuromuscular pain disorders.
• Stress and Anxiety – relaxation training and desensitization are used in the treatment of stress-related disorders, phobias, anxiety, insomnia and anger/self-regulation disturbances.
• Circulatory Disorders, high blood pressure, cardiac arrhythmias, Raynaud’s disease, and digestive difficulties.

Biofeedback and Stress Management

At Texas A&M’s Student Counseling Service, biofeedback is most commonly used in the treatment of stress and anxiety. As you begin to experience stress or perceive danger, adrenaline is released into your body. When experiencing intense stress or danger, you can even notice an “adrenaline rush.” Adrenaline speeds up your autonomic nervous system causing your heart to beat faster, your breathing to become more rapid, your muscles to tense, your mind to race, and your pupils to dilate - among other things. Your body is preparing to defend itself or run from danger. An “adrenaline rush” can be enjoyable for some people when they create it with activities such as skydiving or watching a scary movie. However, when the release of adrenaline is created by our perception that we are being overwhelmed or may not be able to handle a situation, it is not only unpleasant, but it also interferes with performance (i.e., test taking, studying or relating socially).

When we have this experience on a regular or chronic basis, it can lead to the development of an anxiety disorder and also contribute to stress related illnesses, such as digestive problems or heart disease. By learning biofeedback and relaxation, you can have more control over how your body and mind react in stressful situations. Research with college students has consistently demonstrated that students who utilize relaxation on a regular basis not only feel more at ease, but also retain more while studying and recall more during exams.

Two Approaches

At the SCS we have a number of different ways to monitor the various biological processes affected by stress. Below we briefly address the two most common methods used.

Thermal biofeedback:
Adrenaline diverts blood from the surface of the skin to the core of the body causing a drop in the temperature on the surface of the skin. This is most noticeable in the hands and feet. Therefore, the hands are a good measure of the stress you are experiencing at any moment. You may notice that your hands become “cold and clammy” at stressful moments, such as that first date. You can learn not only how to monitor hand temperature but how to increase it. As your hands become warmer, your breathing, heart rate and mind begin to slow and your muscles begin to release tension.

Muscle Electrical Activity:
We can monitor generalized tension throughout the body or specific muscle groups, such as the neck and shoulder muscle and teach you how to release tension that can contribute to headaches, neck pain or back pain.

Biofeedback Training