Biofeedback is a method that uses the mind to control a body function that the body normally regulates automatically, such as muscle tension, heart rate, pain perception or stability... The biofeedback therapist will then teach physical and mental exercises that can help patient control the function. Can these exercises also be effective for involuntary actions such as stress? If yes, By which method?
Samaneh,
Yes! Indeed!
Regards,
Christopher
http://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1904&context=etdarchive
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Hello,
While I believe this is still a topic prone to controversy and pseudoscience, I can relate the essence with what you describe to some findings I have had with a whole different kind of therapy (i.e. manual myofascial release techniques). More specifically, these techniques showed implications for the immune system (both statistically and clinically significant), as well as physiological changes (statistically significant). I think that research to find correlations between two factors that seem connected only at an indirect level is, at least, warranted. Perhaps contacting a biofeedback therapist is a good step towards setting up research.
Good luck!
Rik Muskens
I did not try, but I consider it possible. I found in animals that stress and depression depend on an abnormaly high adrenergic activation of the hippocampus (occurrence of a permant generation of fast rhythms.
Psatta DM.: Limbic electrical activity in neurotic cats: its dependency on the cholinergic-adrenergic ratio. Activ. Nerv. Sup. (Praha), 1977, 19, 124-126.
In man, depression can be manifeste by a fast rhythms enhancenment in the right Temporal lobe. A reduction of the incidence of these rhythms could be obtained by biofeedback procedures.
Psatta DM: Personality disorders in Epilepsy. Rev. roum. Neurol., Psychiat., 1977, 4, 361-368.
The best author on this is Hans Selye, MD, PhD, Please see the book on stress, in which I wrote a chapter, as did three Nobel Prize winners.. There are so many types of stress...distress, eustress, and causes of stress, that there is no simple answer. There are also multiple types of biofeedback,,,,EEG, pulse rate, GSR, muscle tension, etc. So you must identify the cause of the stress, and the type of biofeedback. Then you have to eliminate the multiple medical diseases which may manifest as anxiety, such as thyroid disease, or Barlow's syndrome, or medication side effects. So if you could be more specific, I could help you with a better answer. Nelson Hendler, MD, MS former assistant professor of neurosurgery, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
We show patients how the tension of their muscles(M. trapezius etc) changes when they imagine stressful events . Then we look which form of stress relieving lowers the tension. That is impressing and motivating for a lot of people
I think that EEG biofeedback (reducing the fast rhythms from the right temporal lobe) could control any kind of stress .
My ancient forgotten investigation (in men and animals) revealed a lot of notable peculiarities about stress and biofeedback. I used it mainly in Epilepsy. In 1972 Sterman showed that a biofeedback training of senory-motor rhythms (rolandic spindles) reduces cortical epileptogenesis. Such spindles can be induced by Caudate nucleus stimulations (Buchwald 1962, Demetrescu 1962).I checked this effect by EEG recordings in animals and I confirmed the depression of thalamic and cortical spikes induced by a cobalt focus ( Psatta DM: Control of focal experimental Epilepsy by feedback Caudatum stimulations. Epilepsia 1973, 24, 444-454). I also showed that these stimulations reduce drive (Shugalev NP., Psatta DM: Effects of feedback Caudate nucleus stimulation on spontaneous amygdaloid spindles and drive. Br. Res. Bull., 1979, 4, 475-482) Nevertheless in men I obtained a better control of epilepsy by direct biofeedback changes in the focal activity, than by training the sensory-motor rhythms. (Psatta DM: EEG and clinical survey during biofeedback treatment of epileptics. Rev. roum Neurol. Psychiat. 1983, 21, 63-75). In one of my patients the reduction of slow irregular rhythms from the focus was followed by unpleasant psychic depression effects .
These results can be found with more details in my book "Electrophysiological Investigation in Brain Diseses" (Scholar' s Book, Germany, 2016).
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