Biofeedback Therapy
Biofeedback Services
Mind Body Connect 360 is excited to offer Biofeedback Psychology Services as part of our 360-degree mind-body approach to overall balance, physical health, emotional well-being, and peak performance optimization. Biofeedback is an effective tool that teaches tweens, adolescents, and adults how to create an effective brain-heart-body alignment to influence emotional, cognitive and physical control for optimal peak performance in everyday life. Biofeedback is a scientifically proven, safe, natural way to rewire your body’s baseline stress response to perform at your peak level despite perceived pressure, challenge, stress, and distraction. Biofeedback training can be integrated into clinical treatment for a variety of mental health concerns or used as a stand-alone approach to promote overall well-being and peak performance.
Mind Body Connect 360’s psychologist, Dr. Lindsey Berjansky is a Biofeedback Certification International Alliance (BCIA) certification candidate and is an expert in providing Biofeedback Services.
What is Biofeedback?
Biofeedback is an integrative psychophysiological (mind-body) therapy based on the recognition that changes in the mind and emotions affect the body, and changes in the body influence the mind and emotions. It emphasizes training individuals to self-regulate, gain awareness, increase control over their bodies, brains, and nervous systems, and improve flexibility in their physiological response. The positive effects of biofeedback training enhance overall physical, emotional, and mental health, as well as learning and performance. Biofeedback trains you how to create a state of mind-heart-body alignment giving you the ability to access the desired emotional and cognitive states needed, in real-time, to manage challenges. We are unable to be our best selves when we have been swept away in a wave of distressing emotional, cognitive and physiological responses triggered by perceived stressors. The relationship between the mind and body is powerful and those that harness this understanding in their everyday lives will feel more successful, focused, confident and in an enhanced state to compete, perform and lead in the face of challenges.
What Happens in a Biofeedback Therapy Session?
Your body is constantly sending you signals through your heart rate, breathing, muscle tension, and skin temperature. Biofeedback gives you a way to understand and recognize the messages your body is sending you, and how to apply this greater sense of awareness to influence your physiological, emotional, and cognitive processes. Monitoring sensors are used to read the physiological signals your body is sending such as breathing/respiration, heart rate, heart rate variability, muscle activity, blood flow, and skin temperature, and display them for you on a computer screen in a clear and easy to understand way. You can see what happens to your heart rate when you make changes to your breathing, or what happens to your finger temperature when you imagine yourself sitting on a tranquil beach. The ability to see, understand and influence this “feedback” provides valuable information on how to gain voluntary control over body and mind to regulate anxiety, achieve goals and enhance overall health, well-being, and performance. Many clients are amazed when they begin to recognize that they have more control over their mind-body processes than they imagined. All biofeedback training sessions are tailored to the unique needs of each client and may incorporate a combination of mindfulness, mental performance coaching, and psychological strategies to enhance effectiveness.
What Types of Concerns Can Biofeedback Help With?
Biofeedback cultivates the skillset required to regulate our physiological and emotional activation, which is at the core of how we handle stressful situations, whether they are related to diagnosable mental health or medical conditions or optimizing peak performance under pressure. Biofeedback training helps to develop the ability to integrate the physiological, mental, and emotional responses in a way that allows you to train your body to find the perfect level of activation needed to meet challenges and recover fully, an important component of resilience. Incorporating the skills learned through biofeedback can:
- Optimize peak performance under pressure (athletic, artistic, and professional performance, etc.)
- Better regulate your emotional reactions in everyday life
- Improve your ability to make quick decisions
- Improve situational awareness, focus, and sustained attention
- Improve flexibility in responding to difficult situations
- Increase overall resilience
- Improve ability to cope with stress, trauma, and anxiety
- Reduce activation of the sympathetic nervous system and strengthen activation of the parasympathetic nervous system to correct autonomic imbalances contributing to stress-related health conditions.
- Manage insomnia and improve sleep patterns
- Manage chronic tension headaches related to stress