Patients learn the skill of relaxation
Without biofeedback, "It's as if your eyes were closed and you were trying to write," says John Lefebvre, PhD, a psychology professor at Wofford College in Spartanburg, S.C. "The penmanship would be bad, because you don't have all the information you need. Biofeedback gives you information you may not be aware of." Armed with that knowledge, the goal is to make relaxation "become a skill you can call on," says Lefebvre.
Contracted muscles, which can be a source of pain, calm down
A machine picks up electrical signals in the muscles. Each time they grow more tense, the signal is translated into a flashing lights or beeps. By trying to slow the flashing or beeping, patients end up relaxing their muscles.
Facial muscles release
"Facial muscles have elaborate feedback loops to both branches of the autonomic nervous system," says Richard Gevirtz, PhD, a past president of the Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback. "We teach people to profoundly relax their facial muscles." Eventually they figure out how to do a "Mona Lisa relaxed smile," he says, which corresponds to feeling better.
Kenneth Holroyd, PhD, a distinguished professor of health psychology at Ohio University, in Athens, Ohio, has studied the effect of biofeedback on migraines. "Through trial and error, you can learn to prevent migraines and to stop migraines when they begin to occur," he says. "You can change that physiological response through the action of your mind."
The bottom line for Amanda is that biofeedback "doesn't get rid of the pain, but it helps to not make it worse, and it makes the rest of my body feel better. It's an important skill that I can do on my own."
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