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How
it Works
I often ask
my patients, "which do you want to be, stressed or relaxed."
"Relaxed, of course", is always the response. Then I
ask, "What if your car is stalled on a railroad track and
a train is speeding toward you?" Hum, maybe it wouldn't be
a good idea to be too relaxed in this situation.
The truth
is, our level of arousal should vary depending on what's going
on. The goal of biofeedback treatment is to help you achieve the
best level of arousal for the wide variety of situations in your
life. The ultimate goal of all biofeedback therapy is to stabilize,
normalize and optimize psychophysiological functioning. We teach
physiological flexibility.
We have two
separate branches in our nervous system. In general, one activates
while the other deactivates.
| Sympathetic
Nervous System (SNS) |
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Parasympathetic
Nervous System (PNS) |
- Activation
- Preparedness
- Energy
expending
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- Relaxation
- Recovery
- Energy
restoring
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First, we'll
use the biofeedback to find out about the functioning of your
nervous system. This is your individualized Psychopysiological
Stress Profile. Are you too reactive or do you not react enough?
Do you recover well after exposure to an arousing stress? What
is your "idling speed", that is, where along this continuum
do you exist most of the time when you're doing nothing? (Some
people hyper-activate their sympathetic system almost all the
time!)
Once we find
out how your nervous system is functioning, we can make the necessary
corrections.
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