Biofeedback and pain management.

RichardNY

Well-Known Member
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People that feel the need to put others down in order to make themselves feel better. A closed mind. A Fiscal view of life. Oh and Emu he used to scare the **** out of me when I was a kid :-s
Hi all,

I was wondering if any of you practise/use Biofeedback techniques it's something that I have just started to read about amongst many other things for pain management.

I'm not talking about Biofeedback machines but rather the definition of Biofeedback as described by the Mayo Clinic.

“Biofeedback is a type of complementary and alternative medicine called mind-body therapy. It's designed to enable you — in mind-over-matter fashion — to use your thoughts and will to control your body. Biofeedback is based on the idea, confirmed by scientific studies, that people have the innate potential to influence with their minds many of the automatic, involuntary functions of their bodies.”

If you read it out of context like that its sounds a bit 'voodoo' but having found that there are a good few recognised bodies out there that implement and have 'how to' exercises and classes I thought it was worth a little more investigation.

To be honest doe's anybody have any techniques that help them manage pain ? Similar to this perhaps Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (although I understand CBT to be more to do with feelings and emotions) or other techniques that I haven't even heard of or dreamed of ?

Is it all simplistically put creating a bigger distraction to move your 'focus' onto something else for example playing a video game, painting, ballroom dancing, carpentry or something else entirely ? Perhaps drinking 20 pints off old fuggles sweet oblivion and falling over in a numb stupor ! :lol:

So long as something is not doing more damage than good then whatever works for you in my opinion is great and may just be something that will work for me too .

All the best Richard.
 

dragongirl

Well-Known Member
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349
Can't add to your ideas about biofeedback but CBT is not so much about feelings and emotions as thoughts and behaviours - as indeed the name says!
There is a therapy called Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) that uses body meridian work alongside a cognitive focus to shift some aspects of bodily complaints, including pain management. You'd have to look it up!
Distraction is often considered to be useful in tackling tinnitus, isn't it? Not sure if drink works as well ;-)
Mind-body stuff is all the rage (so to speak) these days because the West has been dual-split-call it what you will between mind and body for ages, despite them being clearly connected. I think the non-West world has never forgotten about the link. We value cognition too much, in other words!
Let us know how you get on if you experiment with the biofeedback stuff.
 

Ronin1966

Newbie
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1
Hello RichardNY:

The ability to alter bodily systems which are automatic or parts of the autonomic nervous system (heart, lungs) in a very direct way can be achieved using physical techniques of precisely this type.

Whether I stick electrodes on my body in order to get an audio feedback to my physical techniques/efforts is unimportant. Can we change our physical tension? Can we increase the blood flow more generally, or to a specific body part for a given purpose? Can we through specific physical positioning thereby become aware of specific muscles which we unconsciously contract, tighten...? Can I through deeper breathing reduce directly my blood pressure

If the answers to any of those questions is yes, then finding the practice(s) to achieve these ends are numerous. My particular bent and preference would be via assorted originally asian cultural practices but there are many techniques perfectly valid in the western methods and presentation.

Tai Chi Ch'uan, Hatha-Yoga, Karate-do. All approach tension, and its necessary reduction in different ways, and slightly different time frames. Introspection, physical self-awareness is a positive thing and biofeedback, a fine tool for exploring that,,,

What kind of pain are we discussing?

Stuart
 

melissa

Newbie
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2
In school we heard about Biofeedback. They told us that you can learn to control some of your body functions while you are connected with a machine that shows your heartbeat, your pulse and so on. Controlling the showen functions you can try to calm down your pulse when breathing slowly. Later on you can control the functions without the machine and that helps you calming if you are stressed out.
I have to admit that I have never tried it but i really would like to.