What is Biofeedback?
Biofeedback as a natural asthma treatment is a means for gaining control of our bodies processes to increase relaxation, relieve pain, and develop healthier, more comfortable life patterns. Biofeedback gives us information about ourselves by means of external instruments. Using a thermometer to take our temperature is a common kind of biofeedback. Biofeedback training familiarizes us with the activity in our various body systems so we may learn to control this activity to relieve stress and improve health.
Biofeedback lets us know precisely when we are changing our physiologies in the desired direction. Biofeedback is not a treatment. Rather, biofeedback training is an educational process for learning specialized mind/body skills. Learning to recognize physiological responses and alter them is not unlike learning how to play the piano or tennis - it requires practice. Through practice, we become familiar with our own unique psychophysiological patterns and responses to stress, and learn to control them rather than having them control us.
Biofeedback is a technique in which people are trained to improve their health by learning to control certain internal bodily processes that normally occur involuntarily, such as heart rate, blood pressure, muscle tension, and skin temperature.
What is the role of Biofeedback as a natural Asthma treatment?
Biofeedback is a scientifically validated
therapy for the management of asthma. It works by measuring aspects of breathing physiology associated with asthma attacks. By feeding this information back to you via computer, biofeedback enables you to become aware of changes and bodily responses that predispose you to asthma attacks, and learn to access more optimal physiological states. Biofeedback can both reduce your vulnerability to attacks and teach you effective ways to manage asthma attacks.
Biofeedback may influence heart rate variability, which in turn may improve lung function and airway flow resistance seen in patients with asthma. Biofeedback can be helpful by training sufferers to consciously relax their muscles. It can also help asthmatics to recognize and alter abnormal breathing patterns. Biofeedback can be used to identify this pattern of breathing - called 'barrel breathing' - and alter it. Using pneumographic (pneumo: from the greek = lung) biofeedback, asthmatics can be taught to recognize the change in their heart rate when they're barrel breathing and consciously adapt their breathing to lower their heart rate.
