About Biofeedback
By Dr. Bob Whitehouse
Biofeedback is a well-known and proven form of healthcare that has been used successfully in clinics for over thirty years for over 150 conditions including:
| Symptoms |
| Moodiness |
Trouble sleeping |
Poor emotional control |
| Chronic fatigue |
Change in appetite |
Change in sex drive |
| Weight gain |
Feeling helpless |
Feeling dependent |
Health Issues |
| Depression |
Heart disease |
Stroke |
| Immune |
Eating problems |
Diabetes |
| Pain |
Sex/Reproductive issues |
Memory |
Biofeedback uses electronic equipment to monitor your internal physiological states and gives feedback that helps you learn how to control these states, to activate, balance, release or to recover from them. Usually this also involves a coach, who guides the process, interprets the results, and makes suggestions. In Healing Rhythms, however, the product itself gives you information and feedback about whether you’re progressing or not in a beautifully engaging format.
Healing Rhythms’ biofeedback component measures a player’s Skin Conductance Level (SCL) and Heart Rate Variability (HRV). SCL measures sweat gland activity. Increased perspiration indicates increased autonomic nervous system activation, which is associated with increased energy — both positive, like excitement, and negative, like nervousness.
HRV is calculated from the differences in heart rate from one heartbeat to another. No two intervals are exactly the same, and you need a method more sophisticated than just taking your pulse to determine it. Greater HRV is a healthy goal. In fact, people who exhibit greater HRV tend to live longer and enjoy life more. Parts of Healing Rhythms require users to attain this goal in order to complete an activity. You can view your SCL and HRV directly on the Graph screen.
Examining HRV is the fastest growing area in biofeedback and it can provide important methods of working with our own physiology. Research suggests that when you increase your HRV you can reach a state of coherence
within the power spectrum frequencies of the heart that
signals the brain to synchronize with the heart and boost the immune system. This coherence pattern in the heart frequencies is also known as the heart's Resonant Frequency.
Meditation, slow and easy abdominal breathing, or connecting with positive emotions are three researched ways for getting this desired pattern of both strength and balance. By synchronizing your heart rate with the breath (two skills that can be gained through practices in Healing Rhythms), you can quite easily reach your heart's Resonant Frequency. Also, when we are in this state of coherence, the heart's desired vibration pattern ripples out around us in an electromagnetic doughnut shape detectable eight or more feet in all directions. It even shows up in the brainwaves of anyone we touch! Who wouldn't want to experience the positive effects of such a state more and more often?
The sequence of training events throughout Healing Rhythms was designed to increase a person's ability to regulate their energy and physiological reactions by experiencing the mind body connection associated with such emotions as joy, hope, excitement, relaxation and patience, to mention a few. The body responds by increasing, decreasing or synchronizing body rhythms in a positive and healthy way.
Healing Rhythms gives users more awareness of the correlation from their emotional and mental states to their physical states. When users acquire enough awareness of how to make the shift from one state to another, they can begin to do this voluntarily. They will have integrated what we call our BEST team: Body, Emotion, Spirit and Thought.
Dr. Bob Whitehouse is a contributing partner in the development of Wild Divine products and is a psychologist certified in biofeedback, and a former board member for the Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback.
