Managing and Coping with Stress - Biofeedback Flashcards
What is biofeedback
Biofeedback is in part a biological treatment (because it involves paying attention to physical information from your body about heartbeat or blood pressure) and also in part psychological (because it involves conditioning: successful behaviour is rewarded and therefore continued).
What does biofeedback deal with
Biofeedback deals with the physiological response to stress – arousal of the sympathetic nervous system (increased heart rate and blood pressure).
What is biofeedback a method of
Biofeedback is a method by which an individual learns to exert voluntary control over involuntary (autonomic) behaviours by being made aware of what is happening in the autonomic nervous system.
Processes involved in Biofeedback
1)Relaxation
The client is taught techniques of relaxation in order to reduce activity of the sympathetic nervous system and activate the parasympathetic nervous system.
Adrenaline and noradrenaline should no longer be produced.
The result should be reduced heart rate and blood pressure.
Processes involved in Biofeedback
2)Feedback
The client is attached to various machines which provide visual or auditory information (feedback) about various ANS activity e.g. heartbeat.
For example, the client might be able to hear their heartbeat and a light might flash or buzzer beep to indicate any increases/decreases in blood pressure or muscle tension.
Machines used to feedback physiological information include:
Heart rate monitor / Blood pressure monitor
EMG (electromyograph) – responds to changes in muscle tension
Skin conductance response (SCR) – measures sweat activity
EEG (electroencephalograph) – measures electrical activity in the brain
The client is encouraged to practice relaxation while seeing/listening to the feedback, to activate a parasympathetic response.
Processes involved in Biofeedback
3)Operant conditioning
Patients are set targets (e.g. reduce heart rate to a certain amount).
Relaxation leads to a target behaviour, for example heart rate is decreased or muscle tension is relaxed.
This is rewarding, thus positively reinforcing the behaviour and increasing the likelihood of it being repeated.
Such conditioning takes place without any conscious thought – the reward leads to an unconscious ‘stamping in’ of the behaviour.
Processes involved in Biofeedback
4)Transfer
The client then needs to transfer the skills learned to the real world i.e. using the relaxation techniques in response to everyday stressful situations that they encounter.
Evaluation of Biofeedback
Effective
Effective – Biofeedback has been found to be successful in treating a wide range of behaviours (e.g. heart rate, blood pressure, skin temperature and brain waves) and disorders (e.g. migraine headaches, asthma and Raynaud’s disease).
Research support - research conducted by Bouchard et al. (2012) supports the effectiveness of Biofeedback:
A group of [21] soldiers were given 1 x 30 minute session of biofeedback per day for 3 days while playing a stressful video shooting game.
They found that the soldiers had lower stress levels (measured by cortisol in saliva and heart rate) when undergoing a live (simulated) ambush where they had to apply first aid to a wounded soldier than a similar control group of [20] soldiers who received no biofeedback.
This suggests that biofeedback is effective in reducing stress levels and has practical applications in combat situations for military personnel.
Evaluation of Biofeedback
No negative side effects – Biofeedback does not alter the body in any permanent way as drugs do. It is not an invasive treatment.
The method is useful for treating children who cannot be treated with drugs and cannot cope with the more mentally demanding SIT.
However, the success of biofeedback may be more to do with relaxation (as it reduces sympathetic activity) than any unconscious operant conditioning. Or, it might be because it gives clients an increased sense of control.
Expensive – The technique requires specialist equipment, which means that it is expensive and can only be undertaken with specialist supervision.
Time-consuming – a course of Biofeedback can last more than a month, or considerably longer.
This is in contrast to drug therapy which has an almost immediate effect
Treats the symptoms, not the cause of stress – Biofeedback does not ultimately treat the source of stress:
Biofeedback aims to reduce the stress response, however it does not prevent the individual from experiencing stress (unlike SIT which changes the way an individual perceives events in their lives, meaning they are less likely to respond to them negatively).
