Brandon Stiles, age 15, of Hutchinson, Kan., for his question:
HOW DOES BIOFEEDBACK WORK?
Biofeedback is a method of learning how to control body processes that ordinarily cannot be regulated voluntarily. People have learned how to regulate their blood flow and blood pressure, body temperature, brain waves, heartbeat and other internal body functions that are normally controlled by the automatic or self regulating part of the nervous system.
Biofeedback provides a person with information on the function of the body processes he is learning to control. A person cannot normally detect a change in blood pressure. Therefore, if he tries to consciously lower his blood pressure, he has no way of knowing whether he has succeeded.
In learning biofeedback, the person is connected to a machine that measures the blood pressure on each heartbeat. If the pressure falls below a certain level, the machine sounds a tone.
The subject knows he has succeeded when he hears the tone, and the knowledge of his success acts as a reward. With repeated practice, the individual can learn to regulate his blood pressure.
Many doctors and researchers say that biofeedback will someday become an important method of medical therapy, and may lead to a better understanding of certain diseases. In addition, research has provided psychologists new information on the learning process.
Many heart patients have been trained to use biofeedback to control dangerously irregular heartbeats. Others use biofeedback in the control of high blood pressure, migraine and tension headaches and muscle spasms. Researchers also hope to teach people to control anxiety by using biofeedback to regulate their own brain waves.
Experimental work in biofeedback started in the mid 1960s. It was then scientists discovered that the visceral or internal organs could be taught with instrumental conditioning.
Oriental holy men had claimed for hundreds of years that they could consciously control their internal body functions.
Even though Oriental holy men had claimed they could control their internal body functions, Western scientists traditionally scoffed at these claims. Then in the late 1960s, biofeedback experiments demonstrated that this type of control was indeed possible.
The development of biofeedback has led western scientists to re examine many of their basic ideas. These ideas include concepts regarding the structure and function of the nervous system, the laws of learning and the role of behavioral factors in disease.
Doctors have long recognized that many body disorders are related to a person's emotional health. Such psychosomatic conditions include bronchial asthma and peptic ulcers.
Biofeedback research may provide new understanding of how the mind can influence the body's systems.