What Is Biofeedback Therapy?
Written by Jerry on December 14, 2009 – 1:27 am -
What Is Biofeedback Therapy?
We all suffer from stress at times, that causes increased heart rates, blood pressure, muscle tension, other unhealthy symptoms that make us age faster. Until recently, it was assumed that these autonomic functions of the body, as well as temperature and other automatic responses, were impossible to control. However, through the development of biofeedback therapy, we can both gauge these functions and start to control them.
Biofeedback therapy is a system designed to use electronic impulses and special equipment to monitor the body’s response to specific situations, especially those that cause stress. To help you develop the ability to control your responses, a biofeedback specialist uses signals from special monitoring equipment to teach you to control certain body functions and their responses, such as brain activity, blood pressure, muscle tension, heart rate, skin temperature, and sweat gland activity
Based on the input received from the monitoring systems, the therapist can then concentrate on that particular reaction and help you reverse it.
Previously, the focus of this type therapy was to relax the whole body. Now, as biofeedback therapy has evolved, specific areas can be targeted for relief. The biofeedback monitors can locate the source of tension so therapy can be targeted to this specific area without wasting time and effort on unnecessary areas.
Guided imagery and progressive muscle relaxation are a couple of the tools used to reduce the affects of stress and can be used to relax the body both during and after stressful situations. Biofeedback therapy can assist in the control of other disorders and diseases, such as diabetes, incontinence, Raynaud's disease, epilepsy, asthma, hyperactivity disorders, and more.
Because biofeedback therapy is a painless, noninvasive procedure, it may be a better choice over some other neurological monitoring procedures.
Uses for Biofeedback Therapy
While the original purpose behind biofeedback therapy was to relieve the symptoms related to stress, several other uses have been found for biofeedback. Several chronic illnesses may be relieved or completely alleviated through the use of biofeedback therapy. Read more »
Tags: Affects Of Stress, Automatic Responses, Autonomic Functions, Body Functions, Brain Activity, Electronic Impulses, Guided Imagery, Heart Rate, Heart Rates, Hyperactivity, Monitoring Equipment, Monitoring Systems, Muscle Tension, Noninvasive Procedure, Progressive Muscle Relaxation, Raynaud, Raynaud S Disease, Skin Temperature, Stressful Situations, Sweat Gland, Wasting Time
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The Stages of the Mind
Written by Jerry on November 21, 2009 – 2:17 am -The Stages of the Mind
For our purpose here, there are three unique stages in the mind that depict how it’s functioning at any given time. Some meditation experts and psychologists may define many more levels but, I want to keep it simple, short and useful for you.
One: The Normal Mind
In the “normal” state of mind, your mind is working in many directions – which means it’s bouncing from one idea and thought to the next. In fact, this is really an abnormal activity for the mind because it needs to focus on fewer ideas if it’s to be successful in dealing with daily life.
Stimuli from all around you are constantly coming at your mind. When something new stimulates your mind, it moves from its previous thought to the new one. Although you feel like you are completely in control of yourself during this, you probably aren’t.
You have very little control over the way that you behave and think during this "mind bouncing." Not only do your thoughts move from one thing to the next thing quickly, but your body begins to speed up too. Your emotions will follow soon.
An example of this type of brain activity can be as simple as seeing a child playing. If you see the child while you are driving, your mind goes from control of the vehicle to the child. She’s cute, playing and riding her bike. Then, your mind moves to thoughts from your own childhood. You feel good and smile at the happy memories.
Of course, it doesn’t always play out so innocently. You can go through these same thought and emotional processes with negative images too.
Consider if that child was a teenager, doing something that they shouldn’t be. Now, you might start wondering about your own children and what they are doing that you don’t know about. And, your emotions are now fearful and tense.
In a negative situation, you are likely to become distracted by the thoughts bouncing through your mind, which then directly impacts the way that you drive your vehicle. Perhaps you run a red light or, you narrowly miss a car accident.
As you can see, in your "normal state" of mind, your emotions as well as your physical being are brought into play. Each plays their own role in the outcome of this "mental event."
Often, stress builds up during this process and since it’s our “normal” state of mind, they pile on over time. You can find yourself unable to concentrate on anything for more than a few seconds and, over time, you can have trouble balancing your everyday life.
For the most part, your “normal” way of thinking may be creating a quiet havoc in your life.
Two: Concentration
Concentration is the first state that leads to meditation. But, don’t confuse concentration with meditation. It’s something very different.
During this second stage of mind, you can begin to get control of your thinking. When you learn to keep yourself in this mind frame, you’ll improve the quality of your life considerably.
In concentration, your goal seems simple but its actually quite difficult to master. You need to concentrate on only one thing or object.
To be successful, you need to keep your mind focused on that one thing and not be distracted by any thoughts or external events that happen to pop up. Focus on it, without allowing your mind to wander. It’s not as easy as it seems.
During concentration, the problem is the mind’s ability to trick you back into its “normal” state of being. By moving away from the actual concentration topic and focusing on another, it pulls you back.
For example, if you need to concentrate on a report for school, you could be sitting down thinking and working. You’ll allow your mind to focus and relax on the topic at hand.
Then, you think of what your teacher had to say about the report. That leads to thoughts of what your friend said next to you while the teacher was talking. Within a matter of minutes, you are thinking about something completely different than the topic of your report.
The result is that you are distracted so much that you are back at the “normal” stage of thinking, having accomplished little in way of concentrating on your report. This is just not going to work.
Now you must use your awareness to realize what’s just happened. When you can realize that you’ve been distracted and that your mind has fooled you, then you can come back and actually concentrate.
This is part of the cycle of concentration. It looks sort of like this:
Normal State==> Concentration==> Distraction==> Normal State==> Awareness==> Concentration==> Distraction….
When you can master the art of keeping your mind focused and concentrating, you’ll experience a new level of thinking. You’ll be able to relax more and you’ll be able to actually feel better about your life. That’s an amazing feeling!
Three: Meditative State
In a meditative state, the third stage, you enter a completely different realm. Now, you are able to fully concentrate on the object or thought without falling for any type of distraction. Here, distractions seem to just disappear.
This is the stage that you are striving for because it really can offer you a new outlook on life. In many ways, you’ll be able to focus so much that you can better understand yourself. You will begin to reshape your emotions and make better decisions.
During concentration, your mind is concentrating on the object of focus in a minimal way. Distraction breaks the stream of concentrative thoughts. This means you must become aware of the problem and to go back and change it.
In a meditative state, this is no longer the case. Now, you are keeping the ongoing stream of thought moving. There’s nothing breaking it and nothing that is able to pull your mind from it. This is the ultimate experience in meditation.
Consider this. If you think about just one topic, over and over again, anything and everything connected to that topic will come to you in one form or another. Let’s say that the word that you use is that of love.
If you think of love in a meditative state, you concentrate on that one word which leads to other terms connected to love. You love something, you love someone, different types of love, and so on. Eventually, you have connected in practically every way possible to love. You physically feel it, you emotionally feel it. You have thought about it over and over. And, eventually, you have connected everything you can to love.
When you have achieved this state of meditation, you’ve elevated yourself to a whole new level. You’ve gone far beyond the simple level of concentration. Now, you have entered the important stage of meditation which is called contemplation. This part of the final stages of meditation is the very best level of consciousness that your mind and body can enter. In a sense, you "become" what you meditate upon.
Although it takes some time to achieve this level of understanding, the end result is well worth it.
Never Stop Exploring Life!
Jerry L Saunders, RM
Tags: Abnormal Activity, Amp Nbsp, Brain Activity, Control, Emotional Processes, Emotions, Happy Memories, Meditation, Mind Control, Mind Moves, Mind Your Mind, Nbsp, Negative Images, Negative Situation, Psychologists, Rsquo, Smile, Stimuli, Teenager
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What Is Self Hypnosis? Part 1
Written by Jerry on October 15, 2009 – 8:52 pm -
What Is Self Hypnosis?
There are several types of hypnosis – there is stage hypnosis, which is done in front of an audience for entertainment purposes, there is hypnotherapy, which is done by a hypnotist on a patient in order to help them deal with a problem or to improve themselves, and there is self hypnosis, which allows the patient to, in a way, self treat, and hypnotize themselves to reach their goals.
Self hypnosis for therapy is very different from stage hypnosis, which is form of entertainment and is often not true hypnosis, as volunteers are also feeling pressure to play along.
Self hypnosis is simply presenting new ideas and words to your brain, while in a receptive state, in order to help you achieve a goal or change a habit. This is different from meditation, because you have a specific goal in mind. Brain scans have shown that a person’s brain activity changes when in a hypnotic state.
In hypnosis, people remain fully aware of the world around them and are simply opening their subconscious mind up to become more receptive to a new idea or thought. This thought or "prescription" will stay in the subject’s subconscious mind, making them more likely to reach their goals.
Hypnosis is based on the idea that our conscious mind and our subconscious mind are not always working very well together, and by using hypnosis, we can realign our subconscious thinking with what our conscious mind wants. We can use this to improve ourselves in many ways.
What Can You Use Self Hypnosis For?
Basically anything that can be achieved by changing your attitude or habits can be changed with hypnosis. Common goals include quitting smoking and weight loss; although it can be used to help you do better at work and get better grades at school.
Hypnotherapy also has a variety of uses in helping patients deal with fears or low self esteem.
Here’s a short list of what you might use hypnosis for:
do better at work or school
lowering blood pressure
losing weight
improve your memory and/or concentration
quit smoking
raise your self confidence and self esteem
overcome fears
improve sports performance
learn a foreign language
People commonly use hypnosis as a form of therapy, to achieve their goals or work through their problems or fears, such as the fear of heights or fear of public speaking. While this can be done without hypnosis, hypnosis can make the job easier for you by removing negative thoughts and attitudes.
Hypnosis is also a common method to help people with insomnia. Hypnosis cannot replace sleep; it can only make it easier to fall asleep, and maybe improve the quality of sleep.
Hypnosis helps you to relax and calm your mind and your body into a relaxed alpha state. Then you can allow yourself to drift deeper into a theta sleep state. Since insomnia is a common problem in our fast paced world, learning Self Hypnosis can be a great way to re-educate your mind and body to rest without using drugs that leave you "hung over" and become addictive.
Common Concerns About Self Hypnosis
Many people have scary notions about hypnosis. Hypnosis is often seen as a method of mind control, especially if you have seen a stage hypnotist act or one too many B rated horror movies.
For people who are concerned with somebody else controlling their minds, self hypnosis may be a sound choice, because YOU remain in complete control of everything that happens. For others, it may be easier and more comfortable to choose a professional hypnotherapist, at least, in the beginning to teach you the basics of getting into a receptive state and giving your mind suggestions.
During hypnosis, you will remain completely aware of everything around you. When you leave the hypnotic state, you will remember everything that happened during the session. The exception to this is if you are using Self Hypnosis to fall asleep.
You need to be more receptive, in order for hypnosis to work best.
However, another concern people have is that while they are hypnotized, they are more vulnerable and receptive to negative suggestions. While you are hypnotized, you ARE more receptive to suggestions and to words. However, your conscious mind is still aware of what is going on, so you will not act on a crazy suggestion.
In other words, a hypnotist could not make the Dalai Lama go out and assassinate the president of the US. It just doesn’t work that way.
A common fear is that a person who is self hypnotized will not be able to wake up. But during hypnosis, you are still conscious and aware.
You can simply instruct yourself to wake, and you will. If you are still concerned that you will forget to tell yourself to wake up, you need to remember that even if you don’t tell yourself to wake up when you take a nap, you still do naturally wake up. Also, you will eventually become hungry, thirsty or tired. So even if you could forget to wake yourself up, your body would simply do it for you naturally.
Stay tuned for Part 2 where we’ll cover: How Self Hypnosis works, How to choose effective suggestions, Self Hypnosis compared to hypnosis by another person, a great low cost hypnosis report and a great resource for the absolute best audios you can find to for Self Hypnosis.
Never Stop Exploring Life!
Jerry L Saunders, RM
Tags: Activity Changes, Brain Activity, Brain Scans, Conscious Mind, Entertainment Purposes, Fears, Goal In Mind, Habit, Hypnosis Therapy, Hypnotherapy, Hypnotic State, Hypnotist, Low Self Esteem, Meditation, Quitting Smoking, Receptive State, Self Hypnosis, Stage Hypnosis, Subconscious Mind, Volunteers
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Brainwave Basics 2
Written by Jerry on September 21, 2009 – 4:46 am - 
Tags: Alpha Activity, Beta Waves, Brain Activity, Brain Wave, Brain Waves, Brainwave Frequency, Convenience, Different Kinds, Flexibility, Learning To Type, Nbsp, Pliability, Quantities, Rsquo, Sleep, Wave Type
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Brainwave Basics 1
Written by Jerry on September 21, 2009 – 4:40 am -Brain waves are generated by the building blocks of your brain called neurons. Neurons communicate with each other by electrical changes. We can actually see these electrical changes in the form of brain waves as shown in an EEG (electroencephalogram).
Tags: Alpha Waves, Beta Waves, Body Functions, Brain Activity, Brain And Body, Brain Wave Activity, Brain Waves, Brainwaves, Deep Relaxation, Delta Waves, Electrical Changes, Electroencephalogram, Hertz, Hypnotic Relaxation, Jerry L, Seizure Activity, Sensory Motor, Several Different Types, Smr, Theta Waves
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