The technique requires you to be hooked up to electric sensors that will monitor certain body functions, enabling you to control their pace with thoughts. For example, if you have tightness in a specific muscle, you can use biofeedback to direct your body to relax the area, thereby reducing pain.
Biofeedback techniques are grouped together with meditation, hypnosis and progressive muscle relaxation as part of a field known as complementary or alternative medicine (CAM). They include four main groupings, including mind-body medicine, manipulative and body-based practices, biologically based practices, and energy medicine.
Those groups embrace such CAM practices as meditation, chiropractic, dietary supplements, massage therapy, aromatherapy, progressive muscle relaxation, yoga, spirituality, religion and prayer, acupuncture, movement therapy, biofeedback, Reiki, hypnosis, and music therapy.
These techniques are not part of traditional or conventional medicine, but they have been tested and proven to have results in at least some patients. Complementary and alternative techniques are often used in tandem but are separate areas. Complementary medicine is used with conventional medicine while alternative are medicines used in place of conventional styles.
Biofeedback: Big Business
Although these techniques have been around for thousands of years in some cases, they were not formally accepted until 1999, when the National Institutes of Health created its National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. The goal of the new institute was to explore the usefulness and safety of alternative and complementary interventions while determining their roles in improving health care.