Biofeedback Solutions

Relaxation skills and techniques, despite all the research and press they have received over the years, remain somewhat elusive to understand. Relaxation can popularly be seen as being equivalent to a wide range of activities; everything from vigorous exercise to recreation or  alcohol and recreational drug ingestion. While a lot of these activities actually produce a discharge of energy leaving one with a feeling of having let go of tension, these activities do not really promote a relaxation response and can’t really be described as relaxing.

Activities that promote a good relaxation include meditation, yoga, T’ai Chi, biofeedback. What these activities have in common is that they directly promote the body’s natural relaxation response. And, when the relaxation response is promoted on a regular basis,  the relaxation response becomes easier to access and stronger. So, those activities that promote a relaxation response and which are indulged in regularly actually build up the positive effects of relaxation in the body and directly reduce the stress response.

Notice though that the activities mentioned above require training from a teacher and, often, years of training before proficiency is gained. This fact is one of the driving forces behind biofeedback in general and biofeedback games in particular. Biofeedback therapy greatly speeds up the process of learning to access the relaxation response and biofeedback games make it fun.

Biofeedback games feature stunning computer graphics similar to any computer game and in addition they include biofeedback technology, i.e. sensors that measure physiology. And, the output of these sensors are included in the action on the screen. So, instead of shooting a ‘bad guy’ in the game the game player in a biofeedback game can only perform an action by relaxing better and more effectively. So, not only is the ability to access the relaxation response taught more traditionally in a biofeedback game, it is taught in a fun and interesting way.

For further information on biofeedback games and relaxation, you can review the article Why Biofeedback Games? and Stress Reduction Through Relaxation.