Biofeedback and Neurofeedback technologies and trainings are often used to help people deal with stressful situations and improve their performance on the job or on the athletic field.
But these trainings are not limited to executives and elite athletes.
The United States’ military also has recognized the benefits of biofeedback and Neurofeedback.
The United States Air Force Academy in Colorado is one example. The elite military academy, which trains the nation’s future top pilots and other personnel who will undertake stressful jobs, recommends biofeedback.
According to the academy’s website, cadets use biofeedback as a training tool to improve their overall health and performance by utilizing signals that their bodies send out.
Something as simple as taking your temperature or hopping on a scale are examples of biofeedback, which offers information about your physical state. With this information in hand, cadets can make adjustments to improve their health.
The academy’s website reports that its counseling center offers cadets advanced biofeedback technology that works in a similar way. Biofeedback can record heart and respiration rates, muscle tension, brain waves, temperature – even sweat gland measurements.
The academy reports its counseling center offers biofeedback to fight migraine and tension headaches, high blood pressure, irritable bowel syndrome, stress and anxiety.
Problems sleeping and air sickness can be reduced with biofeedback, which also can improve your athletic and academic performance.
Air Force Academy officials report that events perceived as threats can lead to specific responses in a cadet’s body.
Some physical responses can include:
- Dilation of the pupils
- Increased sweating
- Slow digestion
- Too rapid heartbeat
- Spiked blood pressure
The academy notes that these physical changes spur the body to act fast and reduce the perceived threat. Once the threat fades, the brain should shut down this response and your body returns to normal function.
But that is not always the case.
In some cases, body response continues and causes reduced performance, pain and other negative side effects.
Biofeedback allows cadets to retrain the so-called fight or flight response.
Cadets use biofeedback to better recognize and control physiological reactions to the fight or flight mindset. Physical symptoms are visually displayed to bolster cadets’ efforts to control them.
The academy reports this training can offer cadets better sleep, improved mood, increased focus and less tension and anxiety – which all leads to better overall performance.
Academy trainers use baseline information about cadets’ bodies and how they react to threatening circumstances and events. The trainers then identify problem areas and cadets are taught methods to improve them.
Eventually, cadets practice their new skills on their own, with trainers providing techniques to utilize visual and auditory displays to recognize how the body reacts.
Cadets can then train their bodies to react as they want them to without the use of biofeedback.
At Advanced Health and Performance Institute in Orlando and Winter Park, we offer similar approaches that can help executives, athletes and those with various learning disorders gain improved focus and reduced stress and anxiety.
Contact Advanced Health today to learn more about biofeedback and how it can improve your life.