Biofeedback and Neurofeedback Applications for Military and Law Enforcement

Military service people and law enforcement officers have a lot in common.  In fact, many military veterans go into law enforcement after their military careers end.  Two other similarities are that both military service and law enforcement involve high stress and require high levels of performance.  Both, at times, can come with daily life or death high-stress situations.  These service people and officers naturally would experience their fight or flight responses being activated more often than most other people. It is also super important that they both perform their duties at a high level.  Many lives may depend on how well they perform.

Biofeedback and neurofeedback can apply to both, helping people manage stress and improve performance.  We don’t have to wait until there is a clinical problem.  These interventions can be used to prevent problems, help people manage stress, and improve performance.

When working with military service people and law enforcement officers it may be helpful not to use terms like relaxation or stress management.  Many of the people who work in these areas have negative thoughts about relaxation or the thought that they might need stress management.  They might be more accepting of working on learning self-regulation or improved control of their nervous system in order to improve performance.  You can make the case that in these lines of work you need to use your mind and body together at a high level to perform at your best.  Learning to be more aware of how your body reacts to your thoughts and learning better control of things like your muscles, breathing, and focus sound obviously helpful.  Biofeedback and neurofeedback can help in these areas.

Biofeedback uses instruments that measure and feedback signals from the body including surface EMG (Electromyograph) for muscle activity, skin temperature for peripheral blood flow, skin conductance for sweat activity, Heart Rate, and Heart Rate Variability for cardiovascular responses, and Respiration for breathing.  Neurofeedback uses instruments that measure EEG (Electroencephalograph) which measures and shows brain activity.  Through reinforcement, the subject can learn to change the activity to improve mind-body wellness.

Through the use of surface EMG biofeedback, one can learn to contract the muscles that need to contract for a task and keep the others relaxed.  Through regulation of breathing, using respiration biofeedback, one can either become more alert and activated or become calmer under pressure. By using skin conductance biofeedback, one can learn to regulate the level of emotional reaction during stressful conditions.  Through EEG biofeedback/neurofeedback training, one can learn to improve mental focus or decrease nervous brain states which help allow better decision making, clear thinking, and performance.  This type of training can be very beneficial for military service people or law enforcement officers.  These applications can be considered non-clinical so that a person who is not a licensed health care professional can learn to use biofeedback and neurofeedback with military service people or law enforcement officers in an educational model.

Harry L. Campbell

914-762-4646 – Harry@biofeedbackinternational.com

Author of What Stress Can Do, Available on Amazon.com

Biofeedback Resources International Corp.