Effects of Stress on Performance

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Our nervous system is constantly at work partly as an interface between our mind and body.  It reacts to our environment, physical activity, and our thoughts.  It causes changes heart rate, blood pressure, blood circulation, contraction level of our muscles, our breathing, and many other things.  When the changes are appropriate and useful for the situation this is a very good thing.  When the changes are due to an overreaction related to stress then it can be harmful.   There are many ways that stress can cause problems with health and I have discussed these in other places.  Here I want to focus on effects on performance.  This type of negative stress reaction can happen with various types of performance including athletes, singers, speakers, students, business people, and actors to name a few.

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Mind Body Seminars

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Although more people are now interested in mind body techniques like meditation, mindfulness, and yoga, there is still a great lack of clarity as to what the real effects of these techniques are.  It is also often difficult to know if a person practicing a technique is doing it correctly or getting the maximum benefit they can from it.

Several months ago, I was at a university in New York city visiting a meditation group.  The two people who were leading the group were interested in using EEG biofeedback equipment to measure the brainwave activity of people who were meditating.  They were interested in comparing the EEG activity of a novice meditator with that of a very experienced one.  This is one example of how technology can be used in combination with mind body techniques.  The idea was to see if there is a difference in what is going on in the brain while a person is meditating and does that vary depending on their experience level.

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Alternative Therapies Required to be Made Available to Veterans

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Many veterans who have served our country well suffer from a variety of symptoms and illnesses after deployment.  Some of the common conditions they deal with are anxiety, PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome), depression, headaches, pain, and insomnia.  A very standard treatment for these conditions is a prescription for medication.  In some cases, medications can provide relief.  There can also be a downside.  Even when drugs are effective there may be accompanying negative side effects and sometimes dependence or addiction.

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Biofeedback and Neurofeedback Training for APA Continuing Education Credit

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Many psychologists in the United States of America are required to take training to keep up with new developments in the field and to remind them of things that they may have learned a long time ago.

There are many options for training including face to face programs, online programs, and material that psychologists can read. There are also many different topics that can be studied. As long as you have to take training you might as well make it something interesting, enjoyable, and useful. Biofeedback and neurofeedback are subjects that check all of those boxes. Psychologists tend to do a lot of talking and paperwork as a part of their routine. Some of this can become monotonous.

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The Power of Psychophysiological Stress Profiling

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A PSP provides a great deal of useful information and helps our clients understand why they are doing biofeedback, what the starting point is, what the goals are, and why. So why don’t more biofeedback providers use them?
What is a psychophysiological stress profile?
A PSP is a baseline test in which we record multiple biofeedback modalities usually including surface EMG, skin temperature, skin conductance, respiration, and heart rate/heart rate variability. Sometimes other modalities like blood pressure, end tidal CO2, and EEG are also included.

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Neurofeedback Equipment for Mental Health

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Mental health symptoms and solutions are being openly discussed more than ever.  Most days that I turn on the news I hear at least one story related to mental health.  Just today I heard a report about three separate people who were survivors or a relative of a survivor of a school shooting who committed suicide.  We often hear reports of the devastation across the country related to abuse of opioid drugs.  Concussions caused by car accidents, slip and falls, sports injuries cause memory loss, behavior and mood changes as well as other problems.

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Neurofeedback Training For Traumatic Brain Injury

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Brain injuries can be caused in many different ways.  Whether they are diagnosed or not can depend on how severe they are, where they happen, who is around when they happen, and whether the injured person seeks medical care.  Some of the sources of brain injuries include car accidents, sports injuries, slip and falls, physical fights and assaults among other things.  When the brain is injured the electrical activity and function of the brain is affected.  Neurofeedback training is a way to help to normalize the electrical activity of the brain which in turn helps improve function.

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Neurofeedback Equipment for Professional and Home Use

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Devices for measuring and giving Neurofeedback Equipment of EEG brainwave activity is not new.  Some have been available commercially since the 1970s.  The first one that I was introduced to was housed in a wooden box and had an analog meter, a training frequency selector for Alpha, Theta, or Beta, a threshold setting, and audio feedback – very simple.  It did not interface with a computer and there was no data storage or report available.   This was around 1985.  Since then much has changed.  Those devices began to be interfaced with computers for better feedback and the added capabilities of data storage and reports.

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Neurofeedback Training History in Houston

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The state of Texas has played an important role in neurofeedback.  Several of the important early pioneers have come from or done much of their work in Texas.  Neurofeedback began to become popular once the ADHD and substance abuse protocols became popular following research by Joel Lubar on ADHD and Eugene Peniston and Paul Kulkosky on substance abuse and Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, PTSD.

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