Category: Biofeedback and Neurofeedback Training

Biofeedback and Neurofeedback Applications for Military and Law Enforcement

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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.

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Biofeedback and Neurofeedback for Veterans

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Veterans are given honor for their service in many settings.  One example I notice is when I am traveling by air.  Veterans are thanked for their service and are allowed to board before other passengers.  They are also honored on Veterans Day.  They deserve it for their sacrifice to serve our country.

Many of them pay a great price and suffer with lingering physical and mental symptoms related to their service.  Some of the symptoms that I am aware of that some veterans live with include Anxiety, PTSD, Chronic Pain, Headaches, Insomnia, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and substance dependance/abuse.

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Biofeedback and Neurofeedback in Talk Therapy

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Psychologists and psychotherapists are not all just having people sit in a chair or lay on a couch to just have people talk to them about their problems.  They are using evidence-based, science-based tools to help them address the body as well as the mind.  Science is proving that the body is involved in problems like anxiety, PTSD, and trauma.  It’s not all in the mind.  The mind has to work through the brain, so problems of the mind also involve the brain.  Neurofeedback is among the tools that can be used to affect the brain.  Encouraging the brain to increase or decrease various signals that can be picked up with neurofeedback equipment can help to train the brain to decrease unhealthy patterns that may be related to clinical symptoms.

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Biofeedback Assisted Relaxation Therapy

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In Biofeedback when we talk about B.A.R.T we are not talking about that crazy kid on the popular cartoon series, The Simpsons, we are talking about a very popular protocol which can be widely applied for various conditions.  Rather than seeing it as a specific protocol I see it more as a concept.  When practitioners are learning biofeedback for the first time, they are usually very interested in learning very specific protocols for the conditions they expect to be working with like headaches, anxiety, insomnia, and depression.

They expect a specific guide as to which modalities, what goals, and the number of sessions to work on each modality for each application.  That would be nice.  It makes things simpler and makes it easier to plan.  It doesn’t always match reality for the individual that is in front of you.  Now, what is B.A.R.T.?  It is an acronym for Biofeedback Assisted Relaxation Therapy.  It’s kind of like a generalized protocol that helps to counter the stress response by using biofeedback to teach clients to regulate their physiology using multiple modalities including surface EMG, Skin temperature, Skin conductance, Heart Rate/Heart Rate Variability, Respiration, and EEG.   I decided to talk about this after reading Don Moss’s article, Biofeedback-Assisted Relaxation Training:  A Clinically Effective Treatment Protocol in the Summer 2020 issue of Biofeedback Magazine.

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Neurofeedback Home Training

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Neurofeedback training has been shown to be effective for helping people with conditions like ADHD, insomnia, anxiety, seizures, and brain injuries.  Clients usually visit a neurofeedback professional 1-3 times per week for a series of anywhere from 10-30 or even more sessions.

Some people have asked about devices that they can use themselves at home.  It is not something that I would decide on lightly.  Neurofeedback providers are cautioned to be careful when working with clients even if they are trained and experienced.  It would make sense that an untrained layperson should be even more careful when working on their own brain or the brain of a family member.  Not that they are invasively working on the brain as with surgery.  They are rather working on the brain through training changes in the electrical impulses that allow the neurons to communicate and make things happen in the brain.  This is very important stuff and you don’t want to make mistakes with it if you can avoid doing so.

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The Stress of being black

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People like to think they know what the stress of being black is like.

If you’re not, you don’t.

Think about the stress of having a final exam in high school or college coming up.

You worry about it for two weeks or so leading up to it and it is very hard and stressful.  You get to the time of actually taking the exam and it is very stressful.  Then, the exam is over.

Being black is not like that because it’s never over.  Every morning you wake up you have to deal with the stress associated with being black all over again.

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BCIA Certification Biofeedback Seminars

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How can you determine if the biofeedback provider you are considering visiting is qualified?

One good way is to get a personal referral.  If you know someone who has had success with a biofeedback provider for a similar problem as your own then there is a good chance that you may also get good results and be happy with them too.  There are other things that you can do to get an idea as to their qualifications.  One of the best ways to determine qualification is to find out if the provider is BCIA certified.  What is the BCIA?  BCIA stands for Biofeedback Certification International Alliance.

The BCIA is the organization that establishes the rules for and provides certification in biofeedback and neurofeedback.  Here is their mission: “BCIA certifies individuals who meet education and training standards in biofeedback and progressively recertifies those who advance their knowledge through continuing education.”
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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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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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