How does it work?
When carrying out procedures, a special apparatus with sensors plus appropriate software is used. The mechanism is equipped with sensors that are attached to the patient's body. They record brain signals, breathing rate, heartbeat, and other physiological indicators in the current moment.
The program converts the information received from the sensors and forms a treatment system based on it. On the computer monitor screen, the operator sees various kinds of graphics, images or music. Guided by the data obtained, they select drawings, musical accompaniment, etc. With their help, during sessions they influence the client’s body.
The main task of such influence is to teach the patient to cope with the task independently, to learn to control their sensations, emotions, and muscles. During the “learning” process, sensors located on the body record what is happening every moment. The “patient” has the ability to visually observe changes in the body and change reactions as necessary.
The following stress factors in the business activities of executives and top managers can be identified:
- Uncertainties and failures in specific matters, projects and endeavors, when plans are not implemented and goals are not achieved, and which always lead to increased tension and stress.
- A state of constant competition.
- A high degree of responsibility of managers and top managers, both for the business as a whole and for the staff, which increases the stress load.
- Taking risks when making responsible and strategic decisions, which increases stress levels.
- Inability to delegate powers to your subordinates, habit of doing everything yourself.
- Constant lack of time, chronic time pressure and constant deadline.
- Chronic fatigue, sleep disorders and illnesses from overwork.
- Solving several business problems at the same time, disorganized and chaotic actions.
- Lightning-fast transformations in business, psychological instability generated by real economic instability in domestic business, drastic changes, both social and material.
- Being in a constant crisis, overcoming which is associated with increased stress loads.
- Constant conflict situations with suppliers, partners, employees and clients.
- Conflicts in the family, lack of proper balance between family and work, unstable home front.
- The absence of a super task of one’s own activity, which causes a loss of meaning when doing business.
- Attempts to replace the search for the right solution with half measures or false steps.
Business people constantly have to deal with various business failures when projects and plans developed over the years collapse. While solving business issues, they begin to experience more and more physical and mental fatigue, leading to stress. Severe STRESS can destroy the well-functioning life of a person at any age, any social status and financial situation. Any even minor changes in a person’s usual way of life, whether negative or positive, can cause severe emotional shock and tension, in which a person suddenly ceases to adequately perceive reality.
Stress and depression for the most part suppress a person’s ability to find a way out of a difficult or current situation.
Whether stress is good or bad, emotional or physical (or both), its effects on the body have common characteristics. The immune system is especially affected by stress. Under stress, people are more likely to become victims of infection, since the number of immune cells drops markedly during periods of physical or mental stress.
Disturbances in the psycho-emotional sphere: these are either reactions of irritation - aggressiveness, irritability, anger; or exhaustion reactions - apathy, depression, passivity.
The volume of incoming information, including service information, in most cases exceeds the ability to perceive it on such a scale.
How does the biofeedback therapy process work?
The therapy method consists of three stages. It is necessary to have high-quality equipment and an experienced specialist.
- Diagnostics.
- Appointment, determination of the required number of sessions, their composition.
- Direct treatment.
First of all, an examination is carried out. The client undergoes an EEG procedure - electroencephalogram. The specialist conducts a full assessment of breathing rhythms, heartbeat, brain signals, and establishes the purpose of treatment. Based on the collected data, a specific course of exposure is selected. Today there are relaxing, modeling or activating courses; they can be combined.
It is important to correctly determine the required number and duration of sessions. Usually one visit takes no more than half an hour; in total, about thirty are required. For individual cases, this number may vary. The electrodes of the device are applied to certain areas of the body depending on the disease.
For what diseases is the method used?
Biofeedback therapy is used not only to cure diseases. It is used for their prevention, for the development of mental and creative abilities in children and adults. The uniqueness of the method and its non-medicinal origin are becoming increasingly popular. It is used both separately and as part of a set of measures. The list of treatment areas is growing steadily:
- changes in blood pressure;
- headache;
- hyperactivity in children, problems with concentration and attention;
- asthma and other diseases of the respiratory system;
- problems of a neurotic nature - stuttering, insomnia, etc.;
- depressive states;
- problems with the musculoskeletal system, consequences of injuries;
- diabetes;
- abnormalities in the functioning of the intestines and stomach, ulcers.
The technique is successfully used in pedagogy and sports training. It helps in learning, reduces the impact of the negative influence of stressful situations.
What is an electroencephalogram?
Previously, electroencephalographs looked like this.
Now this device is slightly larger than a smartphone, like, for example, the company Medicom MTD in Taganrog.
The recording of an encephalograph is an encephalogram. Let's see what Wikipedia says about it.
Electroencephalogram (EEG) (from ancient Greek ἥλεκτρον - amber, ἐγκέφαλος - brain and γραμμα - record) - a graphic image of a complex oscillatory electrical process, which is recorded using an electroencephalograph when placing its electrodes on the brain or the surface of the scalp, the result electrical summation and filtering elementary processes in neurons.
In simple terms, an electroencephalogram is the total electrical activity of billions of neurons and their interactions with each other.
Traditionally, an electroencephalogram is used by doctors to diagnose disorders and integrity of brain function. For example, for head injuries or some serious illness that causes headaches. An electroencephalogram is a relatively simple and cheap way to understand the cause and look at the functioning of the brain, determine deviations and disorders.
One of the main characteristics of the EEG is the frequency of electromagnetic waves in the brain. In the electroencephalogram, rhythms are identified, which are assigned the names of the letters of the Greek alphabet (alpha - 8-13 Hz, beta - 14-40 Hz, theta - 4-8 Hz, delta - 0.5-3 Hz, gamma - above 40 Hz, etc.
That is, there are slow rhythms - delta and theta, there is a relatively average calm rhythm - alpha, and there are fast and very fast rhythms - beta, gamma.
To put it very simply, brain rhythms are associated with various functional states of a person. That is, when a person is awake or solving complex problems, high-frequency rhythms predominate. When he is calm or meditating, he is alpha, and restoration processes take place. Slow waves are traditionally associated with sleep or pathologies.
Each rhythm also has its own localization. For example, the beta rhythm is more pronounced in the frontal leads, and the alpha rhythm is more pronounced in the occipital leads.
Advantages and disadvantages
At this stage of development of biofeedback therapy technology, it is considered one of the most promising, even “fashionable” methods of treatment and prevention. The main advantages of the application are:
- participation of the patient directly in the process;
- identifying and influencing the root cause of the disease, rather than eliminating the consequences;
- wide range of uses;
- absence of unpleasant sensations, safety;
- no need for external influence or surgical intervention.
The most important advantage is the patient’s ability to learn to control the reactions of his body and brain. This allows you to continue treatment and prevention without a device at home, since the device only visualizes body functions. After acquiring initial control skills, the device is no longer so necessary.
Types of professional stress
- information stress associated with high mental load.
- communicative stress that arises due to difficulties in communicating with other people, the inability to find an approach to them and resist other people's influence.
- emotional stress associated with the inability to adapt to working conditions, dissatisfaction with the results of professional activities and also arising as a result of conflict situations.
The inability to regulate your mental state and your actions, as well as the inability to manage your behavior, leads to negative and often severe consequences both for yourself and for the people around you. It is important to understand that in order not to experience all the painful consequences of stress, you need to control certain stresses on your body and alternate them with elements of relaxation.
Emotional stress that has reached the level of affect in one form or another has a particularly strong disorganizing effect on a person. The power of affect is such that they can inhibit any other mental processes! With a further increase in the intensity of mental stress, under the influence of emerging negative psychological phenomena, errors begin to appear even in well-practiced skills, and their number gradually increases, and they themselves become more crude. Productivity decreases very quickly. When extreme tension occurs, gross errors appear (for example, a bus driver presses the gas pedal instead of the brake pedal, and then, if he remains alive, cannot explain why he did this). All official instructions and recommendations “fly out of your head,” manifestations of outright cowardice, refusal to carry out risky assignments, deception, dishonesty, and lack of will arise.
Optimization of an employee’s mental states and behavior in extreme situations should include constant monitoring of his condition and, accordingly, psycho-emotional preparation. Otherwise, there is no hope that a stressed employee will act rationally, energetically, quickly and persistently.
Self-control and self-regulation skills.
This is a very important trait that helps you manage yourself, your own behavior, and maintain the ability to perform activities in the most unfavorable conditions. A person with developed self-control knows how to not give in to panic under any, even the most extreme circumstances, maintain clarity of mind, and subordinate his emotions to common sense!
This is precisely what the methodology of biofeedback training in stress management is based on, which allows you to increase efficiency indicators in any activity that requires long-term efforts, as well as great responsibility.
