Recovery is a complex, intimate journey that requires clients to learn about themselves on a deeper level. Listening to one’s body, thoughts, and feelings is a crucial part of finding deep healing. The body can be a rich source of learning and growth. However, clients may wonder, “How exactly can I learn from my body?” One way is through biofeedback.
What Is Biofeedback?
Biofeedback is a body-oriented technique that relies on understanding sensory feedback to attain greater control over bodily functions. In this process, positive feedback and their associated actions are embedded into one’s memory. These positive reactions stick with clients to help improve their functional control and reactions.
Clients can receive visual, auditory, or tactile feedback. Upon receiving feedback, the client makes certain adjustments. Over time, clients become more aware of how their muscles and/or nervous system are responding. Then they can begin to adjust those responses to achieve a more desirable result.
This technique is typically used for clients coping with chronic illness but it also can be used for a number of disorders and symptoms. It can be used to better control one’s muscles as well as the autonomic nervous system. Biofeedback is a safe procedure for clients of any age and is completely voluntary.
How Can I Learn From My Body to Support the Recovery and Healing Process?
Often clients in recovery feel like their bodily responses are involuntary. Biofeedback helps clients regain control over themselves and realize that their behaviors and body functions are more controllable than they knew. For clients experiencing the following ailments or symptoms, biofeedback may benefit their healing journey:
- Constipation
- Trouble controlling fecal and urinary processes
- Chronic pain
- Migraines
- Chronic insomnia or fatigue
- Fibromyalgia
- Epilepsy
- Motion sickness
- Depression
- Anxiety
- Raynaud phenomenon
Biofeedback and Depression
What’s more, clients with depression can benefit. Clients with depression experience feelings of sadness, hopelessness, and worthlessness. Depression can consume one’s life, altering it entirely. Some clients turn to drugs or alcohol to help cope with these difficult symptoms of depression.
Biofeedback can support this healing process by helping clients understand when (and what stimuli) motivate these overwhelming feelings of sadness. Then clients can work through these feelings to produce more positive behaviors. This can then help clients steer away from drug and alcohol use as they become more aware of their bodies and feelings.
Biofeedback and Anxiety
When clients are coping with anxiety, biofeedback works to assist them in recognizing stimuli that elicit heightened states of stress or nervousness. Through biofeedback, clients gain control over their responses to these stimuli. This increased sense of efficacy helps them lead more of a calm and empowered lifestyle.
It is important for clients to regain control over these “involuntary” responses to gain more self-direction in the healing process. Clients who can recognize their responses and work toward beneficially altering them can regain control over parts of their lives that they may have lost to their disorder.
Here at First Steps Recovery, we offer therapy for clients looking to regain control over their “involuntary” reactions to certain stimuli. Clients overcoming substance use disorders (SUDs), depression, or anxiety may benefit from this treatment. To learn more about therapy at First Steps Recovery or other services to help one’s healing journey, please call our facility at (844) 489-0836.
