Biofeedback with Heart Rate Variability

Biofeedback is a technique that trains people to improve their health by controlling certain bodily processes that normally happen involuntarily, such as heart rate, blood pressure, muscle tension, and skin temperature.

Heart rate variability is a common type of biofeedback therapy which measures beat to beat variations in heart rate (the time interval between heartbeats). Scientists have recently discovered that our heart has its own intrinsic nervous system, giving it the ability to manufacture and secrete numerous hormones and neurotransmitters that affect the brain and body function.

Researchers have also shown that the heart is a key component of the emotional system. During stress and negative emotions, the heart rate variability is affected and inhibits neural signals traveling from the heart to the brain which inhibits higher cognitive functions. In other words, limiting our ability to think clearly, reason, learn, and make effective decisions. This serves to the reasons why we may often act impulsive or unwise when under stress.

Research has been focused on heart rate variability which are the natural increases and decreases in your heart rate occurring on a constant basis. The heart rate variability reflects our ability to adapt effectively to stress and environmental demands. Many factors affect the activity and variability of our heart including age, stress, physical exercise, breathing patterns and our emotions.

Biofeedback is an effective therapy for many conditions but is primarily used to treat stress, high blood pressure, tension headaches, migraine headaches, anxiety, depression, insomnia, inflammatory bowel disease, and chronic pain.

A biofeedback tool called HeartMath provides products, services, and training programs to help reduce stress by focusing on breathing and emotions. It utilizes heart-brain connections to achieve and maintain optimal heart health through controlling the variability of the heart rate through positive emotions and breathing techniques. This allows a better understanding between stress, emotional regulation, and energy management.

HeartMath teaches how to learn and master self-regulation of physical and physiological functions while also building resilience. The HeartMath Experience provides a free introduction with more details and techniques to use. 

At Empowered Health, we utilize a tool to illicit the nervous system responsible for rest, digest, heal, relax and repair (the parasympathetic nervous system) called the Relaxing Breath. This breathing technique can be done at any time and location.

For more information on the Relaxing Breath- https://empoweredhealthinstitute.com/the-relaxing-breath/ This is our own way to control our blood pressure, heart rate, glucose and cortisol levels. 

References

The Science of HeartMath. www.heartmath.com

Biofeedback Tools. The University of Arizona, Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine. Integrativemedicine.arizona.edu