Biofeedback provides information
The biofeedback process simply provides information--usually on a meter or computer--about various bodily functions, in order to achieve improved regulation. The person responds to this information in an attempt to move toward better-controlled function. As an example, as you learn to relax your hands warm up. A thermometer measuring your finger temperature reflects this, allowing you to know when you are succeeding. Success then leads to more success. This is a very natural process, which gets things working the way they are supposed to. After all, the brain-body system has internal pathways to keep itself informed about the various body states. In biofeedback, we simply support these internal pathways with external sources of information. It is these external feedback paths on your internal biological functions that make it ‘biofeedback.’ The process gives you information on how to re-normalize regulatory function, after which the body ‘owns’ better regulatory control.

Commonly, information provided in biofeedback may relate to muscle tension, for example, or to skin temperature. The primary application here is to what is called relaxation training, which is used for generalized anxiety and stress reactions. Other key variables include perspiration, respiration, heart rate, blood pressure, or even the electrical brainwave activity. Information about these physiological variables is usually provided by dedicated biofeedback instruments—many now computerized—in the form of moving graphs or even of video game-like displays. Information can also be provided by sound, or even with tactile feedback (vibration).

Biofeedback: a mirror to ourselves
Biofeedback is like a mirror to us, telling us how we look at a given instant in terms of how well our bodies are working. However, in this case the mirror has an opinion. It rewards us for moving the "bodystate" in the direction of better control, and withholds reward whenever our system moves in the wrong direction. In the ordinary course of events, there are moment-to-moment fluctuations in the measures of interest, and in biofeedback every time our body happens to move in the "right" direction, the mirror is set up to reward us for doing so. The repetition of such rewards leads to the gradual learning, or relearning, of a new state. Whereas allopathic medicine attempts to restore efficient regulation by drug intervention, biofeedback does so through the twin processes of learning through practice and of increasing awareness of the state of self-regulation.

Biofeedback: the self-help discipline
Biofeedback can therefore be seen as the ultimate self-help discipline. All the benefits are entirely attributable to one’s own efforts—even though it is tempting sometimes to give credit to the instrumentation when the observed changes are dramatic. Generally, biofeedback is done with the help of a biofeedback therapist who selects the appropriate therapeutic modality, establishes a training regimen, sets up the instrumentation, teaches awareness skills, and follows up with the client. However, much of what is learned in session can be continued on a home use basis, and home training is often an essential part of the therapy. Moreover, the skill of increased awareness can be usefully applied at any time in one’s life to regain a measure of control over one’s nervous system, whenever things threaten to get out of hand.

Use of information from electrical brainwave activity (the electroencephalogram, or EEG) has developed into a distinct discipline called EEG biofeedback, neurofeedback, or neurotherapy. It will be discussed separately below, but the main ideas about biofeedback as a means of enhancing self-regulation are applicable to neurofeedback as well. One point of difference is that we don’t ordinarily have any way of knowing what the electrical activity is in our brains at any time. We require instrumentation to inform us. Hence, there is a more limited ability to continue the work on a home-training basis.

Who can benefit from biofeedback?
Biofeedback can be helpful in the management of a large variety of disorders. Foremost among these are the disorders on the anxiety-depression spectrum. Secondly, biofeedback can be helpful in various chronic pain syndromes, as well as minor sleep disorders. Additionally, help can be provided in cases of hypertension, cardiac arrythmias, hyperventilation, panic disorders, irritable bowel disorders, TMJ (temporomandibular joint) dysfunction, and Raynaud’s Syndrome (problem in temperature regulation). Biofeedback can be helpful in many muscle-related problems such as pelvic muscle disorders, incontinence, spasticity, paralysis and hemiparesis, tremor, and visual accommodation. EEG biofeedback can be particularly helpful in attentional and behavioral disorders, specific learning disabilities and cognitive deficits, traumatic brain injury and stroke, the epilepsies, PMS, and migraines.