How to Manage Pain With Biofeedback

Chronic pain can end up controlling your life. It can interfere with your ability to work and remain active in activities you enjoy. It is essential to find ways to manage your pain and find a way to “take a break” each day. There are many medications that can help to relieve your symptoms, and working with a physical or occupational therapist can help you learn techniques to manage your pain. It is also helpful to learn techniques that teach you to relax your muscles, since chronic muscle tension will just lead to more pain. Using biofeedback equipment can help you learn how to consciously relax and tighten muscles in your body, providing another technique to help you with your pain management.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Access to biofeedback equipment

1. Biofeedback is a non-invasive technique that provides you with feedback in the form of sounds and or lights to let you know if you are actually relaxing the muscles. It works by placing electrodes on your skin (they do not pierce the skin). There are wires that run from the electrodes to the biofeedback equipment.
2. After connecting the equipment, find a comfortable position either sitting up or lying down. Begin by focusing on your breath. Breathe evenly and slowly in and out through the nose. With each exhale try to let your entire body relax more and more.
3. Once you are feeling more relaxed, begin to focus on the area of your body where you are experiencing pain. Try to breathe into that area and relax the muscles. Silently focus on a word such as "relax," or you can try visually seeing the muscle relax. Find a method that works best for you.
4. As the muscles relax, the lights or sounds from the biofeedback machine should lessen. If this does not happen in the first session, try to not get discouraged. Like any new skill takes time and practice, and some days are easier than others. The important thing is to practice on a regular basis. Eventually you will learn to consciously relax your body.
5. As you learn to relax with feedback from the machine, the goal is to learn to do this without the machine. You will eventually find that you get to a point where you will naturally become aware of when there is tension in the body and know how to let it go. Learning to reduce muscle tension in the body throughout your day will often help you to reduce chronic pain and become less victimized by your condition.