Biofeedback Science in Wild Divine Relaxing Rhythms
Dr. Bob Whitehouse, a psychologist certified in biofeedback, and a former board member for the Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback, and biofeedback practitioner Sunny Turner, MA, provided the following information about the science of biofeedback.
Biofeedback uses electronic equipment to monitor your internal physiological states and gives feedback that helps you to learn how to control these states, to activate, balance, release or to recover from them. Usually this also involves a coach, who guides the process, interprets the results, and makes suggestion. In Relaxing Rhythms, however, the product itself gives you information about whether you're progressing or not. And, if you're having trouble, you can seek guidance from a mentor within the program and learn a new practice to change your energy.
Relaxing Rhythms' biofeedback component measures a player's Skin conductance Level (SCL) and Heart Rate Variability (HRV). SCL measures sweat gland activity. Increased perspiration indicates increased autonomic nervous system activation, which is associated with increased energy - both positive, like excitement, and negative, like nervousness.
HRV is calculated from the difference in heart rate from one heartbeat to another. No two intervals are exactly the same, and you need a device more sophisticated than just taking your pulse to determine it. Greater HRV is a healthy goal. In fact, people who exhibit this tend to live longer and enjoy life more. Parts of Relaxing Rhythms require users to attain this goal in order to complete an activity. You can view your SCL and HRV directly on the ion Grapher screen.
iom Grapher
Examining HRV is the fastest growing area in biofeedback and it can provide important methods of working with our own physiology. Research suggests that when you increase your HRV you can reach a state of coherence within the power spectrum frequencies of the heart that signals the brain to synchronize with the heart and boost the immune system. This coherence pattern is the heart frequencies is also know as the Heart's Resonant Frequency (HRF). Anytime you are using the Relaxing Rhythms program, whether at the Main Screen or doing a Mind/Body Practice or Biofeedback Event, you may choose to view a live graph of your body's rhythms as they are captured through the biofeedback hardware.
Meditation, slow and easy abdominal breathing, or connecting with positive emotions are three researched ways for getting this desired pattern of both strength and balance. By synchronizing your heart rate with the breath (two skills that can be gained through practice in Relaxing Rhythms), you can quite easily reach your heart's Resonant Frequency. When we are in this state of coherence, the heart's desired vibration pattern ripples out around us in an electromagnetic doughnut shape detectable eight or more feet in all directions. It even shows up in the brainwaves of anyone we touch!
The sequence of training events throughout Relaxing Rhythms was designed to increase a person's ability to regulate their energy or physiological reactions by experiencing the mind/body connection associated with such emotions as joy, hope, excitement, relaxation and patience. The body responds by increasing, decreasing or synchronizing body rhythms in a positive and healthy way.
Relaxing Rhythms gives users more awareness of the emotional and mental states and their correlation to physical states. When users acquire enough awareness of how to make the shift from one state to another, they can begin to do this voluntarily. They will have integrated what we call our BEST TEAM: Body, Emotion, Spirit and Thought.
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