Much attention and research has been devoted recently in exploring optimal physical and mental states, health and performance. Biofeedback technology has played a major role in this, and had led to enormous progress in our understanding of the human body/mind, as well as significant advancements in performance and health care. This is now being extended into measureable wellbeing programs in the workplace.Including for measuring breathing.
“ Biofeedback is the process of gaining greater awareness of many physiological functions of one's own body by using electronic or other instruments, and with a goal of being able to manipulate the body's systems at will."
Biofeedback technology has enabled many professional athletes to advance physical performance far beyond expectations over the last few decades, and has pioneered the research into optimal related mental states such as ‘flow’ or ‘zone’ states.
It has also enabled modern medicine to make massive inroads into diagnosis,and understanding of ailments over the last 100 to 200 years, and this has included measurement of breathing function and efficiency.
As a bodily function that can dramatically affect our day to day living, exert a significant influence on our health, well-being, mood and performance, breathing has largely been taken for granted, or underrated by the health and performance industry.
Breathing is the body function we perform more than any other, apart from the heartbeat, and it's purpose is to supply oxygen for energy production. Yet, most of us breathe incorrectly, in that we over-breathe . We breathe both too often, and with too much volume. This upsets the delicate balance in our respiratory system, and reduces energy production, causing a cascade of health and well-being problems.
Breathing is also the only automatic body function we have that we can consciously control, This same autonomic nervous system that controls breathing, also controls our response to stress.
“Therefore, by learning to breathe correctly we can dramatically influence all of the other automatic functions in the body, as well as our energy, mood and stress levels for the positive."
For breathing, biofeedback is used to assess efficiency of function, and to retrain function to ideal or optimal levels.
Breathing Biofeedback Tools
The CapnoTrainer™ is a sophisticated bio-feedback monitoring instrument that optically analyses the exhaled breath and displays it in various graphic formats along with measurements of breathing rate and efficiency - via end-tidal carbon dioxide (or ETCO2). This technology is not new. It has been used in critical care and ICE in hospitals for decades
However, this technology can not only be used for monitoring breathing function in hospitals, it is also fantastic for use in clinical or workplace training settings to assess breathing efficiency, and is a highly effective tool to retrain incorrect, or dysfunctional breathing to ideal standards, with the obvious benefits being felt for the user in their health, and physical and mental performance.
Benefits of Capnometry to Reduce Stress
Capnometry offers significant benefits in retraining anyone’s breathing as, firstly they can see how inefficient their breathing actually is in the beginning, and then they can not only watch their breathing function on the screen move from incorrect, or dysfunctional levels, to optimal levels.
Secondly, they can also see the improvements in their breathing via the techniques they are being taught to incorporate, and get a distinct kinaesthetic feel for the techniques that are leading to the improvement. This makes the breath retraining techniques far more easy to learn, and then replicate outside of the training environment.
In addition to measuring breathing efficiency, capnometry can simultaneously be used to measure heart rate variability( HRV), which can be used to monitor stress levels. Because of the influence of the diaphragm on the autonomic nervous system, retraining breathing to correct or ideal levels will also dramatically improve our heart rate variability, and therefore our response to stress.
"As such, it is no surprise that using biofeedback technology to retrain breathing function can yield faster, and more permanent results in improving health & well-being, and physical & mental performance."
Importantly, this technology is also highly transportable and can operate through most computers, so it can be used to asses breathing efficiency and train optimal breathing function in corporate or workplace settings.
Benefits of Optimal Breathing
- A full night of quiet sleep. Waking refreshed.
- Controlled, easy breathing (even when exercising).
- Far more relaxation and improved mood - reduced anxiety and depression.
- Greater energy levels and vitality.
- Greater mental concentration, memory, focus, clarity and emotional intelligence.
- Significantly improved work, sporting and/or artistic performance.
- Vastly improved immune system function.
- Reduced chronic pain levels.
- Greater access to optimal physical and mental states such as ‘Zone’ or ‘Flow’ states.
- Reduction, or resolution of symptoms in chronic ailments such as asthma and breathing difficulties; snoring and sleep apnoea; anxiety and depression; sinusitis and allergies; reflux, IBS and other gut conditions; chronic fatigue and pain; headaches and migraines.
At Mindful Life Training, we are the only wellness and performance and training organisations to use biofeedback, via the CapnoTrainer™ technology to assess, and retrain breathing for optimal health, wellness and performance.
The unique breathing techniques and rhythms we use have been created based on the wealth of knowledge of breathing we have accumulated since using this technology. Get in touch for a discussion on how we can help your staff reduce stress via a breathing wellness program, including measuring improvements with our unique biofeedback assessments.
Or book an exploratory call here. Please refer to this article with your booking.
This article was originally posted on LinkedIn by Tim Altman on June 12, 2020.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-biofeedback-technology-retrains-breathing-thinking-tim-altman/