Looking for Health: A Systems Perspective (Copy)
My motto is: Change your body and the mind will follow. I find that the lens through which we view our barriers to freedom and choice makes a big difference.
A woman comes to my office complaining of anxiety. In the course of my intake I ask her whether she has been diagnosed with anxiety or if she is currently under a doctor’s care for this condition. She has self-diagnosed and has come because she has heard that biofeedback can help.
“Do you feel anxious now?” I ask. She considers, shrugs, and nods. “Ok. If you are willing, please place you hands on any body parts that feel tense, or any places where this worrying lives in you. Hold them there long enough to confirm that this is a place where worry sits in you.” She rests her hands on her frontal lobe, her throat, and her gut.
“Now, suppose we start training, how will we know if our biofeedback is helping?” I asked. “How would your life be improved?”
“I would have fewer panic attacks and I would feel like I could get enough air in when I breathe.” She replied.
“Would you like to learn to get enough air when you breathe right now?” I asked. “We could try a few things and see if you can breathe and relax at the same time.”
So we play with a few very simple breathing techinques that involve attending to the four parts of the breath cycle, play with attenuating the outbreath, and experiment with a breath rhythm that feels calming and natural to her. This takes about 10 minutes.
“And now, tell me about those places where worry lived in you. Any change? I ask.
“All changed,” she responds, “but my head doesn’t feel so thick, I can feel air moving through my throat, and my stomach isn’t clenched. Amazing!”
So begins our discussion of the systems perspective I use in working with folks seeking change in the choices they have in responding to their circumstances. I explain that any response can be viewed through the lens of cognition—talking, thinking and talking, analyzing—or through the lens of behavior—physical reactions, habitual reflexes, uncharacteristic responses—or through the lens of physiology—the changes in heart rate, muscle tension, temperature, respiration rate, or sweating. I point out that the lens of cognition can sometimes be accurate, or sometimes be a narrative we have adopted.
Even our behavior can be misleading or in contradiction with our cognition. Think about a time when you might have said, “No, everything’s Fine.” But your tone of voice or your body language told a very different story. Similarly, it is easily possible to misread gestures and body language. But physiology does not lie. Unless you are a sociopath, your body’s responses to stress will belie any report you might make to the contrary.
When there is a threat, a difficulty, a novelty that requires your attention (like a loud noise or a dangerous animal), your body automatically recruits resources to make it possible for you to defend yourself or remove yourself from danger. The threat need not be to your vitality. A task such as subtracting 7 from a series of numbers might make your heart race, especially if you were additionally concerned that you might appear incompetent if you made a mistake. We can talk about our stressors (Cognition), or we can compose and practice behavioral coping methods to apply when confronted with stress (Behavior), or we can attune to the physiological responses the body is making and shift those responses.
In the case of my client who presented with self-diagnosed anxiety, we spent no time talking about its source. We did locate its manifestation physically, then through basic respiration training we changed the pattern of respiration so that her flight/fight/freeze response shifted into rest/relax mode. When we made that physiologicalshift she reported a change in Cognition and we observed a change in Behavior.
These three systems—Cognition, Behavior, and Physiology—are out three perspectives through which we can view any response we make to the phenomena we encounter in our world. Change one and the other two will change as well. In Biofeedback training, we use physiology to change cognition and behavior. In the case of this client, we did go on to use several different biofeedback tools to introduce awareness of physiology by non-invasively attaching a sensor to measure and track respiration depth and frequency so she could graphically track her breathing. We used a sensor on her finger to track changes in her pulse strength and frequency then related that to the breathing. And we used a themal sensor to teach her how to raise the temperature in her hands which was a successful intervention when she felt a migraine coming on.
Ultimately, biofeedback is nothing more than mindfulness training using a computer interface. Within eight sessions she had enough new awareness about how her physiology changes and enough new sensitivity to controlling those responses that she was empowered to face life with choices for health.
If you would like to schedule an intake, please contact me at cschrader828@gmail.com or call 828-691-0988.
To your heath!