Using Medications and Biofeedback to Manage Physiological Stress

Stress Management is how to manage our own stress reactions. Two of the physiological methods of stress management are Biofeedback and drugs.

Firstly Biofeedback is a technique on how to control your muscles that are not normally controlled for example blood pressure or your heart rate. This is meant to reduce ANS activity therefore reducing the symptoms related to stress such as illness. An individual participating in Biofeedback would be attached to a machine that produces feedback about some physiological activity. For example auditory or visual signals would be produced to indicate changes in the patients heart rate. It is possible even to control your own brain waves using biofeedback. The individual is also trained in how to reduce levels of stress that have been discovered. The biofeedback involves three stages 1: Developing an awareness of the particular response, 2: Learning ways to control the physiological response in quiet conditions and 3: transferring the control into everyday life.

Support for Biofeedback was done by Miller et al (1960-70's). Who showed that ordinary people can learn to control their involuntary physiological systems. Miller and DiCara (1967) demonstrated that rats were able to learn to control their cardiac muscles using operant conditioning techniques. Other research was done by Dworkin and Dworkin (1988) with teenagers who had a spine disorder. They successfully used biofeedback techniques to control the muscles in their spine and managed to straighten their spine again through it.

However biofeedback does not involve direct control of, for example, blood pressure or heart rate. Control is exerted indirectly. For example, breathing deeply, using methods of relaxation can produce changes in various physiological measures. Also it is hard to interpret the beneficial effects of biofeedback. Relaxation training is often given along with the biofeedback, making it hard to tell whether it is the biofeedback or the relaxation training that is more effective.

Secondly Drugs are often used to reduce stress levels. There are many different types of drugs used for this purpose. For example Anti-anxiety drugs, Barbiturates and Benzodiazepines.

Anti-anxiety drugs are another way of reducing stress levels. They counter hormones in the body that make you anxious. Barbiturates are another form of anti-anxiety drugs. They are depressants of the central nervous system and can be effective in reducing anxiety. However there are side effects with barbiturates these include lack of concentration or lack of coordination. Also anxious patients who stop taking barbiturates report numerous symptoms such as delirium, irritability and increased sweating.