The Lowdown on Biofeedback EMG

If you are suffering from a stress-related condition or an affliction involving your involuntary muscle reactions, you have probably done plenty of homework on therapies that can help you get your life back to normal.

There is a lot of conflicting information out there, so getting the solid lowdown about one of the safest and most effective treatments for all of these conditions – biofeedback EMG – can be somewhat hard to come by. Here’s a primer:

Biofeedback EMG, like all biofeedback, works off of a simple principle: If you are aware of your body’s reactions to certain stimuli, you can learn to control them. All biofeedback machines work in roughly the same way, though there are key differences depending on the particular condition the patient suffers from. Using a biofeedback machine, a trained professional attaches safe, painless electrical sensors to the patient’s body, and collects physiological information about them. In the case of biofeedback EMG, the information will be about skeletomuscular tension, and the way our bodies respond, both by tensing up, and to the tension itself. The professional then gives the information to the patient in a format that is easy to understand, and helps them learn (usually through a game of some kind) how to control those responses.

Our skeletomuscular responses – tension in our muscles and more – are deeply affected by stress. Stress is a persistent devil in our modern, hectic lives, where it is so prevalent even anticipating it can make us anxious. In the post-recession era, fewer and fewer of us are working harder and harder to make up for jobs that were lost (and processes that were “streamlined”) and those of us that don’t have jobs are sometimes under the most stress of all. Most Americans walk around under far too much stress – a recent study by Forbes found that almost half of all people report they don’t have enough time to get everything done that they need to – much less carve out time for self-care.

Biofeedback EMG can’t give you more hours in a day or days in a week, but it can help you to learn physiologically positive responses to your body’s natural responses to stress – which in turn can help you reduce muscle tension, chronic headaches, anxiety and many other stress-related afflictions. There is an old saying that goes, “Life never gets easier, but you get better.” Biofeedback EMG helps you “get better.”

Biofeedback EMG also helps with other involuntary muscular afflictions, such as incontinence, which can cause a lot of suffering and embarrassment for those who struggle with it.

If your quality of life is suffering due to being overstressed or having a stress-related condition such as anxiety, chronic pain or migraines – or you are living with the humiliating effects of incontinence – biofeedback EMG might be just the therapy to help you get relaxed, happy and back to normal.