Mind-Body Medicine

Mind-Body medicine is an evidence based modality of medicine that addresses the mind-body connection in a way that teaches mindfulness and stress reduction as a means to improving overall health.  It includes behavioral therapy and biofeedback modalities that can address illness by treating the nervous system to help relieve  anxiety, depression, emotional trauma, hypertension, chronic pain, irritable bowel syndrome, irritable bowel disease, immune dysfunction, and more.  

Biofeedback is the practice of using the individual's body or assessment tools to bring mindfulness into how their physiologic responses to stress may be modified in order to improve health. The first step to biofeedback is to cultivate awareness of an aspect of health that one would like to change and then to incorporate mindfulness into how they may be orienting or relating to their body around this change. The feedback in the term 'biofeedback' comes from the mindfulness cultivated by the individual directly or from various assessment sensors and a computer. These tools can measure respiration, heart rate variability, brain waves, muscle tension, sweat, and temperature. In the beginning of learning biofeedback, these tools can be useful to help an individual to see how their body is responding to certain stressors so that they can then learn how to be mindful of these reactions without these tools. Biofeedback appointments generally last 60 minutes and begin with a comprehensive assessment to understand how that individual may experience stress in their body. It is generally advised to do a minimum of six biofeedback sessions in order to fully learn the tools necessary to begin modifying the stress reaction and sometimes people will choose to do up to 12 sessions. Each week there will be homework given to practice independently and the following week will continue to build off of the skills you have developed. Biofeedback is a unique way to approach health and has been shown in research to be an effective and safe way to improve major illness without the use of pharmaceuticals.

Behavioral therapy can include a variety of theories and approaches, but is commonly known as forms of talk therapy. In addition to biofeedback, behavioral therapy can support an individual in making changes in order to support both physical and emotional health. We are trained in motivational interviewing as well as cognitive behavioral therapy.