Counseling center offers biofeedback to help decrease stress

By: Don Musick

Published: Friday, January 12, 2007

The Savannah College of Art and Design Center for Student Counseling and Disability Services offers students a unique opportunity to decrease their stress levels — by using a biofeedback machine called the Freeze-Framer.

The machine monitors heart rhythm changes and patterns with the goal of improving the user’s coherence, or heart-brain synchronization. Smooth heart rhythms and coherence are associated with reduced stress, balanced emotions and inner ease.

To use the Freeze-Framer, students place one finger on a monitor, which measures heartbeat changes and patterns in one-minute increments. The computer provides visual feedback showing the student’s heart rate variability. Users can choose a display of a meadow, rainbow or balloon game; as their coherence becomes smoother, the images in the game alter to reflect this change.

College students tend to have high levels of stress as a result of academic and independence issues. In order to experience sustained relaxation and be able to apply this state to stressful situations, they may benefit from biofeedback methods such as the Freeze-Framer. The long-term goal of these methods is to reduce stress and enable students to carry heart-brain coherence into their academic performance.

“The use of biofeedback will help the student track progress and outcome measures with an objective instrument tool to facilitate emotional well-being and academic progress,” said Tamara Knapp-Grosz, Ph.D., director of the CSCDS.

The term “biofeedback” was coined in the late 1960s, when scientists were researching whether subjects could consciously alter their brain activity, blood pressure, heart rate and other bodily functions usually considered to be involuntary. In fact, the instruments used in lie detector tests are similar to the equipment used for biofeedback.

Biofeedback works by monitoring bodily functions and turning them into easily recognizable signals — a rising or falling tone, for instance. After people become aware of these signals, they can learn to modify them over time.

Common types of biofeedback include electromyography, which measures muscle activity by placing pads/electrodes on the skin; galvanic skin response, which measures skin resistance through electrodes; and the thermister, which measures skin temperature and is typically placed on the fingertips. All three of these methods often are used for relaxation and headache treatment.

For more information about biofeedback or to schedule an appointment, call (912) 525-6971.


Musick is a counselor in the Center for Student Counseling and Disability Services.