Biofeedback and Mindfulness in Everyday Life: Practical Solutions for Improving Your Health and Performance

Learning to tune in to body processes and signals, among them breathing, heart rate, and temperature, and combining such biofeedback data with mindfulness exercises can result in health improvements, states Harvard psychiatrist Khazan in her helpful manual. In accessible language, she begins by defining biofeedback as data quantifying the body’s signals. She then devotes a detailed chapter to the key biofeedback body signals, how each can be tracked, and how the resulting data can point to modifications to ease conditions ranging from anxiety to Reynaud’s disease or to improve athletic or professional performance. Biofeedback practitioners can employ a therapist and use sophisticated equipment (for example, breathing rates can be tracked via a special waist belt) or on their own (via an app or personal tracker). Khazan provides blank worksheets to allow readers to set goals and begin charting their own biofeedback. The book’s second part defines and discusses mindfulness, how to get started with practices such as meditation, and how biofeedback and mindfulness can work together in daily situations. A final section applies the earlier lessons to specific problems like sleep loss, anger, and depression. Though some may conclude working with a professional will be easier, this is a clear, practical guide that could bring relief to many on its own. (July)