Biofeedback

As a form of therapy, biofeedback is a relatively recent development that has begun to gain acceptance among some members of the medical community. research in the topic began in the 1960s, and by the end of the decade a number of research projects had demonstrated its effectiveness. While some early studies indicated that physiologic processes not usually under conscious control could not be influenced by biofeedback, subsequent research soon disproved this assumption.

During the 1970s biofeedback developed a devout following and as a result an entire industry was created for the manufacture and marketing of the instruments used to measure biofeedback alterations and alpha rhythms in the brain. Alpha rhythms are electrical waves formed by the brain at the rate of 8-13 cycles per second. Because they are associated with the state of meditation attained by practitioners of yoga or transcendental meditation, they were accepted as the optimal state of biofeedback. Instruments to detect and measure alpha rhythms soon became readily available.