Optimal Performance

Stress is one of the most caustic and pervasive afflictions experienced by modern mankind and effects all systems of the body including the musculoskeletal, respiratory, cardiovascular, endocrine, gastrointestinal, nervous, and reproductive systems.

Pharmaceuticals often attempt to treat one or more of the symptoms of chronic stress and talk therapy attempts to address how people manage it for themselves. Biofeedback marries these approaches, using the symptoms to understand the management and using the management to gain control of the symptoms.

Reaction time and muscle control matter in numerous fields, from sports to surgery. There are many ways to improve both, and many factors that impact how fast and controlled a person can be: exercise, practice, training, sleep, diet and hydration, breathing, stress, distraction, and more.

When reaction speed matters, it really matters. Even fractions of a second can be the difference between success or failure.

At any given time only a fraction of these factors are within an individual’s control. Using biofeedback is about ensuring that you’ve done everything possible to set yourself up for success.

What diet actually improves reaction time for you the most? Which exercise allows you to warm up the fastest? How effective has a specific training been? There are numerous studies that serve as guideposts to answer these questions. Biofeedback is about tailoring approaches precisely to individuals with as much data as possible.

There are a multitude of factors that affect a person’s ability to focus, particularly for long periods of time. Especially when the thing that requires attention is difficult, complex, or boring.

Environmental factors outside of your control like the weather, loud noises, energetic neighbors, kids, pets, and more. Many of these environmental factors can be mitigated by changing your lived environment: investing in a home office, good insulation, finding a different place to work or study.

There’s only one distraction you can’t truly escape: Yourself. However, there are many internal sources of distraction which you can control.

Are you prone to multitasking? Are you particularly susceptible to stress? Is that drink the night before still affecting you in hidden ways? Is your medication having some hidden side effect?

By achieving greater understanding of what’s going on behind the scenes using techniques like EEG, you can use biofeedback techniques to see what has the biggest impact on your concentration and retrain your brain to stay focused longer and more deeply.

In emergency situations the amygdala activates and people experience the automatic, involuntary fight, flight, or freeze response.

Whether you’re training to be a police officer, soldier, athlete, or surgeon simulating high-pressure scenarios is invaluable. These techniques can enable you to practice your physiological responses in safe environments so they can understand exactly what’s happening behind the scenes and remain in control during real events.

Managing yourself in a crisis requires education, preparation, training, and practice.

Many of the effects of amygdala activation are subtle, and especially hidden when you need to be most aware. Biofeedback can give anyone a massive advantage when attempting to improve their responses in stressful situations by increasing self awareness and retraining automatic responses with hard data to guide its efficacy.

According the NIH, problem solving has four broad components: Observation, optional appraisal, critical thinking, and creativity. Reaction time is about reacting quickly ideally in pre-decided ways. Problem solving is about identifying a problem, identifying potential solutions, and determining which is best given the situation.

It’s not easy. Sometimes it’s very hard. When you’re making hard decisions there are a lot of variables that are outside of your control. However, there’s a consistent one that you DO have control over: Yourself.

Biofeedback offers a variety of tools and techniques to help you know yourself to the best possible degree using the best possible data so that no matter how difficult a problem is, you bring your absolute best to solving it.

Being able to manage anxiety, anger, or excitement leads to improved performance whether you’re raising a family, protecting your home, or playing to sold-out shows.

Effective emotional regulation has been linked to better personal relationships, higher levels of happiness, and higher emotional resilience.

We can’t control what we’re feeling at any given time; however, we absolutely have control of how we respond and the habits we form. The first step to doing that is understanding when those emotions truly happen, not just when we notice them.

Emotions always have physiological effects, and sometimes those effects cause emotions rather than the other way around. For example: a medication increases your heart rate. Your brain subconsciously interprets that as fear. Now you’re feeling anxiety and searching for sources, your temper shortens, your more critical of your friends, colleagues, children, strangers, and so on.

Using Biofeedback techniques you can interrupt that process, regain control of your subconscious, learn exactly how those emotions are affecting you, and learn to control them with a personalized, data-driven approach.