HEALTHY LIVING

Easing Stress

You can help your body heal itself from damage caused by stress.

BY JANIS JOLLY | CONTRIBUTED PHOTOS

When we speak of stress, we usually have something negative in mind: headache, anxiety, indigestion. But stress can be positive use its own great healing abilities.” He adds that biofeedback does not diagnose or treat the cause of the stress. as well as negative. Stress is simply the body’s response Bergeron points out that people store stress in certain to changes that create taxing demands. It makes the parts of the body, such as the lower back, the upper heart beat faster, it makes the blood course through our back and neck. Some people get bad headaches or have veins and it heightens all our senses. If changes in your digestive problems. Biofeedback can interfere with the life make you have more energy or feel excited—for frequencies of the body to neutralize the stress. example, if it improves your performance—it is a good A typical quantum biofeedback session is relaxing and thing. We are unlikely to seek help when we experience painless. First, the practitioner converses with the client positive stress. about how they are feeling and how stress manifests

Negative stress, on the other hand, causes anxiety or in their body. Then the client is connected to the concern. It feels unpleasant. It can decrease performance biofeedback machine and a computer, which provides and leave us exhausted. We seek out help from friends, a readout. The client then rests in a comfortable chair physicians, spiritual advisors or others to relieve and for 20 to 60 minutes. During this time, the biofeedback manage stress. equipment uses the information it has gathered about

Learning to manage this all-too-common negative Billy Bergeron of Bluffland Biofeedback stress factors within the body and emits frequencies to stress can have a positive effect on our lives when we attempt to neutralize that stress. learn to cope and find new ways to take care of ourselves. The Coulee At the end of the session, Bergeron shares the results with the client. Region is fortunate to have many people in the helping professions who The readout from the session can show something about the nature of can help us mitigate common stressors. the stress. The client then learns what to pay special attention to in their

One method that is becoming easier to access is biofeedback, a life and their body. technique that helps neutralize the body’s reaction to stress using “The stress management is not instantaneous; the client needs to pay modern technology and mindfulness training. close attention to how they feel after each session,” explains Bergeron. HELPING THE BODY TO HEAL Bergeron is a certified practitioner of biofeedback, having

Embraced by many holistic health practitioners, quantum completed a one-year course provided by the maker of the equipment biofeedback targets stress with electronic frequencies. “Biofeedback he uses. CRW reminds the body of what it felt like when it wasn’t stressed,” says Billy “It typically takes three sessions to assess and neutralize feelings of stress.” Bergeron of Bluffland Biofeedback, who uses a type of biofeedback Janis Jolly lives in La Crosse and plans to learn lots more about machine that “sends healing frequencies through the body so it can biofeedback.