201: Teaching Physiological and Emotional Self-Regulation through Breath Control and Biofeedback

Emotional self-regulation can be (a) developed through conscious self-regulation of several easily-controlled, primary, physiological conditions, and (b) observed by monitoring secondary, physiological conditions with affordable medical instruments.

Emotional self-regulation is therapeutic for anxiety and depression disorders, bipolar, ADHD and PTSD conditions. Physiological self-regulation, beside contributing to emotional self-regulation, is itself therapeutic for hypertension, heart arrhythmia, migraines, asthma, arthritis, diabetes, and pain management.

In this webcourse you will learn how to teach clients to focus their attention on internal, physical sensations and to control primary physiological factors such as posture, breath rate, breath volume, and breath pattern. By these actions they can indirectly control their secondary physiological factors of blood pressure, blood pH, heart rate, Heart Rate Variability (HRV), production of stress hormones, immune system triggering, alpha and theta brain-wave creation, and metabolic rate. The induced values of these secondary factors have been shown to immediately enhance well-being through emotional awareness, emotional balance, emotional resilience, positive affect, optimism, and enhanced interpersonal relationships.

You will also learn how to monitor emotional self-regulation by means of self-reporting instruments and computerized, medical instruments for Heart Rate Variability (HRV), skin temperature, and CO2 levels in the breath. This instrumentation will also be used for biofeedback while learning the self-regulation methodology.

Content

1. Survey of the literature on physiological-emotional connections. Historical survey of breathing and visualization practices from traditional cultures, and the effect of each on physiological and emotional self-regulation.
2. The six, primary, physiological factors that can be changed consciously and deliberately by anyone and the effect of those changes on the unconscious, secondary, physiological factors and on emotional states.
3. Practice in using physiological self-regulation for pain management and reduction of blood pressure.
4. Practice in the techniques of conscious breathing, full breathing, and heart rhythm breathing (entrainment practice). Discussion of the importance of each in emotional self-regulation.
5. The research on Heart Rate Variability (HRV), the most accurate early indicator of cardiac disease and an instantaneous indicator of emotional balance or imbalance.
6. Considerations in the teaching of breathing and visualization practices. Contraindications for breathing practices. Signals of ineffective breathing and of unsafe side-effects of breathing practices. The three kinds of experiences a client might report after breathing and visualization practices and three levels of each kind of experience.
7. The use of rhythmic and coordinated breathing in couples to entrain the two heart beats and facilitate open communication.

201W is a webcourse lasting 8 weeks.

Each week, a new room is added in the online course, containing new readings, instructions and assignments. You will need to read the messages from the teacher and other students, write at least once a week, fulfill the weekly assignment, and participate in two conference calls per week. During the conference calls, the teacher will demonstrate software that will appear on your computer. A complete sylabbus will be sent upon registration.

Course 201W registration is closed.