Real-Time Body Signals to Support Stress Management, Relaxation & Emotional Regulation
Providers for Healthy Living offers biofeedback therapy in Ohio for individuals who want to better understand how stress, anxiety, panic, trauma-related symptoms, and emotional overwhelm affect the body. Biofeedback therapy is a non-invasive approach that uses real-time information from the body to help clients recognize physical stress responses and practice skills to calm the nervous system. These signals may include breathing patterns, heart rate, heart rate variability, muscle tension, skin temperature, or other body-based responses. When people feel anxious, stressed, overwhelmed, or triggered, the body often responds automatically. Heart rate may increase. Breathing may become shallow. Muscles may tighten. The mind may feel racing or stuck. Biofeedback helps make these reactions visible so clients can learn how to influence them with practice and support.

What Is Biofeedback Therapy?
Biofeedback therapy is a therapeutic technique that helps people learn to notice and change certain physical responses that are often outside of conscious awareness. During biofeedback, sensors or monitoring tools may provide real-time feedback about body functions such as heart rate, breathing, muscle tension, or relaxation patterns. This feedback may appear as a graph, number, image, sound, or visual display. With guidance from a therapist, clients practice strategies such as paced breathing, mindfulness, progressive muscle relaxation, grounding skills, or other calming techniques. The goal is not to force the body to relax, but to help the client build awareness, confidence, and skill in shifting the body’s response to stress.

How Biofeedback Therapy Works
Biofeedback helps connect what you feel emotionally with what is happening physically. For example, a person may not realize how quickly their breathing changes when they become anxious, or how much muscle tension they hold during stress. During a biofeedback session, the therapist may use equipment or tools that help monitor physical responses in real time. As you practice relaxation or regulation skills, you can see how your body responds. Over time, this feedback can help you recognize early signs of stress and use coping strategies more effectively outside of sessions.

What Can Biofeedback Help With?
Biofeedback therapy may be helpful for individuals experiencing:
  • Anxiety
  • Panic symptoms
  • Stress-related physical tension
  • Trauma-related activation
  • PTSD-related symptoms
  • Emotional overwhelm
  • Difficulty calming the body
  • Sleep difficulties related to stress
  • Focus and concentration challenges
  • Chronic stress
  • Mind-body awareness concerns
  • Physical signs of anxiety, such as racing heart or shallow breathing

Biofeedback may be used alone or as part of a broader treatment plan that includes individual therapy, trauma therapy, DBT-informed therapy, psychiatry, medication management, nutrition counseling, or other services.

Biofeedback for Anxiety and Stress
Anxiety and stress often show up in the body before a person fully recognizes what is happening emotionally. Biofeedback can help clients identify patterns such as rapid breathing, increased heart rate, muscle tension, or difficulty returning to a calmer state. By seeing these patterns in real time, clients can practice skills that support relaxation, emotional regulation, and greater body awareness. This can be especially helpful for people who feel physically overwhelmed by stress, panic, or anxiety.

Biofeedback and Trauma-Informed Therapy
For some people, trauma-related symptoms can include physical reactions such as tension, restlessness, racing heart, shallow breathing, numbness, or feeling constantly on alert. Biofeedback can support trauma-informed therapy by helping clients build awareness of nervous system activation and practice grounding or calming skills in a structured way. Biofeedback does not require clients to retell traumatic experiences in detail. Instead, it can focus on present-moment body awareness, regulation skills, and learning how to recognize and respond to stress signals.

Biofeedback and Emotional Regulation
Emotional regulation means being able to notice, understand, and respond to emotions without becoming completely overwhelmed by them. Biofeedback can support emotional regulation by helping clients see the connection between emotions and physical responses. For example, a client may learn how breathing patterns affect heart rate, how muscle tension changes during stress, or how relaxation strategies help the body shift toward calm. These skills can support therapy work for anxiety, trauma, anger, panic, stress, or emotional sensitivity.

Online Biofeedback Therapy in Ohio
Providers for Healthy Living offers online biofeedback therapy through secure telehealth when clinically appropriate. Telehealth biofeedback allows clients throughout Ohio to meet with a therapist from a private, comfortable location. Depending on the provider, goals, and available tools, online biofeedback may include real-time exercises, guided breathing, body awareness work, heart rate or breathing-focused strategies, relaxation training, or skills practice that can be used between sessions. Your therapist will explain how the process works and help determine whether online biofeedback is appropriate for your needs.

What Happens During a Biofeedback Session?
Biofeedback therapy typically begins with a conversation about your symptoms, stress patterns, physical reactions, coping skills, and treatment goals. Your therapist may ask about anxiety, panic, sleep, trauma history, emotional regulation, physical tension, and situations that trigger stress responses. During a session, your therapist may guide you through exercises while tracking body-based feedback. You may practice breathing, relaxation, grounding, mindfulness, or muscle relaxation strategies while learning how your body responds. The therapist may also help you identify skills to practice between sessions so you can use them in everyday situations.

Who May Benefit from Biofeedback Therapy?
Biofeedback may be helpful for children, teens, and adults who want support with stress management, anxiety, panic symptoms, trauma-related activation, emotional regulation, sleep difficulties, or body-based signs of stress.

It may be especially useful for people who say things like:
  • “I know I’m anxious, but I don’t know how to calm my body down.”
  • “My heart races even when I’m trying to relax.”
  • “I hold stress in my body.”
  • “I feel tense all the time.”
  • “I want practical skills I can actually see and practice.”
  • “I need help noticing when stress is building.”

Biofeedback is not the right fit for every person or every situation. Your provider will help determine whether it should be part of your treatment plan.

Biofeedback and Other Therapy Options
Biofeedback can be combined with other forms of care when appropriate. Some clients may benefit from biofeedback alongside individual therapy, trauma therapy, EMDR therapy, Accelerated Resolution Therapy, DBT-informed therapy, hypnotherapy, written expression therapy, psychiatry, or medication management. Because stress and emotional overwhelm can affect both the mind and body, biofeedback can be one useful tool in a larger treatment plan.

Providers Who Offer Biofeedback Therapy
Providers for Healthy Living has clinicians who offer therapy and mind-body approaches for clients in Ohio. Biofeedback provider availability may vary, and our intake team can help determine whether biofeedback therapy is currently available and appropriate for your needs.

What to Expect When Getting Started
New patients can request an appointment to begin the intake process. After completing intake paperwork, one of our intake specialists will contact you to help determine provider fit and scheduling options. If biofeedback therapy is appropriate, your therapist will begin by learning about your symptoms, goals, stress patterns, coping skills, and current needs. Treatment is paced collaboratively, with attention to comfort, emotional safety, and practical skill-building.
Frequently Asked Questions

What is biofeedback therapy?
Biofeedback therapy is a non-invasive approach that uses real-time information from the body to help clients better understand physical stress responses and practice skills for relaxation, stress management, and emotional regulation.

How does biofeedback therapy work?
Biofeedback uses sensors, monitoring tools, or guided exercises to help track body responses such as breathing, heart rate, heart rate variability, muscle tension, or relaxation patterns. With support from a therapist, clients practice strategies to help shift these responses over time.

What can biofeedback therapy help with?
Biofeedback may help with anxiety, panic symptoms, chronic stress, trauma-related activation, emotional regulation difficulties, sleep concerns related to stress, physical tension, and body-based signs of anxiety or overwhelm.

Is biofeedback therapy medication?
No. Biofeedback is not medication. It is a skill-based therapy approach that helps clients learn how stress affects the body and how to practice strategies that may support relaxation and regulation.

Is biofeedback therapy available online?
Yes. Providers for Healthy Living offers online biofeedback therapy in Ohio through secure telehealth when clinically appropriate. Your therapist will help determine whether telehealth biofeedback is a good fit for your needs.

Do I need special equipment for online biofeedback therapy?
Not always. Some online biofeedback sessions may use guided breathing, body awareness, relaxation exercises, or other tools that can be practiced from home. Your therapist will explain what is needed based on your treatment plan.  It can be helpful to have a way to monitor heart rate and breathing while doing biofeedback to give you immediate physiological feedback about your progress, however.

Can biofeedback help with anxiety?
Biofeedback may be helpful for anxiety because it helps clients recognize physical signs of stress, such as rapid breathing, increased heart rate, or muscle tension, and practice strategies to help calm the body.

Can biofeedback be used with trauma therapy?
Yes. Biofeedback may be used as part of trauma-informed therapy to help clients build body awareness, practice grounding skills, and support nervous system regulation. It can be combined with other trauma-related therapy options when appropriate.

How many biofeedback sessions will I need?
The number of sessions varies depending on symptoms, goals, provider recommendations, and how often skills are practiced between appointments. Your therapist will help develop a plan based on your needs.

How do I schedule a biofeedback therapy appointment?
New patients can request an appointment to begin the intake process. After completing intake paperwork, one of our intake specialists will contact you to help determine provider fit, biofeedback availability, and scheduling options.
Take the first step toward feeling better. ​​
New patients can request an appointment to begin the intake process. After completing the initial paperwork, one of our intake specialists will contact you to schedule your appointment.
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Biofeedback Therapy in Ohio