Effects of Biofeedback-Aided Relaxation on the Psychological Stress Symptoms of College Students

Abstract

Stress and the management of stress are very much an integral part of health and well-being today. In recent years, many papers, books, and journals have been written on the subject and multiple approaches have been advocated to manage it. This recent interest in stress stems not only from the apparent pace and change of a modern life-style but also from various studies supporting the age-old theory that life's stresses can lead to many health problems. The stress-disease theory-particularly relevant in today's society-attributes the majority of its disease patterns not to germs, inadequate sanitation, or poor living conditions but rather to the stress and pace of a modern technological society (Sutterley, 1979).Stress can be defined in terms of environmental situations that disrupt a person's preferred style of living, resulting in a state of hyperpsychophysiological arousal (Benson, 1975(Benson, , 1977. It is believed that stress becomes maladaptive when this state of hyperarousal continues too long, occurs too frequently, deteriorates physical and mental performance, or results in a stress-related health problem (Budzynski, 1978). Maladaptive stress has been implicated as a contributing cause to many of today's health problems including heart disease, hypertension, and cancer.College students experience an exceptional amount of stress (Marx, 1974;Garrity, 1977). FehringThey have to deal not only with the social transition from high school to university, but also with personal concerns of self-review, identity, sexual attitudes, and philosophical and social values.Likewise, long study hours, deadlines, examinations, noisy dorms, lack of sleep, and poor eating habits all contribute to a student's stressful life.There are now indications that many of the major stress disorders (such as coronary heart disease) begin at a young age (Friedman & Roseman, 1974). Therefore, it seems reasonable to conclude that if college students could learn to manage stress in a healthy way, perhaps they could prevent stress-related disorders. Relaxation and biofeedback techniques are purported to be effective in helping people to manage stress and to reduce stress-related symptoms. The purpose of this study, therefore, was to compare the effectiveness of a simple relaxation technique (Benson's relaxation technique) with the same relaxation technique augmented with biofeedback on the psychological stress symptoms of college students.

Reducing distress in first level and student nurses: a review of the applied stress management literature

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“…Bailey et al . 1980 , Fehring 1983, Lawrence et al . 1985 , Foley & Stone 1988, Speck 1990, Russler 1991, Heaman 1995), and failure to control family‐wise error rates arising from multiple testing strategies ( Gray‐Toft & Anderson 1983).…”

Biofeedback training on university student's anxiety management: A systematic review

“…All studies presented a reduction of the measured anxiety levels for programs of biofeedback combined with: Stroebel's Quieting Response [4]; an attention-training program [17]; Benson's technique [18], a common core treatment program of cognitive behaviour therapy, progressive muscular relaxation and biofeedback [19], with 1-year follow-up [20]; and progressive relaxation [21].…”

Academic Performance Enhancement with Photic Stimulation and EDR Feedback

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