Many people dealing with chronic pain or stress are stuck in fight, flight, or freeze mode — often without realizing it. Biofeedback tools help us see how the nervous system is working — things like heart rate, breathing, and skin temperature. Then we use those tools to teach the body how to calm down.

It's like giving people a window into their own system and showing them how to change it. You can see what's happening when we try different things — different breathwork, different approaches to breathing — and we can see what's effective and what's not. That kind of real-time feedback takes a lot of the guesswork out of it, and it tends to feel more concrete than just being told to relax.

Heart Rate Variability, or HRV, is basically a measure of how flexible your nervous system is. A higher HRV generally means your system can adapt well to stress and recover from it. The good news is that it can be trained.

Paced breathing is one of the most effective ways of doing that — teaching your vagus nerve how to activate and strengthen those connections over the long term. For most people, around six breaths a minute is the average resonance frequency. Done in a relaxed, easy way, that pace tends to work well for the vast majority of people.

Where the biofeedback piece comes in — and where it can be more effective for some — is in finding your individual resonance frequency and understanding your physiology during stress. Some people might be five and a half breaths a minute, some four, some seven. The biofeedback helps pinpoint that. Most people don't need the hardware. Some do. We figure that out together.

This approach tends to work well for people who feel like their nervous system is always running a little hot — chronic pain, anxiety, Long COVID, stress, poor sleep, or a sense of never quite being able to settle. Consistency matters. Several weeks of regular practice is often needed for longer-term change. The practice works best when it's kept light, relaxed, and easeful.

I'm trained in HRV biofeedback and use these concepts regularly. Whether or not we use the technology depends on what makes sense for where you are. Full biofeedback sessions are available in person in Saskatoon. HRV-guided breathwork and coaching are available virtually as well. Book a free consult to start the conversation.