Biofeedback

Biofeedback is a technique in which individuals receive real-time information about physiological processes, such as heart rate, muscle tension, skin conductance, or brain activity, so that they can learn to influence them voluntarily. It emerged in the mid-twentieth century from research on operant conditioning and cybernetics, and Neal Miller's experiments challenged the assumption that autonomic functions cannot be consciously controlled. Norbert Wiener's theory of feedback loops provided a conceptual basis, while B. F. Skinner's work on reinforcement informed the learning principles involved. Biofeedback has been used in treating anxiety, chronic pain, hypertension, and attention difficulties, and it is now embedded in consumer wearables and fitness trackers. Sociologists approach it as part of the wider medicalization and digitization of everyday life. Michel Foucault's concept of biopower and technologies of the self illuminates how people are encouraged to monitor and optimize their own bodies, and Deborah Lupton's research on the quantified self examines self-tracking cultures. Shoshana Zuboff has warned that bodily data can be commodified. Critics argue that biofeedback individualizes health and may increase surveillance. Biofeedback remains relevant to debates about health, technology, self-discipline, and data.