Much like acupuncture and tai chi have emerged from the realm of alternative medicine to take their rightful places as valuable mainstream treatments, so has biofeedback, a mind-over-body technique that trains patients to control typically involuntary bodily processes like blood pressure, stress, muscle tension and blood flow.

One expert describes biofeedback as "internal exercise, much like the physical exercise you perform at the gym. It's done with the head instead of the muscles." That's certainly been a very successful treatment option for Canadian skier Alexandre Bilodeau, who credited one form of biofeedback (bioneurofeedback) for helping him win his country's first Olympic Gold Medal at the recent Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

Despite the mainstream acceptance, however, a 2008 American Cancer Society study that polled more than 4,000 cancer survivors found biofeedback, acupuncture/acupressure and hypnosis were rarely used by cancer patients.

An sidenote to readers of our daily blog: In the very same study, taking a supplement was a far more popular choice among cancer survivors.

healthfinder.gov February 4, 2010

WebMD June 27, 2007