Differences were compared in the short-term and long-term responses of subjects with headache, insomnia, or hypertension to biofeedback training, relaxation, or a combination of both. Headache sufferers, insomniacs, and hypertensives were randomly assigned in equal numbers to biofeedback, relaxation training or a record-keeping control. Over 2 months, controls received a combination of biofeedback and relaxation training in 15-20 individual hour sessions. Follow-up occurred one year later. Headache subjects showed some improvement in symptoms and medication use after all types of training. On average headache pain per week, both relaxation and biofeedback trainees improved relative to controls. At follow-up, all trained groups showed further lessening of headache activity below post-training levels; medication consumption also generally continued to decline. There were no significant differences between the improvements of the training groups, post-training or at follow-up. Insomniacs showed significant improvement after all types of training in sleep onset, and some decrease in medication use. At follow-up, biofeedback trainees showed continued improvement in sleep onset while relaxation trainees did not, with combination-trained subjects in between. (Author)