In the news December 2010

A new system of weight loss that harnesses the power of mind over matter is available in Newark.

Mark Sheppard, of The Complementary Therapy Centre, offers the Virtual Gastric Band technique, using hypnosis to retrain mind and body to accept less food.

Says Mark: “By using hypnosis and guided visualisation you can trick the brain into thinking you have had a gastric band operation.

“This works in the same way as the surgical procedure — by allowing your stomach to feel full earlier and to stop you feeling hungry.”

Mark, who with his wife, Julia, has opened the therapy centre in Southchurch House, just off the Market Place, says the benefits — apart from the obvious one of not having surgery — mean there is no need for follow-up procedures to tighten or loosen the band, because the technique should be long-lasting.

“If you follow the rules you will lose weight,” says Mark, who includes a personalised CD for each client to listen to after the Virtual Gastric Band session.

Mark and Julia, who moved their business to Newark from their home in Retford, both have scientific backgrounds and met at university.

Julia specialises in Swedish massage, Indian head massage, hot stone massage and reflexology — a treatment aimed at relaxing the body through the stimulation of specific points on the feet or hands.

Says Julia: “Reflexology is a good detox treatment. It can help with problems such as headaches, migraine and constipation.

“The massage are ideal for de-stressing and for releasing muscle tension.

“One of the most relaxing is the hot-stone massage.”

Other treatments offered include Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) based on acupuncture without the needles, which is aimed at balancing emotions with mind and body, and reiki healing.

Mark, who gave me a reiki treatment, explained: “There are channels of energy running through the body.

“This energy is the universal life force, or chi.

“The universal life force is channelled through the reiki healer. It can restore the natural flow of energy in the client, allowing the body to self-heal.”

The treatment involved Mark laying his hands on several of my energy centres, such as the top of my head, neck and feet.

The sensation was mainly one of heat and, on one knee, I felt a distinct movement, just as though energy was coursing through my joint.

Reiki is recommended to treat conditions such as arthritis, and to aid relaxation.

Says Mark: “We don’t give any treatment we don’t believe in.”

There is 20% off treatments at the centre until January 31. For further information visit www.thecomplementarytherapycentre.co.uk

Politics Over Evidence in Drug Legislation

Government try to remove the legal requirement for scientific evidence from drug legislation. 

The Drug Equality Alliance have announced that the Government intends to remove the legal requirement for scientists to be on the Advisory Council for the Misuse of Drugs. If passed, the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill would effectively by-pass the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), the government's own advisory body.

According to The Drug Equality Alliance “This would allow the government free reign to control various drug users, without the need for the statutory consultation process nor any of the required scientific expertise being present on the council”.

The Drug Equality Alliance is a not for profit organisation, set up after the sacking of the former chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs professor David Nutt for publicly disagreeing with the then Home Secretary Alan Johnson over the reclassification of cannabis and the subsequent resignations of most of the former scientists on the council.

If the Bill is passed it will undo the core ethos of the legislation that sought to bring expert evidence to the heart of the drug user classification system and is seen by many as a way of the government silencing critics who want to use evidence, rather than tabloid hysteria, to fulfil the need to be seen to be doing something simply for political gain. Another danger of this bill is that once scientific and other evidence based input is withdrawn from the legislation process it is likely never be restored and subsequent governments will be free to act impulsively driven by political moral panic.

As a clinical hypnotherapist based in Newark near Nottingham, I see dozens of clients each year who seek help with the side effects of long-term drug misuse (both legal and illegal) and without doubt the two drugs that cause the most problems are alcohol and tobacco, both of which are legal. It's blatantly obvious that drugs are here and that millions of people are using them, so surely it's equally obvious that in order to be effective, any legislation should be based on sound scientific and social evidence rather than political point scoring.

In the end it comes down to this – every year hundreds of people will die through the use of drugs they considered safe because they are legal and thousands more will be made criminals for using relatively harmless drugs that are illegal, not because of legislation based on scientific fact but on the personal and political views of whatever minister happens to be in power. 

If you would like information about how hypnotherapy can help with the side effects of long-term drug use, including alcohol and tobacco addiction, click here for my contact form or call 07825 654377.

Hypnosis for Pain Relief

Hypnosis isn't just effective at relieving stress and making us feel better about ourselves. Recently we have been able to see, very graphically, the power of hypnosis in the control of pain, with TV programmes such as Channel 4's ground breaking documentary Hypnosurgery Live and through ever more frequent media reports of surgical techniques such as knee surgery and dentistry performed solely with the use of hypnosis. This has finally given hypnosis the credibility needed for it to begin to be taken seriously by the medical community, meaning that today hypnotherapy is much more widely accepted and available as a genuine alternative and / or complementary method of pain relief - although the use of hypnosis alone for pain control during surgery is still pretty rare.

As everyone's nervous system is totally unique and as no one else can feel our pain, pain is completely subjective and everyone's experience of it is different. Yet no matter where we feel a pain, what causes the pain or the type of pain we feel, all pain is produced in the brain. Although we may feel pain at the site of say, a cancer tumour or a break in a bone or a cut to the skin; that is simply the brain’s way of telling us where the problem is but the sensation of pain is actually produced in the brain. Through the use of modern techniques such as brain imaging and studies into epigenetics, cutting edge science is now beginning to explain what complementary therapists have long believed; that there is a definite mind-body connection; one cannot be affected without affecting the other. This is fundamental in understanding how hypnosis works to control pain.

Hypnotherapists use hypnosis to help patients change the way the brain interprets these signals, allowing the patient to take control of the pain instead of being controlled by the pain.

For the full article click here to visit my website

Recession and stress

We all know that stress can have a profoundly negative effect on our mental health. A recent study has revealed a sharp increase in the number of people suffering from mental health problems related to stress due to redundancies, job insecurity and pay cuts etc. These include symptoms such as anxiety and depression.

According to the report, the rise of people experiencing stress related mental health symptoms is related to concerns about the economic downturn.  It's reported that there has been up to a five-fold increase in the incidents of mental health problems with up to 71% of people who have lost their jobs in the last year experiencing symptoms of depression, 55% suffering from stress and 52% experiencing symptoms of anxiety. 

Stress has also been shown to have an negative effect on our physical health and recent research suggests that in particular, long-term or chronic stress can lower the immune system, restrict healing and effect the functioning of the brain. 

Hypnotherapists have long known that treatments such as hypnotherapy can boost the immune system, increase self esteem and self confidence, increase energy levels and improve brain function.  It now seams that at long last the medical community is catching on to what we hypnotherapists  have been doing right all these many years and some doctors are finally beginning to refer patients to hypnotherapists (if yours isn't then start hassling them!!).

Virtual Gastric Band

Loose weight and keep it off!

Virtual Gastric Band is an amazing technique that helps people to loose weight and to keep it off, without the need to diet. 

 

Diets don't work

Anyone who has spent years dieting will already know that in the long term diets don't work. No sooner has the diet finished than the pounds start piling back on again.  Not only that, but after all the suffering, the hunger and denying yourself food you find you're heavier than you were before you started.

95% Success Rate

The Virtual Gastric Band technique uses the power of hypnosis to allow you to change your eating habits and your relationship with food, permanently.  Successful trials have already shown a 95% success rate which is why this method is generating so much interest amongst health professionals. 

   
Eat What You Want

Because the Virtual Gastric Band technique will make you feel full more quickly you will find that you will naturally want to eat less.  And, because you eat less you can eat what you want without the need to count calories or weigh out portions.

If you would like to know more about how the Virtual Gastric Band technique can help you to loose weight then click Virtual Gastric Band to visit my website for more information.

Bariatric Surgery

It hard to believe that around 4,300 people suffering from obesity received surgery for weight loss last year. Not only that but this number is just two per cent of the 20,000 clinically obese patients currently on the waiting list for stomach reduction surgery and some commentators even suggested that there are up to one million people in the UK “requiring” surgery for obesity.

What I find most astonishing about these figures is this; if one million people a year or even 20,000 for that matter, were turning up at accident and emergency departments, all presenting exactly the same symptoms, the focus of attention would soon turn to the cause of the problem and to it's prevention.  Imagine if every year one million computer users needed corrective eye surgery – how long would it take to find the cause of the damage and to rectify it?

It's not that so many morbidly obese people can't get access to surgery but that so many people become obese.  Over-eating is not a medical condition but a behavioural problem produced by ones psychological relationship with food.  Only recently I've treated two clients for weight loss, both of whom had gastric bands fitted at the time of coming to see me and both of whom had found ways to over-eat despite the surgery.

Apart from the cost of surgery, weight related medical conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, osteoarthritis, depression, sleep apnoea and other respiratory conditions all cost the NHS hundreds of millions of pounds every year.  Another factor to consider is the risk inherent in operating on obese patients and the growing number of compensation claims for complications arising form stomach operations as reported on in an article on the BBC News website

The long term solution to obesity and its associated problems should rely less on drastic, unnecessary and often ineffectual (but always expensive) surgery and more on education and early intervention with hypnotherapy and other psychological treatments to help people change their relationship with food.

Regarding the analogy I used earlier about computer users, how irresponsible would it be for the NHS to continue to offer corrective eye surgery when all that was needed was to change the way computers were used?