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.

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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?