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Can Hypnosis Help?
Under hypnosis a person has more awareness than in the awake state. All five senses are heightened. There is a focusing on a specific goal. Under hypnosis you will stay in total control and will not say or do anything that is outside of your inner comfort level.
Hypnosis is a therapeutic way of transforming your lifestyle on a subconscious basis. The subconscious mind is the emotional mind that contains our belief systems. When a behavior needs modification, hypnosis helps to get to the cause and allows appropriate modification.
Hypnosis can help improve deep sleep.
In a recent study, Swiss researchers were able to measure its effects by monitoring brain activity in a group of healthy, young women as they took a 90-minute nap after listening to a hypnotic tape. The women spent 80 percent more time in slow-wave sleep (the deep, restorative phase of our shut-eye) after listening to the hypnosis tape than they did after listening to a neutral spoken text. “The results may be of major importance for patients with sleep problems and for older adults,” lead researcher Maren Cordi of the University of Zurich said in a statement. “In contrast to many sleep-inducing drugs, hypnosis has no adverse side effects.”
Hypnosis can ease symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome.
In an APA 2012 study, 85 percent of IBS patients who reported improvement after hypnosis still felt better up to seven years later. “The conclusion is that hypnotherapy could reduce both the consumption of healthcare and the cost to society, and that hypnosis therefore belongs in the arsenal of treatments for IBS,” researcher Magnus Simrén said in a statement.
Hypnosis can quell hot flashes.
Among postmenopausal women who reported at least 50 hot flashes a week, five weekly hypnosis sessions cut hot flashes by 74 percent 12 weeks later, a 2013 study found. Meanwhile, women who did not receive hypnosis but instead had weekly sessions with a clinician only experienced a 17 percent drop in hot flashes.
"Thank you for an incredible experience yesterday. I did feel like a psychonaut exploring hidden realms! I’ve never done acid, but I have a feeling it might be something similar!:-) At times I felt I’d fallen deep deep inside myself and yet it still felt safe. Your voice was so reassuring, so full of light and optimism. It was the protective layer covering me with one more blanket. Sometimes I drifted away from your words but then would come back as if I were a little boat and you were a long silver rope tethering me to something solid so I wouldn’t drift too far out to sea. If there are floors in my mind I was way below the mezzanine! I continue to recite my mantra with new conviction new hope and a sense of peace that is also new. Thank you so much Wendy. Looking forward already to my next voyage!"
From R.D. after her first session
Hypnosis can calm nerves and handle stress.
Hypnosis can be used for stress management in two ways. First, you can use hypnosis to enter and enjoy a deeply relaxed state, throwing off tension and see things more clearly along with possible solutions to problems. This will help to prevent stress and anxiety. Second, hypnosis can also help you to achieve various healthy lifestyle changes that can reduce the amount of stress you encounter in your life.
Hypnosis can help treat addictions.
Hypnosis can help you regain control of your thoughts and actions ensuring you make the right choices. It also helps alleviate the physical symptoms of addiction. Hypnotherapy is proven to help break addictions for good so that you don’t relapse and become addicted again within a short time.
Hypnosis can help you lose weight.
These are findings from a controlled study for 60 females, at least 20% overweight. Treatment included 30 participants in group hypnosis and 30 participants in a control group. An average of 17 lbs was lost by the hypnosis group vs. an average of 0.5 lbs lost by the control group.
Hypnosis can help you change your behavior.
If you are trying to recover from the effects of a dysfunctional family or an abusive childhood, using Hypnosis to help eliminate the unhealthy patterns that you learned to survive can be very therapeutic. Hypnosis can help you identify with the real underlying issues in your life that make you react to things and situations the way you do.
Hypnosis can help deal with childhood issues.
Hypnosis is a great way to work through childhood issues and replace those negative messages about yourself with positive ones.
Hypnosis can ease pain.
Hypnosis is perhaps most well-researched in the context of managing pain. Two meta-analyses of existing pain and hypnosis research, published in 2000 and 2009, deemed hypnosis effective at lowering pain associated with a number of conditions, including and not limited to:
Fibromyalgia
In a 1991 controlled study, 40 patients with fibromyalgia were randomly assigned to groups that received either eight 1-hour sessions of hypnotherapy, or physical therapy (that included 12 to 24 hours of massage and muscle relaxation training) for 3 months. Compared with patients in the physical therapy group, the patients who received hypnosis showed significantly better outcomes on measures of muscle pain, fatigue, sleep disturbance, distress, and patient overall assessment of outcome. These differences were maintained at the 3-month follow-up assessment and the average percent decrease in pain among patients who received hypnosis (35%) was clinically significant, whereas the percent decrease in the patients who received physical therapy was marginal (2%).
Arthritis
In 2002 thirty-six patients with osteoarthritis pain were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: hypnosis, and a no-treatment/standard-care control condition. Patients in the hypnosis condition showed a substantial and significant decrease in pain intensity after 4 weeks of treatment, which was maintained through 3 months and 6 months of follow-up. In comparison, patients in the no-treatment control condition reported little change in pain during the 6 months of this trial.
Migraines
In a 2007 controlled study, out of the 23 participants who received hypnotherapy, 10 of them ceased to experience migraines. Out of the 24 participants who used medication, 3 of them ceased to experience migraines.
Cancer
In a 2004 randomized study of 39 advanced-stage (Stage III or IV) cancer patients with malignant bone disease, patients received either weekly sessions of supportive attention or a hypnosis intervention. The hypnosis intervention group demonstrated an overall decrease in pain while the supportive intervention group reported no decrease in their pain levels.
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