A major factor in using hypnosis to facilitate pain relief is a power that we all have though don’t often pay much attention to.
The power to shift our focus.
You could even say that hypnosis for pain relief is all about learning how to “forget to notice” pain.
A recent article on FoxNews.com, titled, Working Through Pain May Actually Reduce It, points to mounting research that we have the ability to reduce chronic pain through a shift in our focus. it’s pretty much obvious that if you sit at home with your pain with nothing else to do you will actually feel it more than if you go to work and immerse yourself in other things.
German researchers used spinal functional MRIs to view the spinal cords of 20 men as they were exposed to painful levels of heat to their arms. At the same time, the study participants had to complete either a hard or an easy memory task.
When the men were given a hard memory task, they perceived less pain than when they were given an easier task. Moreover, the MRIs detected less activity in the spinal cord during a hard mental task. What that means is that fewer pain signals were being relayed to the brain.
Distraction may release natural opioids, which play a key role in pain relief, the authors wrote in their study.
As a practitioner of Hypnosis in Milford CT, I often work with clients who are dealing with chronic pain. After first making sure that they have seen a doctor for their pain I can give these sufferers numerous tools to reduce it.
Over eons, human beings evolved the ability to escape the physical body through trance. Whether it was because we were prey for lions and leopards and were given the merciful ability to leave the body, or for some other reason, it is common for people who have been in horrendous accidents to describe feeling no pain at all. The pain came in later after they were starting to recover from their wounds.
So we have the ability to transcend pretty intense sensations. Before the introduction of anesthesia in the 19th Century advances in surgery were made by using hypnosis to stop pain on the operating table.
For people today who are experiencing chronic pain or discomfort that drugs just can’t alleviate, hypnosis is an excellent option. While it is certainly more than just “mere distraction” hypnosis works because the person deeply shifts their attention and awareness. If your unconscious mind can create more saliva in your mouth by merely imagining biting into a lemon, then it can reduce pain by shifting attention away from one area of the body to another.
Another tool that works well is Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) also known as Meridian Tapping, which involves tapping on specific acupressure points. It is also an extremely silly (at first) thing to do and that very fact is a benefit because it is definitely a distraction.
When I’m working with all kinds of hypnosis clients, from people who want to stop smoking or lose weight, I will often assign a few rounds of “tapping” before the next cigarette or when faced with “challenge foods”. Even if the tapping did nothing else but distract them from their habitual pattern, it works.
My Name is Joann Dunsing and I help people Stop Smoking, Lose Weight, and Manage Pain with Hypnosis, NLP & EFT in my Milford CT office. For more information on how hypnosis can help you, Contact Me Now or use the handy form below and I’ll contact you.
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