Hypnosis for Health
Hypnosis gives you the tools to better control your mind, body and life. During this type of hypnosis, you will be fully conscious of your entire experience. You will be deeply relaxed during the session and leave the office feeling genuinely rested and energized.
Hypnotherapy helps you organize and focus your brain power efficiently! Hypnotherapy trains kids, teens, adults and elderly to focus and concentrate.
Franci Knight, Our Hypnotherapist
Franci Knight is a Certified Medical Support Hypnotherapist with the International Board of Hypnotherapy as well as a member of the National Guild of Hypnotists. Franci had 400 hours of advanced training at the Hypnotherapy Academy of America, Santa Fe, New Mexico, in the most comprehensive program in the world. Since then she has continued to add more advanced training and certifications each year. In March of 2012, she continued her training in Santa Fe to specialize in accelerated healing and pain management.
In addition to preparing you for surgery and helping you recover from surgery, illness or injury faster, she is also available to assist you in Hypnotherapy for the following issues:
- Surgery Preparation & Recovery
- OAB (Overactive Bladder) & Urinary Urgency
- Accelerated Healing
- Profound Relaxation
- Easy Pregnancy, Labor and Delivery
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Self-Hypnosis
Everyone can learn self-hypnosis techniques to improve any part of your life.
Begin transforming your life by releasing the self-limiting thoughts that hold you back from achieving the life of your dreams. In hypnosis, you will discover the underlying limiting beliefs in your subconscious mind. This will promote personal growth and self-realization. Contrary to the myths about hypnosis, you can never be forced to do or say anything against your will, nature or values.
By motivating your subconscious mind to comprehend your old belief systems, you bring that understanding to situations in your present life. You gain clarity and perspective. Take control of your life by understanding, and then changing, your perception of your past, present and future.
Hypnosis gives you the tools to better control your mind, body and life. During this type of hypnosis, you will be fully conscious of your entire experience. You will be deeply relaxed during the session and leave the office feeling genuinely rested and energized.
“Pain is a sensory experience analogous to hearing and sight,” van Ravenswaay says. “In hypnosis, you can learn to ignore discomfort by focusing instead on a pleasant scene or perhaps a time in life before the painful condition. Or the discomfort could be experienced as a different, more tolerable sensation such as warmth, pressure, or perhaps on the skin instead of deeper inside the body.”
Research Articles
Hypnosis can be a highly effective adjunct treatment for the bowel disorder IBS according to new research. The treatment of IBS using hypnotherapy has been studied before but only at highly specialized "hypnotherapy centers", two new Swedish studies evaluated a form of treatment that could be used in ordinary healthcare. It showed 40% of participants had a reduction in symptoms.
IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) is one of the most common digestive conditions and can cause bouts of stomach cramps, bloating, diarrhea and constipation. It's thought that 10%-20% of people experience IBS at some point and it's twice as common in women as in men.
Professor Peter Whorwell from the University of Manchester School of Medicine has been studying hypnosis for IBS for around 25 years and told WebMD that the new studies back up his own findings: "These studies confirm accumulating evidence that hypnotherapy is an effective treatment for patients with irritable bowel syndrome and that its effects are sustained in the long term."
He says hypnotherapy helps both physiologically and psychologically: "Hypnosis relaxes you and reduces your anxiety but we've done studies over the years showing that hypnotherapy has a direct effect physiologically. There are studies that show it reduces acid secretion. It reduces the hypersensitivity that IBS patients have. It reduces the contractions in the gut."
He says hypnosis also helps IBS patients with bowel function, pain and bloating. He calls the therapy gut-focused hypnosis: "The mantra is: you are controlling your gut, rather than your gut controlling you."
Swedish studies
The studies, conducted by researchers at the University of Gothenburg, involved a total of 346 patients. They showed that hypnotherapy alleviated symptoms in 40% of those affected and that the improvement was long-term.
In one of the studies, published in the American Journal of Gastroenterology, 138 patients with IBS received hypnotherapy treatment for one hour a week over 12 weeks. The study showed that 40% demonstrated a satisfactory reduction in symptoms, compared with 12 per cent in the untreated control group.
In a press statement researcher Magnus Simrén from The Sahlgrenska Academy of Gothenburg University said: "The treatment involves the patient learning to control their symptoms through deep relaxation and individually adapted hypnotic suggestions. The idea is for the patient to then use this technique in their everyday life."
The positive effect was sustained for the entire year the study ran and led to an improvement in the quality of life experienced by the treatment group.
In the second study, which was presented in the Scandinavian Journal of Gastroenterology, 208 patients who had previously received hypnotherapy were examined. The results showed that 85 per cent of those who had been helped by hypnosis still felt the benefits of the treatment up to seven years later and that the majority still actively use the technique in their everyday lives.
"In this group, use of the healthcare system as a result of stomach and bowel symptoms had also reduced by 70%," said Magnus Simrén.
Read the WebMD article IBS: Hypnosis an effective treatment.
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Hypnosis for Athletes
Hypnosis for athletes is designed to remove destructive thoughts and self-limitations to create unshakable confidence and power. Hypnosis has been used for hundreds of years in many sports. The Russian team took 11 hypnotists with them to the 1956 Melbourne Olympics. Hypnosis is now used more and more in high level sports, including F1 racing, tennis, soccer, golf, gymnastics, etc.
It's easy to dismiss the seemingly preposterous claim that some strange-looking oddball can hypnotize people into thinking that they don’t feel pain anymore. Then again, it is not so easy when this claim is actually backed up by solid scientific evidence and thousands of respectable medical experts who recommend hypnosis as a supplementary treatment for pain.
The Pain Numbers
In the United States, more than 34 million people suffer from chronic pain, a kind of pain that is usually classified as lasting months after it is expected to subside. Many people are extremely affected by chronic pain, disabled and unable to go on with their day-to-day activities. Pain is a very big industry in America, with more than $40 billion spent every year on medication and pain therapies. In the workplace, more than a fourth of all used sick leaves were spent because of pain.
People who do not experience chronic pain hardly understand what pain patients have to go through. Pain increases a person’s susceptibility to cave in when stressed, and it heightens the risk for blood clotting, water retention, appetite loss, and impairment of the immune and digestive systems. The stress caused by pain can also lead to psychological problems, such as sleep disorders, low self-esteem, and depression.
Managing Pain with Hypnosis
There are several pain problems that hypnosis can deal with. It is always best to include this technique as part of a bigger pain management program (yes, with the use of medication, physical therapy, and other conventional treatments).
The Science Behind Hypnosis
Let’s dispel all rumors from now on. Hypnosis is not magic. And hypnotherapists, or hypnosis experts certified to use the technique to help relieve patients of their medical problems, are not magicians. But hypnosis is increasingly becoming a mainstream medical procedure, especially in the pain therapy department. It involves relaxing the mind and the body and being open to suggestions induced by a hypnotherapist.
A typical hypnosis session starts with clearing the mind of the everyday thoughts that bombard you all the time. This can be done by focusing on a single external or internal object and nothing else. The shiny, silvery pendant swinging in midair we associate with hypnosis may be a good object of focus, but so is a candle, a thumbtack attached to the wall in front of you, even the rise and fall of your own breath. Concentrating on this one thing helps you relax the mind and become more willing to accept suggestions about reducing pain or increasing your threshold of it. There is no recommended number of hypnosis sessions. Some people completely eliminate pain after a few sessions, while others need to undergo monthly sessions for regular pain management.
Hypnosis Can Help
Hypnosis, when done properly and appropriately, can be helpful with:
- Chronic pain. A 2009 study published in the International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis shows that hypnosis is more effective at reducing pain than progressive muscle relaxation, another mind-body technique that can actually be combined with hypnosis.
- Childbirth pain. Even acute pains like labor pains can be eased by hypnosis, according to a study done at Middlesex University in London. It also enhances the emotional well-being of soon-to-be mothers as well, boosting relief and self-confidence, increasing positive thoughts about the pregnancy, and bringing about more awareness of the stages of labor.
- Surgery pain. Hypnosis is becoming an adjunct to anesthesia. The hypnotherapist can record an MP3 to play during the surgery to help a person focus on pain-free visualization.