Practicing in Reading, Wokingham and Woodley in Berkshire,
Tel: 0118 9269978 or 07861 293634 or email me here.

Pain Management with Hypnotherapy

The body is mirroring the state of the mind.

Pain, aches, tremors, twisting feelings in the body, muscular tensions, heaviness, bloating feelings…… pain is just that: irritating and painful. People suffering from these pain and aches will often term them as: Migraines, ME, Hypertension, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Arthritis, Muscular Tensions, Headaches etc…

Although these irritating painful states can be alleviated via medications often the human mind creates a mindset and starts expecting and predicting these pains and aches; then follows the unconscious mind’s learning these triggers and triggering them readily as soon as you anticipate them. For example, as soon as I wake up, the heaviness sin my head makes me think about the possibility of another migraine. As I brush my teeth, I see a bit of black blur around my vision and I feel miserably convinced that the migraine will be there. Before I know it, my head is pounding and I have a full blown migraine.

Pain is known to be triggered and felt often by the mind more than in the body. That is why Hypnotherapy, which works directly with the mind and especially trains, via hypnosis the unconscious mindset into triggering healthier messages, works so well in pain management. Have you even noticed how you are more focused on your body after a certain illness or just after hearing about someone having just gone through an operation or major illness? Where the mind focuses, the body part there will react immediately. If the mind’s reflections about that part are positive and healthy that part of the body will react accordingly but this works the other way round as well. Thus a Hypnotherapist will help the mind to trigger positive and healthier thought and physical reactions as soon as the body sends its pain signals. After a while the mind stays with the healthier messages and gives up the painful ones.

That is not to say that all physical symptoms are created by the brain only. It works the other way round as well. A certain part of your body pains, it sends the message to the brain, the brain interprets it as pain and triggers pain hormones and you feel the pain.

Now imagine through the power of your mind, that you are able to reduce the focus of your mind on that pain signal. What will happen? I ma sure you have been in situations where the migraine has gone away just because you had to focus on your guests at a party or the fatigue feelings reduced considerably when the grandchildren or children are around in the house. Because the mind is suddenly more focused on nice feelings and thoughts, although the muscles have sent a pain signal to the brain from the knees or the head, the mind has pushed it as secondary and preferred to stay with the nice thoughts and feelings. The less focus on your muscles, the less the chances of your increasing the pain.

Pain starts as physical but is often accentuated or increased in intensity via the mind’s focus or reflections on it. But this is a natural process, you would say. Yes I agree but just as a child’s mind can be taken off a certain pain via focusing his/her mind on something he/she will enjoy, so the adult’s mind can be trained to trigger healthier thought patterns as soon as the pain triggers happen. After some practices, the mind finds itself unable to trigger pain without automatically triggering something nice.

The pain may not disappear completely but it may change into just a state of irritation or discomfort. Nevertheless, the body will still be able to enjoy T.V. a walk or company without focusing on the pain only.

Hypnotherapy has been proven to help alleviate and reduce pain and discomfort to a large extent in these cases/symptoms:

Arthritis Pain Relief with Hypnosis
If you suffer with arthritis, you might be wondering how hypnosis can be used for pain relief. Arthritis pain relief is much the same as any other using hypnosis, but focused on diminishing the long-term pain arthritis causes.

Using your mind for pain relief
Hypnosis can help you achieve relief from arthritis pain by teaching you how to use your mind to lower the amount of pain you perceive. Think about it - if someone can undergo a surgical operation under hypnosis, isn't it likely that you could get relief from arthritis pain too? Studies have shown that when hypnosis is used for anaesthesia - that is, total removal of pain, the pain signals are still generated at the nerve endings, but they are not 'acted upon' by the brain. Or in other words, the brain simply ignores the pain signals.

Hypnosis can create arthritis pain relief through a variety of methods such as metaphor, scaling and dissociation. This download will help you train your mind so that you are able to 'switch on' your pain relief skills at will. In addition to the simple fact that you feel less pain when relaxed, hypnosis can actually reduce the amount of pain you perceive. Studies have shown that although pain signals are still sent to the brain, hypnosis can teach the brain to ignore them, and so no pain sensation is created. knee pain relieved quickly with hypnosis

v If you have had your knee pain checked out and now just want relief, learning hypnosis may well be your best bet.

People often find that although much knee pain can be cured with minor surgery, they have to wait a long time for the operation. Much can be done to alleviate ongoing pain with hypnosis.

How hypnosis can give relief from knee pain
If you have a damaged knee, the nerves there will generate pain signals - there's not much can be done about that. However, we can alter how the brain responds to these signals. Thousands of pieces of research have led to the conclusion that hypnosis relieves pain by making the brain 'ignore' the incoming pain signals, so that it does not generate the pain sensations. Knee pain relief can be achieved quickly and relatively easily using hypnosis without the need for drugs, and once you have learned the techniques, relief is available to you whenever you need it.

Achieve quick hip pain relief with hypnosis
Although using hypnosis for pain relief may sound strange at first, when you consider that before modern anaesthetics hypnosis was routinely used as a pain relief method, you begin to understand just how effective hypnosis can be. Hip pain can present for a variety of reasons, and of course must be checked out medically, but if pain is ongoing hypnosis can be used to provide relief.

Get rid of phantom limb pain with hypnosis
Phantom limb pain is all too real for many sufferers. Usually, phantom limb pain can only be controlled through a cocktail of medications. And although phantom limb pain is more normally associated with lower limb loss, people can experience uncomfortable sensations in any lost limb. Pulsating, aching, burning, shooting, cramping, stabbing even itching can all be felt in a limb that isn't there. But how can it be that phantom limb pain can exist at all? Surely if a limb is missing there should be no sensation in that area?

Phantom limbs: maps in the mind
In his book Phantoms in the Brain, Dr Ramachandran shows how different parts of the body are governed by different parts of the brain - and that, even after a limb has gone, the brain still expects to receive sensations from that limb. Since you feel with your brain, not your body, the sensation from a phantom limb is real and exists inside the mind. After you lose a limb it seems your brain has to readjust to the loss. The brain has to adjust its feedback systems as its territory changes. The area of the brain responsible for a limb may receive information from other areas after amputation. This is called cortical remapping. This may explain why sufferers feel increased phantom limb sensations from touching part of the face; for in the brain the regions are very close.

Hypnosis can help phantom limb pain by helping your brain update its map of your body. These sessions will encourage your brain to 're-wire' it's cortical map to encourage a sense of 'rightness' in the brain. It's also a great help to relax deeply because when you relax the 'feel good' chemicals called endorphins are released. Endorphins help close the pain gates in the central nervous system.

Get relief from the pain of fibromyalgia
Fibromyalgia pain can sap the joy out of life. Constant chronic pain is dispiriting and can make simple tasks and activities feel impossible. The intense pain of fibromyalgia doesn't have a clear organic cause, but the pain is all to intense for sufferers. Fibromyalgia pain may feel 'stabbing' or 'burning' or 'aching'.

Fibromyalgia as a chronic disorder causes widespread musculoskeletal pain, fatigue, and multiple tender points that occurs in precise, localized areas. Pain occurs particularly in the neck, spine, shoulders, and hips. Fibromyalgia may also cause sleep disturbances, morning stiffness, irritable bowel syndrome, anxiety, and other symptoms. Fibromyalgia is not the same as chronic fatigue syndrome although there may be some overlap in symptoms.

For a fibromyalgia diagnosis there has to be the presence of the 'tender points'. The body has 18 sites that are possible tender points. To qualify as a tender point, pain must be felt when pressure is applied to the site. People who have fibromyalgia may feel pain at other sites, too, but those 18 sites on the body are used for diagnosis. Areas of pain will often include the neck, knee joints, upper back and shoulders and arms. The pain can be felt when pressure is applied to these areas. The pain can be debilitating and long lasting and, of course, continuous chronic pain is physically and emotionally exhausting. People living with fibromyalgia speak of loss of enjoyment in things they used to love doing.

Hypnosis and fibromyalgia
As well as the benefits of hypnotic relaxation, hypnosis can also help by lowering chronic pain levels directly. Hypnosis has been used for centuries as an anaesthetic in surgery and as a general pain relief device. Hypnosis has been used for migraine, phantom limb pain and childbirth.

If you have the following symptoms:

pain can be unrelenting. Suddenly daily life becomes defined by the pain.

Every part of life is affected, including your activities, relationships, finances, diet, and self-image. Everyday actions — as basic as opening a door or lifting a child — can have unexpected consequences, leading to days or weeks of hurt.

Amreeta, a clinical Hypnotherapist and psychologist has found that three to four sessions are the maximum needed to change painful symptoms or states, like migraines/headaches, ME, Blood pressure, Hypertension, fatigue states etc, into states of just mild discomfort with which it is easier to live with and in fact learn to ignore and enjoy the rest of your body.

Of course, in her hypnotherapy practice, she will ask you to have a medical and physical check up first to eliminate to possibility of any serious physical illness. Only when your GP exempt the physical illness factor can Hypnosis start. Thereafter the aim and goal of hypnotherapy will be to move your mind’s focus from the pain and learn to manage it via triggering other states as soon as the brain captures any messages of pain. With the mind occupied in enjoying other states, the pain dimishes by itself because where the body reacts only to where the mind is focusing!!

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