How Can Hypnosis Help With Pain Relief?
Hypnosis can be a very helpful tool for pain management.
When I first heard about hypnotherapy, I thought it is most helpful with problems such as weight loss, smoking, or nail-biting. As I researched more and more, I learned that hypnotherapy can potentially help with almost anything. The most fascinating of them all was pain management to me. How can you modify a physical pain with a non-physical intervention, without a touch or a pill?
Isn’t It stunning that the mind can create, decrease, and even remove pain? Merely by using the mind’s power, it is possible to modify the physical experience. But how? Hypnotherapists know this and we have plenty of techniques to change your toxic relationship with chronic pain.
We can reframe the pain with hypnosis
In life, everything is about perceptions. Some people’s hearts melt when they see a dog and some others freak out even when they walk by a little poodle on a leash. Just like that, the pain has a perception component as well. Say two people have a headache. One may describe it as a little hurt, another person may describe it as torture.
During hypnosis, we can work on changing the qualities of the pain. Therefore, we can change the perception as well. Pain can have many adjectives such as burning, tingling, bloating, freezing, numbness, and so on. By transforming these adjectives in the mind, we can create a new perspective and feelings that are not associated with an unpleasant feeling.
We can teach you self-hypnosis
Self-hypnosis is a light state of hypnosis that you can practice by yourself at home. It is very similar to meditation but a very powerful technique to retrain the mind and change the subconscious belief systems. According to a 2015 study, participants who were prescribed self-hypnosis in addition to their medicine experienced prolonged pain relief lasting more than 6 months after practicing self-hypnosis at home.
Self-hypnosis is a very easy technique and it only requires a quiet space along with the person’s willingness to practice. I can’t stress enough the importance of the practice though. Just like any habit in life, self-hypnosis will bring better results with persistent repetition as well. It’s just a matter of time until the mind develops a conditioned relaxation response with self-hypnosis.
During self-hypnosis, one can practice calmness and physical relaxation, reframing the pain with small changes in the language and positive feelings, or even remembering their healthy life memories.
We can change the focus away from the pain
Think of what goes in the mind and the body when you are experiencing a toothache. Probably you will find that your focus is very much on that tooth and the intensity of the pain that you are experiencing. When someone is experiencing persistent chronic pain, simply, their mind and body focus goes on the pain.
During hypnosis, we can create a different focal point for the mind. In everyone’s life, there are times in which they’ve felt very healthy and happy. Those positive memories are stored in the subconscious mind as well. We can take the person back to those times through regression and bring those known feelings back. Positive imagination and energy can be powerful enough to change the focus and numb the pain.
Hypnosis is naturally a calm state
One of the reasons why many people enjoy hypnosis and hypnotherapy overall is that hypnosis itself is a naturally calm and relaxed state. In every issue that we work with, we make sure to create a deep state of relaxation and calmness to open up space for different perspectives. In a way, hypnosis is a method that gets deeper when the senses are resting.
Even someone who is dealing with chronic pain can experience a deep state of calmness and relaxation because when we strip out the anxieties and worries, the rest becomes very bearable. In other words, negative emotions and daily stress make the pain more intense. By releasing them and turning off the bodily senses, chronic pain sufferers are able to decrease the pain.
Final words…
Unfortunately, in the society that we live in, many people end up establishing the belief that they will have to live with chronic pain for the rest of their lives. Remember, our beliefs create the reality that we experience. Pain doesn’t have to be your reality and you don’t have to choose to live with the pain forever. With the advice of your doctor, you can get magical results with hypnosis!