Self-Hypnosis for Pain Relief

Self-hypnosis has been used to help with a variety of different issues. And pain relief is just one of them!

You may have heard someone working on their confidence, motivation, sleep, or memory with self-hypnosis. However, the self-hypnosis’ spectrum is so much broader than that. I actually stopped biting my nails with self-hypnosis! Especially considering how blocking subconscious limitations are, self-hypnosis can be the essential key to moving forward in life.

When it comes to pain management with self-hypnosis, the opportunities are unlimited. Although changes are not overnight, long-term benefits are definitely worth the wait.

Pain management with hypnosis focuses on 3 major facts:

Anxiety, worry, or hopelessness increases the perceived pain
Pain can activate the sympathetic nervous system which mimics anxiety and fear. In turn, fear and anxiety feed the pain
Pain is a sensory and physical experience that is very subjective. About 80% of the pain is the emotional experience

By modifying these three major facts about the way we experience pain, we can bring long-term relief to chronic and acute pain.

Working with a hypnotherapist would accelerate your journey towards pain relief. However, self-hypnosis is still a powerful yet very easy subconscious training to change your perception of the pain.

Here is how self-hypnosis can help:

Relaxing the pain area with self-hypnosis

Often, when in pain, we tend to hold our breath or tense the muscles around the pain area. This extra tension prevents the area from healing and also increases the pain that is felt. When the muscles and the mind are relaxed, the pain will decrease as well.

Sometimes even chronic tension that is concentrated in one part of the body can turn into chronic pain. And all you have to do is: Relax!

One of the major benefits of self-hypnosis is that it involves deep physical relaxation. Just this part alone can help with pain relief. Additionally, you can become aware of the tensions you’ve been holding in the body unconsciously.

When self-hypnosis is practiced regularly, physical relaxation and mental calmness also become “the new normal”. Calmness and relaxation can help us detach from the pain rather than internalizing it and giving it any emotional attention.

Remember, after all, pain is a sensory and emotional experience. When we take the emotional part out, all we are left with is a little bit of discomfort!

Setting positive expectations in the pain area with self-hypnosis

Did you know that our beliefs are extremely important to determine our results? So much so that we even have terms for these: Placebo and Nocebo.

Placebo effect

Placebo means a medical pill or a treatment that doesn’t really have medical ingredients. So instead, it provides healing through mental relief and change in expectations. This is also known as the placebo effect. In other words, a placebo causes us to change our internal expectations based on what is perceived. If a doctor tells you that your headache will go after you take the prescribed pain killer -even if it’s a sugar pill-, you may find that the pain dissipates surprisingly.

Nocebo effect

There is also nocebo which is just as powerful as a placebo. Nocebo occurs when the patient receives negative expectations; ends up having worse effects on a health problem than they would if they didn’t receive those negative expectations. For example, if you are misdiagnosed with a disease, because of the nocebo effect, your body may still produce symptoms and effects in accordance with that disease. Scary, right?

This is how powerful your mind is. Simply put; set positive expectations, get positive results; set negative expectations, get negative results.

It’s easy to slide towards the negative side when you experience chronic pain 24/7. That also brings anxiety and worry. So you may get stuck in the loop of pain, excessive worry, fear of never getting back to normal or drifting apart from your normal life. Self-hypnosis can be very helpful to break this negative chain of events.

Just in the calm and relaxed self-hypnosis state, the pain is diminished and it becomes easier to see the truth. The truth is, the mind and the body are connected. By controlling your mental functions, you can control the pain.

Slowly, by using your imagination towards positive, picturing and imagining the things you can do as you heal or small challenges you can incorporate into your daily life, you will be able to steer your mind towards the positive. Almost like your mind will expect the pain to diminish!

Changing your pain perspective with self-hypnosis

Let’s circle back to the definition of pain. The International Association for the Study of Pain describes the pain as “An unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with, or resembling that associated with, actual or potential tissue damage.”.

The definition continues with six keynotes and etymology. The two of the important ones are:

Pain is always a personal experience that is influenced to varying degrees by biological, psychological, and social factors.
Through their life experiences, individuals learn the concept of pain.

With self-hypnosis, you can modify your earlier beliefs, experiences, or psychological factors that affect your experience.

For example, imagine that growing up you witnessed one of your family members struggling with chronic pain and constantly feeling uncomfortable. Probably you learned that chronic pain is bad, therefore pain is bad as a result. This belief will affect you when you experience physical discomfort later in life.

Another example often happens amongst pregnant women. If you are pregnant, you may be solicited with labor experiences of other women -often scary or negative ones-. As a result, you may subconsciously start believing that childbirth is awfully painful. So even other people’s experiences can affect us negatively if we are not careful!

Self-hypnosis can help you drop others’ experiences and beliefs. Especially when in pain or before medical treatments, we are usually more vulnerable than normal. Our mental state is more open to picking up others’ beliefs than usual. Self-hypnosis can help you re-center yourself and stick to your beliefs and experiences at all times.

Understanding the inner workings of self-hypnosis

Think of self-hypnosis as a subconscious mind training tool which means that it’s a process that requires your commitment and persistence. At times, you may find that you took a few steps back but this shouldn’t stop you. Mount Everest wasn’t climbed in one day, right? Be persistent and practice every day.