If you’re looking for a gentle way to reduce the pain that comes with chronic conditions like rheumatoid arthritis (RA) or osteoarthritis( OA), hypnosis may just do the trick. Studies show that more than 75% of people with arthritis and related diseases experience significant pain relief using hypnosis. Forget what you’ve seen in movies about hypnosis. Today’s practitioners are using it to give patients an additional tool to help manage their pain.
Learning to Relax with Hypnosis
Hypnosis isn’t about convincing you that you don’t feel pain; it’s about helping you manage the fear and anxiety you feel related to that pain. It relaxes you, and it redirects your attention from the sensation of pain. In a hypnosis session, which usually lasts 10-20 minutes, you will likely start by focusing on your breathing to help you relax.
Then the hypnotist will instruct you to imagine a pleasant place and describe it in detail, refocusing your attention from something that triggers negative emotions to something that will activate positive emotions, such as being at the beach.
If your mind is off to the beach, and you’re imagining the warmth of the sun, the cool of the breeze, the sand at your feet, you’ll be less focused on your pain – and ready for the indirect suggestion of how to react to pain in the future.
It might sound something like this: “You will continue to feel this same sensation of pain, but you’ll be much less distressed about it, much calmer, much more at ease, not worried about it.”
Practice Makes Perfect
Hypnosis isn’t a one-shot treatment. At first, it can be part of regular psychotherapy sessions in a doctor’s office. Hypnosis typically helps 
relieve pain in just 4 to 10 sessions. But some people benefit faster and others not at all. The goal is to teach patients the technique so they can use it on their own when pain strikes.
Some practitioners create recordings for patients that they can play to lead themselves into the hypnotic process. Some patients prefer to come up with their own script and not rely on a recording or the therapist’s voice to activate the process when pain strikes and they need it.
Learning hypnosis takes practice, and some people learn it more easily than others. Practice when you feel little or no pain; when you’re in a lot of pain, it can be harder to do.
Hypnosis Works for Children
Hypnosis is a tool you also can give a child to help him take control. When he feels pain, he can do something about it immediately without having to wait until mom gets there with the pills or for the pills to take effect. Having hypnosis as a tool also helps eliminate stress that comes from not having control.
For children, creating an active mental escape may be necessary. Rather than relaxing at the beach with a book, a child may want to imagine playing on the playground or kicking a soccer ball down the field.
Is Hypnosis Right for You?
Some people respond to hypnosis better than others, but there’s no harm in trying it. It has no side effects and if it doesn’t work for you, you can stop at any time. But many people report significant reduction in pain and gain a simple tool for easing it that they can use any time.
To find a qualified hypnotherapist, ask your doctor for a referral or contact the Society for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis or the American Society for Clinical Hypnosis. Health insurance may cover hypnosis for pain therapy performed by a medical or psychological professional. (By: Jenny Nash // Arthritis.org)
Our stomachs and intestinal systems are like a second brain – it isn’t the seat of consciousness, but it does respond to hypnosis.
This “second brain” contains some 100 million neurons, more than in either the spinal cord or the peripheral nervous system. This multitude of neurons in the enteric nervous system enables us to “feel” what is going on in the inner world of our gut.
Think of the phrases we commonly use: gut instinct; butterflies in the stomach; that makes me sick to the stomach; and gut wrenching. Hypnosis can influence this “second brain” as effectively as any other neurological process.
Hypnosis and Heartburn
At least 60,000,000 Americans suffer from heartburn, sometimes the medicines work, sometimes not so well. Recently medical doctors have been turning to complementary approaches like hypnotism. This short NBC news broadcast shows why instead of reaching for TUMS you might consider hypnosis instead or in addition.
Hypnosis and Irritable Bowel Syndrome
Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) is a medical condition and a complex set of gastrointestinal symptoms – it may affect as many as 20% of the population 
in the United States. Symptoms include cramping, diarrhea (or constipation), pain, and bloating. Over 60% of sufferers are women. IBS is actually the second likely reason reported for missed days at work.
Physicians will tell you they don’t know the causes of IBS: but they do know that IBS can be aggravated by stress and that there are some anatomical changes in the lining of the colon and to the nervous system of the colon associated with the condition. Diet can also influence IBS. Those who suffer from IBS know it is far more than a nuisance and can negatively impact quality of life.
The good news is that IBS symptoms respond to hypnosis and they often respond dramatically. Research is plentiful and convincing. It is so convincing that a leading health leader (Dr Adriane Fugh-Berman, MD, chair of the National Women’s Health Network) has stated that “hypnosis should be the treatment of choice for all severe cases of IBS.”
I have had the privilege of working with cancer patients in the complementary care program at Women and Infants often getting great results helping them reduce anticipatory nausea with self-hypnosis.
NBC News 2017
Hypnosis has been used for centuries for pain control, including during the Civil War when Army surgeons hypnotized injured soldiers before amputations. Recent studies have confirmed its effectiveness as a tool to reduce pain.
Among the leading researchers in the field is Guy H. Montgomery, PhD, a psychologist who has conducted extensive research on hypnosis and pain management at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, where he is director of the Integrative Behavioral Medicine Program.
In one study, Montgomery and colleagues tested the effectiveness of a 15-minute pre-surgery hypnosis session versus an empathic listening session in a clinical trial with 200 breast cancer patients. The team reported that patients who received hypnosis reported less post-surgical pain, nausea, fatigue and discomfort.
The study also found that the hospital saved $772 per patient in the hypnosis group, mainly due to reduced surgical time. Patients who were hypnotized required less of the analgesic lidocaine and the sedative propofol during surgery. Journal of the National Cancer Institute (Vol. 99, No. 17)
If you’ve ever read an article on your computer screen and stopped to realize you have no idea what you just read, you’ve experienced something similar to highway hypnosis.
A commuter train engineer told investigators he was in a “daze” moments before the Dec. 1 derailment that killed four people in New York City. That could have been highway hypnosis, experts say.
“When we’re tired, effectively there’s a change in the state of our brain that results in that information just not getting to those centers where we actively, consciously process it,” said Sean Meehan, a University of Michigan kinesiology professor.
A person who has lapsed into highway hypnosis is experiencing slowed brain activity, Meehan said, meaning different parts of the brain aren’t communicating with one another as frequently as when the person is fully conscious. It’s actually similar to the brain activity of someone who is asleep, and is most likely to occur in a 
driver who is tired, he said.
As a result, the driver’s reaction time is slowed, he said.
“I’m sure most people experienced this on a long trip where they all of the sudden realize they really haven’t been aware of what they’re doing,” said Meehan, who is currently working with the Hyundai-Kia Technical Center to determine the feasibility of a device that would tell car drivers when their brain activity has slowed.
Going into this autopilot-like mode often happens on long, mundane highway drives with few turns or traffic signals, Meehan said. The driver usually can’t recognize highway hypnosis until his environment is somehow jostled — another car cuts him off or he hits a bump.
Drowsy driving results in more than 100,000 crashes a year, resulting in 1,550 deaths, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Highway hypnosis often gets lumped into drowsy driving because it happens in tired drivers, Meehan said.
Still, a highway isn’t the only place it can happen. It can happen on a train, Meehan said, though it hasn’t been blamed for any other train accidents to his knowledge. It can also happen at your desk when your eyes gloss over a work document and you realize you didn’t comprehend it.
To prevent highway hypnosis on the road, Meehan suggests taking a break every 90 minutes or so, or — if you’re lucky enough to be driving with someone else — switch drivers.
Listening to the radio isn’t enough to prevent this daze, and can even contribute to it, he cautioned. And always get at least six hours of sleep the night before a long trip, he said.
The University of Kansas Transportation Center published guide for rural transit drivers to avoid driver fatigue. In addition to Meehan’s tips, it suggests keeping the vehicle cool and maintaining good posture to stay alert.
By Sydney Lupkin
Instead of pills and needles, hypnosis may ease the pain of surgery both during and after the procedure.
According to a new study, women who received hypnosis before breast cancer surgery needed less anesthesia during the procedure, reported less pain afterward, needed less time in the operating room and had reduced costs.
“This helps women at a time when they could use help, and it has no side effects. It really only has side benefits,” said Guy Montgomery, lead author of the report and associate professor in the department of oncological sciences at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City.
Montgomery hopes that the study, published online in the Aug. 28 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, will promote greater use of hypnosis in medical treatments.
Side effects such as pain, nausea and fatigue — both during and after breast cancer surgery — are commonplace. Previous research has suggested that hypnosis, a simple and inexpensive procedure, can help ease these problems. One small clinical study indicated that hypnosis was also effective for breast cancer patients about to undergo surgery.
For the new study, 200 women set for breast cancer surgery were randomly assigned to receive either 15 minutes of hypnosis with a psychologist or assigned to a group that simply spoke with a psychologist.
During the hypnosis session, the patients received suggestions for relaxation and pleasant imagery as well as advice on how to reduce pain, nausea and fatigue.
They also received instructions on how to use hypnosis on their own.
The researchers found that women in the hypnosis group required less anesthesia and sedatives than patients in the control group, and also reported less pain, nausea, fatigue, discomfort and emotional upset after the surgery.
Those who received hypnosis also spent almost 11 minutes less time in surgery and had their surgical costs reduced by about $773, mainly as a result of the shorter time.
Although people think that hypnosis strips a person of control, it actually does just the opposite, said Dr. David Spiegel, author of an accompanying editorial in the journal and professor and associate chairman of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine.
“This is something that empowers patients,” Spiegel explained. “If you’re fighting, you think you’re protecting yourself, but, actually, you’re losing control, because you’re getting into a struggle with your own body. You can teach people to float instead of fighting. You get the body comfortable and think more clearly. The weird thing is it actually works. If thoughts can make the body worse, it follows that thoughts could actually make the body feel better.”
Will hypnosis catch on with health-care providers?
“We have this in-built skepticism of what goes on in the brain and the mind, and the idea is that the only real intervention is a physical one. Yet what supposedly distinguishes us is this huge brain on top of our bodies,” Spiegel said. “It seems more scientific and desirable to give drugs than it does to talk to people and have them reorganize the way they’re managing their bodies.”
There are other obstacles. Many doctors find it more expedient to write a prescription than learn to perform hypnosis. Also, there’s no industry pushing the technique as there is with drugs, Spiegel said.
On the positive side, little investment is needed to get a hypnosis program going, Montgomery said. “A psychologist or nurse could get training in a short period of time,” he said. “It’s not that involved.”
Dr. Darlene Miltenburg, assistant professor of surgery at Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine, called the new study “superb.”
“Anybody who has an open mind would realize that this treatment works and is scientifically proven. It’s not black magic,” Miltenburg said. “It’s real, and we do use it here. It’s very time consuming, that’s part of the problem, taking a pill is much easier. But just like many things in life, we want a quick fix rather than something that takes longer.”
To learn more, visit the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.
By: Amanda Gardner Healthday Reporter
