[img]560|left|Nicholas D. Pollak||no_popup[/img]Have you ever noticed how pain can affect the quality of your life?
Stress also can, and generally, people who are about to undergo surgery experience not only the pain that the surgery is attempting to remove but also the mental and physical stress associated with an upcoming surgery and the post-surgery healing process.
Many types of treatment are available to counteract pain you may have, such as medications, acupuncture, exercise and hypnotherapy to name a few.
In general, pain is an alarm from your injury to your brain that something is wrong and needs to be looked at by a trained physician.
The warnings sent by the pain should not be ignored. They should be attended to. In most cases, a medical doctor will be able to determine the cause of the pain and offer a medical or pharmaceutical remedy.
But what happens when the body and the mind no longer are responding to your medications?
In fact, your body has developed a tolerance to the medication, which usually leaves the sufferer with two choices:
To continually increase the pain medication and to develop techniques to eliminate the pain and the medication.
Fighting Pain Effectively
In a survey conducted by Jon Kabat-Zinn Ph.D, as mentioned in his book “Full Catastrophe Living,” he used a test group that continued with pain medication in ever increasing doses. A second group used relaxation techniques and hypnotherapy.
The survey results were surprising. Five years into the survey, Mr. Kabat-Zinn found that those continuing with the medication suffered no reduction in their pain levels even as their pain medication dosage was increased. By contrast, those using hypnotherapy and relaxation techniques had a significant pain reduction.
How is this possible?
Pain causes our whole muscular system to tighten. This adds further stress to an already pained and stressed body. The mind continues to focus on the pain and sees only that the medication will assist the body in reducing the pain.
Our bodies contain enough of the pain- fighting chemicals to allow us to produce them when necessary as long as the mind is willing to accept that it has the ability to create those chemicals by just thinking about producing them.
Hypnotherapy and relaxation are, without a doubt, the most effective way of dealing with pain. In hypnotherapy, several techniques are available to reduce or eliminate pain.
It is important to learn, understand and use relaxation techniques. These include gentle stretching exercises and mental imagery to focus on and eliminate the pain.
Such techniques are highly effective in assisting to relax a patient prior to and also after any surgery. Doctors have found those patients who have had hypnotherapy sessions prior to surgery are more relaxed. They have an almost 70 percent drop in the usual blood loss associated with the surgery. Doctors also have found those patients also heal more quickly and have a more positive attitude toward the outcome.
Start with Relaxation
Some recommended hypnotherapy techniques would be relaxation, moving your pain, mentally heating or icing your pain and also “blowing” it out of your body.
Relaxing your body is the simplest. Find a quiet space and sit down. If you would be more comfortable, lie down. Keep your head raised. Breathe in and out deeply for two to three breaths. Tell yourself to breathe in relaxation, to exhale tension, and then start to relax your body bit by bit, beginning with your toes, then ankles, calf muscles, knees, thighs, all the way to your head, including your cheeks, nose, lips and jaw.
Notice how in this state of relaxation that you are still aware of any sounds occurring, and also the heightening of all your senses. Visualize your area of pain. Start to mentally change its color from a black to a blue, for cooling, orange for heat and gold for healing.
In some cases a glove anesthesia may be used. To accomplish that, visualize your hand becoming extremely cold. Then touch the area of pain and transfer the cold feeling to an area of pain, creating an anesthetic effect.
Another technique is to keep yourself mentally busy so that your focus is away from the pain. When doing that, it is amazing how the pain simply disappears until you stop what you are doing. Then the pain returns because your focus is no longer distracted. This distraction proves you have the ability to mentally shut off your pain.
Remember that you have a remarkable ability to do anything you set your mind to. Reducing pain is one that anyone with the right training may accomplish.
If you are suffering chronic pain, hypnotherapy helps. Feel free to contact me for any assistance.
A clinical hypnotherapist, handwriting analyst and certified master hypnotist, Nicholas D. Pollak may be contacted at nickpollak@hypnotherapy4you.net
