Hypnotherapy and its powerful effect on managing pain

“There is no pain in the body; it’s only in the brain,”  Olafur Palsson

Pain relief…. a lot of research has shown that medical hypnosis can help with both sudden and chronic pain resulting from illnesses, pain-related conditions and accidents such as cancer, rheumatoid arthritis and burns.

But did you know that hypnotherapy can not only help with those issues, but also with a whole host of other types of pain? Dentist-related pain, childbirth, surgical and medical-related pain and phantom limb pain are some other examples.

Hypnotherapy is drug free, which means it is also means there are no side effects. This can be music to a lot of pain sufferers ears, who have had to deal with nasty side effects of pain medications for years.

There have been many studies on the effects of hypnotherapy against certain types of pain with compelling evidence that people undergoing hypnotherapy can experience a 30%, or more, drop in pain. This could be ‘game-changing’ in regards to reducing reliability and addiction to pain medications according to Medical News Today.

Plus hypnotherapy is a safe and effective alternative to medication.

Read on to learn how hypnosis can help with many different types of pain.

What pains do you or a family member experience the most?

For some common requests for pain relief see below….

Childbirth

You may have heard of hypnobirthing. Hypnobirthing is a practice developed in the 1980s that has been gaining popularity especially in NZ over the last 3 – 4 years.

Using hypnosis for birthing helps pregnant women to be in a relaxed state during contractions to reduce pain. It can also teach couples and individuals a lot about how the body functions during contractions, and make women more confident in their bodies capabilities.

If the mother is in a state of relaxation her natural birthing hormones are able to be released. One of those hormones is endorphins, which are 200 times more powerful at blocking pain than morphine. Now that is a powerful and natural drug! Our bodies have the tools to deal with pain we often just need to learn how to access them and that’s what hypnotherapy can help you with. 

Medical Treatments & Surgery

New hypnotherapy techniques are being developed all the time help patients deal with surgery and medical treatments.

Recently virtual reality hypnosis has been said to be ideal for elderly patients undergoing non-major joint operations because they do not come with the risks of heavy sedation and the longer recovery time.

This basically works by the patient being set up with a virtual reality headset in the surgical theatre to put their mind off the surgery, and therefore not experiencing pain.

Hypnotherapy can teach ways to deal with surgery recovery as well. It helps by showing you that pain doesn’t have to be viewed as an enemy. Pain can be taught to be curious about, to be interested in and to manage. This is often why people use hypnotherapy to help recover. It helps change your relationship to pain and promotes faster healing without complications.

Dental Pain

Many people are afraid of, or have a phobia of dentists and dental treatment and the pain associated with it. In fact dental anxiety is one of the most pervasive phobias in Britain: almost half of UK adults have a fear of the dentist and 12% of these experience extreme phobia, which often leads to avoiding the dentist altogether.

People may have had a bad experience in the past with pain at the dentist, or the fear may have been instilled in them from family members. This can result in people living with tooth ache and even attempting to pull out their own teeth!

Hypnotherapy can assist you with pain after a dental visit. Or a phobia of dentists, helping people overcome their anxieties

Hypnotherapy helps you by giving you the tools to use when at a dentist. Phobias can be usually be helped in a couple of sessions. This needs to be actioned at least a couple of weeks before a visit to the dentist. You can also be taught self-hypnosis so you can practise at home. This will help you reach a deep state of relaxation easily and then take it with you into the treatment room.

A much better alternative than having to live with a toothache!

Phantom Limb Pain

About 1 person in 1,000 in New Zealand has lost a limb; that means that there are 4,400 amputees living in our communities.

Eight out of ten amputees suffer from phantom limb pain (pain that feels like it’s coming from a body part that’s no longer there).

There are many treatment options out there for phantom limb pain such as acupuncture, mirror box (a device contains mirrors that make it look like an amputated limb exists) and spinal cord stimulation, but not many people realise that hypnotherapy can be very effective as well.

If this is you and you feel as if your leg, foot or other limb being trapped in a painful, twisted position or stuck in a vice. By using hypnotherapy to help ‘move the limb in their mind’ you can release it.