Making Your Mind and Body Work Better Together With Hypnotherapy
Posted on 07. Feb, 2011 by Matthew Hallett in Medicine
If your mind can greatly affect how your body works, and hypnotherapy can change mind functions, then it is logical that hypnotherapy may ultimately affect our body’s responses. Practicing hypnotherapy to change how you think and react to events and situations that affect your life can effectively change your body reactions. This effect could be an actively sought response or by-product of a therapy. For example, if you’re coming for a hypnotherapy treatment to reduce the level of stress, then the by-product could be more peaceful mindset. Or perhaps you’re seeking a therapy to deal with the discomfort you’re experiencing due to chronic disease. In this case, you’re actively seeking to adjust your body’s reaction to whatever is stimulating the discomfort. Whatever you’re seeking for, hypnotherapy can induce a wide range of positive changes to your physical condition.
Hypnotherapy doesn’t cure disease and shouldn’t be publicized as doing so. Hypnotherapy can help to make changes on how you feel and think, and how your body reacts in certain situations. De-stressing can eliminate or reduce any stress-related diseases you may experience like rashes, ulcers, and headaches. But whatever the effects on you health condition are, essentially positive by-products do not always attributable to better health and although possible, can never be fully guaranteed.
Relaxing physically and mentally through hypnosis
Although we often don’t know how to effectively handle fear, anxiety, or stress, that doesn’t mean that you’re helpless. In fact, you may take a lesson from our ancient ancestors. After an intense burst of activity that is caused by a fight-or-flight response, our caveman ancestor would probably look for a safe and quiet place and take enough time to rest, sleep or maybe went into a trance-like state. After a highly stressful day you should calm your mind down to communicate with your body, which would make your muscle more relaxed and turn down any excessive biochemical activity.
The essential part of negating the excess of fear, stress, or anxiety is to relax. The way your body reacts when you feel relaxed is similar to when you about to enter the hypnosis state. These are common body responses:
• Your heart beat slows down.
• Your breathing rate becomes deeper and slows down.
• The muscles are more relaxed.
• Blood is smoothly distributed throughout your body.
• Your digestion system is more efficient.
• Your thoughts become more abstract and less concrete – more feeling – and image-based.
Of course, you’ll always have anxiety episodes. It’s how you deal with that anxiety what is really important.
By getting into a pattern of exercise and relaxation regularly, you can minimize the unpleasant effects of long-term fear and anxiety. It’s also worth noting that if you eat healthily, stop smoking, and reduce the amount of caffeine and alcohol you drink, then you’ll be on better form to defeat anxiety.
Manifesting your mind through the body
Our body movements are often caused by conscious decisions: For example when walking in a park, or maybe covering your ears when a lightning strikes nearby. However, some of your movements can be unconscious. When you start walking, the initial steps are made consciously, however eventually, you do it unconsciously; you don’t need to actively focus on the processes of lifting one foot and another, this free up your mind to do other things.
Understanding unconscious response is highly useful in hypnotherapy and it can help induce and deepen a hypnosis state, or it may be used as a part of your therapy. Any suggestion given by the therapist creates ideas within your unconscious mind. Those ideas encourage your mind-body connection, which make your whole-self acts on the suggestion being given.
When you go into the hypnosis state, you may feel sleepy, heavy, and want to close your eyes as suggested by the therapist. This shows that you are entering a highly receptive state.
By closing your eyes you may feel slightly removed from your surrounding. Sure, you still feel and hear things, but by temporarily removing your ability to see, you can focus inward more easily. Only by closing your eyes and taking a few deep breaths, it is easy to get a slight (and likely pleasant) sensation when your consciousness begins to shift. This is the earliest step towards a trance state. It is amazing to think that it all can happen by only performing a simple procedure.
The easiest way to get patients to close their eyes is to ask them to do so! However, each hypnotherapist may use a unique method. These are two of the most common:
• Long fixation on a point: By staring at one spot for five minutes or so, your eyelids become heavier. They just want to close. And by the time your therapist asks you to do that, a sense relief and peaceful relaxation will move you deeper towards the state of trance.
• Rolling your eyes: Try to look upward, but don’t move your head. When you do this for 2 or 3 minutes, you may feel slight tension and discomfort. When the therapist asks you to close your eyes and relax, again the sense of relaxation and relief moves you towards the trance state.
Once your eyes are closed and you’re deeply relaxed, is it possible to keep yourself from drifting off? It’s a good thing that it is unlikely for someone to fall asleep when he is in a hypnosis session. Your therapist will alter the volume, pitch, and tone of his voice to keep your unconscious mind active and prevent you from falling asleep!
