The question is: Can hypnosis relieve pain?
Yes, hypnosis is said to be an effective non-pharmaceutical treatment for reducing pain associated with chronic illnesses such as arthritis and fibromyalgia. Studies show that hypnosis provides considerable pain relief to over seventy-five percent of people suffering from arthritis and associated disorders.
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How Can Hypnosis Relieve Pain?
Hypnosis is an effective non-pharmaceutical treatment for reducing pain associated with chronic illnesses such as arthritis and fibromyalgia. Studies show that hypnosis provides considerable pain relief to over seventy-five percent of people suffering from arthritis and associated disorders. As a result, hypnosis is no longer seen as a novelty by today’s medical professionals; instead, it provides patients with extra resources to manage their pain.
Hypnosis as a Tool for Learning to Relax
It is not the purpose of hypnosis to persuade you that you do not experience pain; rather, it is to assist you in managing the fear and worry associated with the pain. As a result, you will feel more relaxed, and the sense of discomfort will no longer hold your focus. At the beginning of a hypnosis session, which typically lasts between ten and twenty minutes, you will most likely be instructed to concentrate on your breathing to become more relaxed.
The hypnotist will next give you instructions to visualize a nice environment and describe it in detail. This will redirect your attention away from something that may stimulate unpleasant feelings and toward something that will activate happy emotions, such as being at the beach.
Your attention will be diverted away from the discomfort you are experiencing if you allow your thoughts to wander to a beach, where you may picture the warmth of the sun, the freshness of the wind, and the sand under your feet. This not only prepares you for the direct recommendation of how to respond to pain in the future, but it also prepares you for the indirect suggestion.
The explanation may be as follows: “You will continue to feel this same sensation of pain, but you will be much less distressed about it, much calmer, much more at ease, and not worried about it.”
Hypnosis Takes Practice
Hypnosis is not a therapy that just has to be done once. In the beginning, it may be included in the ongoing psychotherapy sessions at the doctor’s office. In most cases, pain relief may be achieved with hypnosis in as little as four to ten sessions. However, some individuals will profit more quickly than others, while others won’t gain. This lesson aims to teach you how to utilize it on your own whenever you feel discomfort.
Some practitioners can make recordings that you may play to guide you through the hypnotic process on your own, and these recordings can be played again to yourself. Some patients would rather develop their own script to activate the process whenever needed rather than rely on a tape or the therapist’s voice. When they experience pain, they need it.
Hypnosis is a skill that requires effort to master, and some individuals have a far easier time picking it up than others. It is best to practice while experiencing little to no pain since it may be more challenging to do so when you are in significant discomfort.
Are You a Good Candidate for Hypnosis?
Although some individuals are more likely to react favorably to hypnosis than others, there is no harm in giving it a go. It does not cause any adverse effects, and you are free to discontinue use at any moment if you find that it is not beneficial to you. However, most individuals experience a big decrease in pain, and you may pick up a simple instrument you can use whenever your symptoms become unbearable.
Ask your primary care physician for a recommendation to a competent hypnotherapist, or get in touch with the Society for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis or the American Society for Clinical Hypnosis. Both of these organizations may help you discover a hypnotherapist. In addition, when administered by a trained medical or psychological practitioner, hypnosis for pain treatment may be covered by health insurance.
Researchers sometimes refer to this phenomenon as hypoalgesia. Over the years, several studies and reviews have been conducted to evaluate the efficacy of hypnosis as an analgesic. For instance, a review that was published in 2016 looked at labor and delivery pain.
According to the authors’ findings, “Hypnosis may reduce the overall use of analgesia during labor, but it does not affect the use of epidurals.” In addition to this, the authors state that “further research is required in the form of large, well-designed randomized controlled trials.”
Another assessment, released in 2000, took a more comprehensive look into pain. Again, the researchers analyzed the pooled results of 18 separate investigations.
The authors concluded a “moderate to large hypoalgesic effect.” [Citation needed] These results, according to the present study’s authors, had “several important limitations,” the most notable of which was a paucity of research to include in their analysis. Nevertheless, they found these findings to be noteworthy.
Since 2000, there has been an increase in both interests in hypoalgesia and the quantity of new research on the topic. As a result, the most recent review considers a total of 85 papers.
In each of the experiments, experimental pain models were employed. These models included intense cold, shocks, pressure, exercise, and lasers. In addition, each research recruited healthy people as participants, and each of the investigations evaluated the advantages of hypnosis with those of no therapy at all (rather than comparing them against a placebo or medicine).
Only studies that used a quantitative method of evaluating pain, such as rating it on a scale from one to ten, were considered for inclusion in the review by the researchers. In all, 3,632 people participated in the study.
Sensitivity to hypnosis
The evaluation also took into consideration how easily each participant might be hypnotized. This is because not everyone is susceptible to hypnosis to the same degree.
Researchers have a variety of tools at their disposal with which they may determine an individual’s level of susceptibility to hypnosis. For instance, if the participant is given the impression that their arm is heavy, they can lower their hand. If they move it by more than one inch, the practitioner could think they are more suggestible than someone whose arm moved by just one inch. This is because larger movements indicate more vulnerability.
After the research was conducted, the findings pointed in the direction of hypnosis being a potentially helpful analgesic. According to the lead author Trevor Thompson, Ph.D.:
“This is by far the greatest study of its type, looking at the effects of hypnosis in over 3,500 persons, and the data presented here is quite convincing. Only around fifteen percent of persons are susceptible to hypnosis, but those individuals saw a little over forty percent reduction in pain.”
Not just those individuals who were more easily hypnotizable than others reaped the practice’s advantages. Most persons had a modest degree of receptivity to suggestions and reported a 29% decrease in pain.
The authors also highlight that data suggests that hypnotic suggestibility may be increased in several ways, including via training and practice, non-invasive brain stimulation, and pharmacological agents like nitrous gas.
According to these data, most persons would reduce their pain level by roughly 30 percent or more, which is widely regarded as clinically relevant pain alleviation.
It was interesting to learn from the study that the effect size was the same regardless of whether the hypnosis was administered to the subject in person or via an audio recording.
Hypnosis may be a game-changer if it can reach these levels of analgesia. According to Thompson, “in 2017, opioid overdoses were responsible for the deaths of approximately 47,000 people in the United States, and approximately one-quarter of people prescribed the drugs for pain misuse.”
He says, “Our findings suggest that hypnosis could be an alternative that is both safe and effective.” Using a 20-minute audio recording, it is possible to swiftly, affordably, and conveniently give treatment at home.
The investigators intend to continue investigating hypoalgesia, focusing on chronic pain conditions such as lower back pain. At this time, however, there is not enough information readily accessible to draw definitive conclusions.
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