Hypnosis: Focusing Subconscious on Change

Forget the stage-show stereotypes. Hypnosis has helped people cut back on pain, anxiety, and depression medications, resolve intestinal problems, quit smoking, even have less stressful childbirth.

There's no pocket watch involved. Hypnosis is simply a state of concentration and focused attention -- focused on a mental image. It's a skill that must be learned from a trained therapist. With practice, hypnotizing yourself comes easily. Self-hypnosis is the path to training both mind and body to make a desired change.

"People who are able to do self-hypnosis can use that focus for a variety of purposes," Stan Chapman, PhD, a psychologist in the Center for Pain Medicine at Emory Healthcare in Atlanta, tells WebMD. "For example, someone who is very depressed may realize on one level that life is not hopeless and pointless. But if he focuses on a thought contrary to that, the idea becomes deeply embedded in his subconscious."
Here's what happens: Guided by a therapist's words, you slip deeper and deeper into a very relaxed, very focused state -- into your subconscious. That's when a suggestion, a thought that will help you solve a problem, is introduced by the therapist. When the mind is intensely focused, these so-called post-hypnotic suggestions have a powerful impact, Chapman says.

Don't worry, you won't lose consciousness. You won't do anything against your will. Afterward, you are very much aware of what happened while you were "under." You will recognize and remember the post-hypnotic suggestion. And, with practice, you can learn to hypnotize yourself to reinforce the suggestion.

Pain Control Through Hypnosis
Marc Oster, PsyD, a Chicago psychologist, relies on self-hypnosis when he gets dental work done. "I get Novocain just like other patients, but I don't need as much of it because I'm under hypnosis. Afterward, I can go back to work for a full day. When the Novocain wears off, I don't have the pain, the jaw ache, or the headache that other people have," he told WebMD, in a previous interview.

No one knows exactly how hypnosis works, but scientists have theories. Hypnosis helps change our expectations. When a suggestion is made during hypnosis, the mind gains control over the body. Focus your attention on an image that blocks the perception of pain, for instance, and you feel less pain. Your subconscious has grabbed hold of that message, replaying it time and again.

Research from Harvard Medical School and other institutions is showing evidence that hypnosis is indeed a process of mind over body. Studies are documenting the physiological changes that occur under hypnosis -- activating certain parts of the brain, including the portion that focuses attention.

In fact, studies have shown pain related to cancer, surgery, back injuries, and migraines may respond well to hypnosis.

Hypnosis has been blessed by many mainstream medical institutions, says Oster, who heads the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis. In 1958, the American Medical Association officially recognized hypnosis as a form of treatment. The American Psychological Association has endorsed hypnosis for a number of years. In 1995, the NIH announced its support of hypnosis for cancer pain and other pain conditions.
Growing numbers of insurance companies, including Medicare, have begun covering hypnosis therapy for pain or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

Pain control is just one use for self-hypnosis. Among the others:
Digestive Problems: Chronic indigestion and other symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) have been treated with hypnotherapy. Recently, a large, long-term study showed that hypnosis provides sustained improvements in significant numbers of IBS patients. Hypnosis eased abdominal pain, distention, diarrhea, constipation, and other stomach upsets for many years -- even after the patients quit doing self-hypnosis.

Most of the patients took no medication or other treatments for their IBS symptoms. And, since only a couple of medications are approved for IBS, the drug treatment can be expensive long-term. But for those who tried hypnosis, the payoff was having a better quality of life. The procedure also dramatically cut medication expenses.
Hypnosis can also help kids who have chronic stomach pain -- the type of pain that is real, but unexplained. The problem results in lost time at school, frequent doctor visits, as well as anxiety and depression, and can last into adult years. But through a combination approach -- relaxation, guided imagery, and hypnosis -- it's possible for kids to gain control over their pain.

Panic Attacks: The onset of a panic attack has a cluster of symptoms: the feeling of intense fear, sense of doom, feelings of unreality, racing heartbeat, difficulty breathing, sweating, shaking, dizziness, nausea, fear of losing control, tingling or numbness in the hands. Hypnosis has been shown to help some people find relief from panic attacks.
Hypnosis can strengthen the effect of mind over body, researchers say. It can change the way you perceive sensations. By narrowly focusing your attention, you're not overwhelmed by panic attack symptoms when they begin. You are able to relax physically. The attack fades away.

Childbirth: It's known as "hypnobirthing" -- women learning how to hypnotize themselves to manage their labor. It helps them to relax and let their bodies take over. The theory is that, in the absence of fear and tension, severe pain does not have to accompany labor. In this calm state, endorphins -- naturally occurring pain-relieving chemicals -- replace the stress hormones that contribute to pain. Even women choosing more traditional methods, such as painkilling drugs, can still benefit from the stress-relieving power of hypnosis.

Quit Smoking via Hypnosis?
Smoking Cessation: The American Cancer Society advocates hypnosis as one of many stop-smoking techniques -- helping some smokers stay off tobacco for six months or longer. They suggest it might be helpful for some people.

For many people, hypnosis is a way to change beliefs and attitudes that stand in the way of quitting. Hypnosis might enhance confidence, promote a general sense of well-being, decrease withdrawal urges, and help people focus on the importance of quitting. Best results come when hypnosis is simply used as an aid -- combined with other stop-smoking methods, such as the nicotine patch, researchers say.

SOURCES: Stan Chapman, PhD, psychologist, Center for Pain Medicine, Emory Healthcare, Atlanta. WebMD Feature: "Hypnosis Goes Mainstream." WebMD Medical News: "Hypnosis May Be Useful IBS Treatment." WebMD Medical News: "Hypnosis Soothes Indigestion." WebMD Medical News: "Researchers Target New Ways to Stop Chronic Pain." WebMD Medical News: "Hypnosis for Pain," WebMD Feature: "Natural Panic Attack Treatments." WebMD Medical News: "Hypnosis in the Delivery Room." WebMD Feature: "You Are Getting Skinny, Skinny."

Edited by Louise Chang, MD on March 01, 2006
© 2005 WebMD, Inc.

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Hypnosis Can Stop Bedwetting

Bedwetting at night, or nocturnal enuresis, is very common in children under 7 and more so in boys than girls. There are medical conditions which cause it eg cystitis or diabetes, or by some children's inability to produce enough of the antidiuretic hormone, ADH, which controls the production of urine at night.

However, for most, it is just a case of developing good bladder control later than others.

Some drugs help to reduce the amount of urine produced during the night but that does not teach the child good bladder control and only works as long as the drug is taken. Alarms wake the child if the bed is wet but then the deed is already done!

Unless there is also a regular problem with daytime wetting (apart from the odd accident), the problem is “in the mind” as are many problems. Our mind controls everything including sending a message to the bladder to contract the muscles and hold the water.

Psychological stresses may also play a part, sometimes temporarily eg a death or divorce in the family, moving home or school or low self-confidence.
Who decided that the child should stop wearing night-time nappies? Usually the mother just wants to reduce her workload perhaps when a new baby comes along, or decides “it is time”. This may be too soon for the child who should have some say in choosing the moment. My younger son decided to stop on the same day as his older brother and has never had a wet night.

Night-time nappies give a false sense of comfort as they keep the child snug whereas waking up to a cold, wet bed is unpleasant and so a motivation for the child himself to stop. Lying on a waterproof mattress protector minimizes the laundry. If the child has to further help with the laundry involved, this will also add to the motivation to stop bed-wetting but this should be done as a responsibility rather than as a punishment. Dry nights should be praised, recorded and rewarded to reinforce the positive.

If the child is invited into the warm parent’s bed each time, rather than having to help with the immediate laundry change, this could set up a “secondary gain” which will unconsciously encourage the child to keep wetting so be firm.
Leave a night light on somewhere so that the child is not scared to walk to the bathroom at night.

The child will usually feel too embarrassed to want to do sleepovers. I find a good motivation is to talk about the fun of being a scout and going on weekends away and the summer camp, or on activity weeks.

Often their self-esteem is low as no child likes to feel “different” to his peers. Find out who their TV heroes are. One boy told me he likes Mr Bean because he is funny and silly whilst his TV hero is Ben 10. Relating them to bed-wetting, he thought that Mr Bean would have wet the bed as a child (sorry Rowan Atkinson) whilst Ben 10 would not because he is strong and capable.

It is now thought a mistake to keep asking the child to empty its bladder as it is important to strengthen the bladder muscle. On the contrary, the child should be encouraged to drink plenty of fluid, not fizzy or unnaturally coloured drinks. Parents are advised not to wake the child when they go to bed to have him urinate. The muscle should be developed to hold water for many hours and release when appropriate.

Hypnosis is very effective in helping children overcome bed-wetting. They enjoy the whole fun idea of relaxing and hearing a story. By no means should they be scared or worried by the idea of hypnosis, or in fact even told that hypnosis will be used. Just emphasise hearing a story.

There are several approaches. One is the idea of locking up the bladder with a large, strong and colourful key and standing sentry outside it. The sentry sends powerful signals from the bladder to the brain for the child to wake if necessary, or to keep those muscles tightly closed until morning.

Another approach is used in this hypnosis MP3 download for bedwetting where the child is taken on an imaginative journey with a spaceship captain inside another child’s body. The use of the third party child is deliberate as we often learn more by looking at someone else than from our own experience. The astronaut does not refer direct to the bladder but rather to holding on to a ball and releasing it when appropriate. I used this with a seven-year old boy who explained to me what it meant as bedwetting is not mentioned. The use of a story or metaphor is typical of Ericksonian Hypnosis. The unconscious mind which accounts for 90-95% of our brain understands creative, child-like ideas which often make little sense to the grown-up, rational conscious mind.

Again using the third party, I have used a child’s middle name in hypnosis as the helper to wake him or keep the bladder closed.

Whilst some children understand the message in a single hypnosis session, many benefit from repeated listening to the same message which is why this hypnosis MP3 download for bedwetting is so helpful. The cost is probably the same as a week’s worth of laundering wet bedlinen and pyjamas so it must be worth trying.

© Antonia Harrison 2011 is the English Hypnotherapist in Belgium and recommends Download Hypnosis Mp3s for immediate access to positive life-changing hypnosis sessions.

Stop Smoking with Hypnosis Group Session in Brussels

You know all the reasons why you want to stop smoking and yet, willpower alone has not been enough. Here are some reasons why people want to stop:

- smoking is affecting your health and energy;
- reduced stamina for sports and activity;
- it prematurely ages your skin;
- the stale smell of smoke on your hair, skin and clothes;
- you don´t want your children to become smokers;
- the money you are literally burning away.

Maybe you have tried to stop but need help.

"Hypnosis is the most effective way of giving up smoking, according to the largest ever scientific comparison of ways of breaking the habit. Willpower, it turns out, counts for very little."
'New Scientist' vol. 136 issue 1845 page 6

Nicotine patches and gum keep you addicted to nicotine. Do you want to be addicted to a drug?

95% of my stop smoking clients find they can stop smoking in just one session....and stay stopped.

If you smoke 20 cigarettes per day, that is roughly 1.800 € per year NET INCOME or 3.000 € per year GROSS/BRUTO.

A private session of hypnosis to stop smoking normally costs 200 € in Limburg or 350 € in Brussels.

You can join this group session for an amazing 100 €
or
EARLY BIRD DISCOUNT FOR BOOKINGS PAID BY 15 July @ 75 €

(All fees include 21% VAT/BTW and invoices are available on request.)

Send your booking to:
hypnosis@telenet.be
and payment to BE 19 9730 0127 8212 with mention:
GROUP HYPNOSIS 25 JULY - (your name)


Here is what one very satisfied client said:

"I was relaxed but consciously aware of my surroundings so I found it hard to believe that hypnosis would work after just one session. But I was very impressed. I thought it would be difficult but I found it relatively easy to stop smoking. I am not troubled by other people's smoking. I used to enjoy smoking but now I enjoy not smoking. I quickly found I can breathe more deeply and have noticed two other health improvements. After four weeks, I am still a motivated non-smoker." - James Benn, Brussels.

I want to help you become a healthy non-smoker. Join us.

Antonia Harrison
English Hypnotherapist Belgium
http://www.EnglishHypnothe​rapistBelgium.com/
hypnosis@telenet.be
0497 550813

TV Star Reveals Bedtime Secret is Addiction to Hypnotherapy

Sleep is an important issue for Evan Davis, who needs to get up at 3.15am. Now, the presenter of Radio 4’s Today programme has revealed his bedtime secrets, and they are just as unconventional as other aspects of his life.

Davis, 49, tells Mandrake that he relies on his long-term companion, the French landscape architect Guillaume Baltz — and hypnotherapy.

“The blackout blind comes down, he’ll shut the curtains, I go to bed and he puts on the tape,” says Davis, who also presents the BBC Two television programme Dragons' Den.

“It’s a nice little tape that tells me to go to sleep. It’s hypnosis. It’s a bloke going, 'Go to sleep’. It really works.”

Davis, speaking after his bedtime at a talk about his new book, Made in Britain, at Foyles, tells me that the recording works so well he is now unable to fall asleep without it.

“It fills your brain with soft fluff that slowly eases out all the stimulating things that you’re thinking,” says the presenter, who is known for his “punk” outfits and jewellery in unusual places.

“There are one or two — I won’t name them because it is probably against BBC policy to do so — but I very rarely get 15 minutes into it without it knocking me to sleep. I’ve never enjoyed sleep as much until I got the Today job. There is something about early sleep that’s much better than late sleep.

“I feel myself going to sleep; I don’t just plonk my head on the pillow. It’s a sort of winding-down thing. We’ve got a nice little routine, really.”

Davis does not say whether he has shared his soporific tips with his Today colleagues, John Humphrys, James Naughtie and Sarah Montague.

Humphrys, 67, has said: “If I am presenting Today, then I am in bed by 9pm. My body has got so used to this that 11pm feels very late. I’m very good at cat-napping. Half an hour after lunch is very restorative and good for the brain, too.”

Source: The Telegraph

Hypnosis Could Save NHS Millions

Hypnosis treatments could be used on a range of medical conditions to save the NHS millions of pounds, according to a group of medical experts.

The Hypnosis and Psychosomatic Medicine Section of the Royal Society of Medicine (RSM) believe the therapies help relieve pain and stress.

But it warned that patients need to be protected from rogue practitioners who cause harm and end up costing the NHS more.

Jacky Owens, the president of the RSM's Hypnosis Section, said: "Conditions such as depression, pain and irritable bowel syndrome affect millions of people in the UK and at great cost to the NHS. But hypnosis can often work where other treatments have been unsuccessful."

Ms Owens, a qualified nurse who uses hypnosis in her work with cancer patients, added: "If doctors were able to refer patients to properly trained hypnotherapists, it would save a cash-strapped NHS a great deal of money."

She said making hypnosis a standard part of the "NHS toolbox" would lead to the public becoming better informed about the procedure and mean that vulnerable patients would be less likely to turn to "hypno-cowboys".

Ms Owens added: "We're confident that with more research, hypnosis will be recognised as an extremely useful tool to be used alongside mainstream medicine. What we need are doctors, dentists, nurses, psychologists, physiotherapists, radiotherapists - the whole gamut of people who treat patients - trained in using hypnosis as another tool in their treatment programme."

A Department of Health spokesman said: "We believe in patients being able to make informed choices about their treatment and in clinicians having the freedom to prescribe the treatment they feel most appropriate for that patient after discussing the risks and benefits.

"They should always consider the availability of a suitably qualified practitioner as part of this process.

"Our plans to modernise the NHS will give clinicians more freedom to commission the services that best meet their patients' needs."

Source: MSN News


Antonia Harrison is the English Hypnotherapist in Belgium who has already helped hundreds of people with health problems.

25% Discount on Hypnosis Stop Smoking Session

Smoking will be banned in Belgium in all bars and restaurants from 30 June 2011. About time too.

There has been a ban on smoking in public places and workplaces since January 2010. But there were exceptions: "beer cafés" where no food is served, casinos and discotheques. The Vlaamse Liga Tegen Kanker said this was discrimination against employees who still had to breathe in other people´s smoke whilst at work. From end June 2011 smoking will only be allowed in a separate room, without waiter service - a compromise but it is still putting people´s lives at risks. Why can´t the Belgians just enforce a complete ban like in so many other countries?

Source: Knack Het Laatste Nieuws

Nicotine is an addictive drug and many smokers find that they just cannot give up by willpower alone. For those that need help, I offer hypnosis (in English) which is the most effective way to stop smoking. Hypnosis is relaxing and safe. You retain control at all times whilst I lead you to a new positive behaviour.

My usual rate is 200 € for a stop smoking session at my home in Limburg or 350 € in a rented office in Brussels or Antwerpen-Berchem. To encourage smokers to stop, the rate will be 25% off ie 150 € in Limburg or 262.50 € in Brussels or Antwerpen-Berchem until end of July 2011.

FOR THE PRICE OF 30 PACKS OF CIGARETTES ie ONE MONTH´S SUPPLY, YOU COULD STOP SMOKING!

You can find me here at English Hypnotherapist Belgium

Hypnosis for Exams and Tests Nerves

The exams period is starting and for some that means nerves, worry, disturbed sleep and eating patterns. If your nerves get the better of you and anxiety takes over, you may actually sit down and find your mind goes blank. You know you know the answer but the anxiety is causing a cloud making it difficult or even impossible to recall. The more you “try” to remember, the more anxiety you suffer.

But it does not have to be this way.

There is a well-known phenomenon in psychology - known as state-dependent memory. The state you are in determines what you can remember. If you are in a very different state to when you learned, it is hard to recall things.

If you are very anxious, your brain is simply in the wrong state for thinking!
Hypnosis helps by putting you in the right ‘state’ to learn and teaching you how to recall that state when the exam is about to begin.

In hypnotic trance, many situations seem different somehow. Things that were causing fear or phobic response lose their hold. Situations which caused panic such as speaking in public, attending interviews, giving important sales presentations all seem, well easier. By learning to relax at a very deep mental and physical level, the unconscious mind learns a new way to respond, a new behaviour in response to a trigger. It is the same with looking at exams. It is all too easy to say, “Don’t worry, you’ll do fine” to someone who is anxious. Consciously, we might know we have the ability but it is the unconscious which is sending negative signals. All permanent change has to happen at the unconscious level and that is where hypnosis beats visualizations, affirmations and lots of other techniques. By quickly accessing the unconscious mind, hypnosis brings the desired result.

Mental rehearsal in hypnotic trance of an exam, a test, an interview, giving a presentation or a speech just makes the event seem more manageable without any need for anxiety. Of course, a few butterflies in the stomach or positive stress can actually improve the performance.

Anyone with an IQ over 70 can be hypnotized and children over the age of 7 respond very well to the whole world of imagery and relaxation.

An 11 year old boy came to see me who was under a lot of pressure at one of England’s top public schools where the fees cost many thousands of pounds per year. He was failing in many subjects yet his parents knew he could achieve so much more. He sat in my “magic chair”, listened to my description of a visual journey and in a relaxed state, overcame the exams anxiety.

Last year an 18 year old girl came to see me with restless fidgeting, stress, sleeping and eating disorders, severe anxiety over her upcoming exams and to top it all, she was cutting herself: self-mutilation. This was quite a package of problems but after only three sessions, she sat calmly still, she was sleeping and eating as normal, the self-cutting had stopped and she coped very well with her exams. She passed every subject with even higher grades than her teachers had predicted.

Hypnosis helps people to be calm about exams but also tests such as driving tests and oral interviews.

Remember, “the past does not equal the future”. Just because you have suffered from anxiety in the past does not mean you have to do so in the future. Ask my clients who have overcome severe fear of flying! It is a fairly quick process to reverse the years of negative conditioning and expectation with a positive, calm approach.

© Antonia Harrison 2011. Antonia Harrison is the English Hypnotherapist in Belgium and helps people make positive change in their life through hypnotherapy and NLP.