IBS
Irritable bowel Syndrome (IBS)
It is widely understood that Hypnosis can successfully deal with IBS related symptoms. At HTH you will normally only require the ONE session for a significant improvement with IBS issues, and often a complete resolution. We have some of the leading Melbourne gastroenterologists refer their more difficult clients to us because of the results we reliably produce.
The following excerpt is from the Australian Hypnotherapists Association’s website (January 2009).
Regular sessions of hypnotherapy can markedly ease discomfort and improve the quality of life for most people with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). These were the findings of a 2002 audit carried out at a British hypnotherapy unit devoted solely to the treatment of this common bowel disorder; they were published in The American Journal of Gastroenterology.
How it was done…
The research was done at a new IBS Hypnotherapy Unit at the University of South Manchester. The first 250 people treated at the Unit filled out a questionnaire before starting the program and again after three months so that comparisons could be made.
Participants scored themselves on such items as presence and severity of IBS symptoms, quality of life, and level of anxiety and depression. All had suffered from the painful bowel disorder for two years or more and had failed to get real relief from other treatments.
Every week, each participant met with a Hypnotherapist. In all, 232 participants continued hypnotherapy and filled out a final set of questionnaires at the end of three months.
The researchers found that bowel habit (such as stool frequency and consistency) improved in 78% of patients. (It did not change in 13%, and it deteriorated slightly in 9%.) Many indicated that their sense of overall well-being soared. Anxiety and depression eased considerably. The only subgroup of participants that did not respond to hypnotherapy were males with diarrhoea. The reviewers could not explain why they improved far less than other patients.
Why it’s important…
The university’s specialised Hypnotherapy Unit was established in response to indications that hypnosis could make a big difference in the lives of people with IBS, a bowel disorder that causes millions abdominal pain, bloating, and other problems. Many miss weeks of work and are depressed as a result of their illness, and consider their quality of life quite poor.
This large-scale review confirms the wisdom of treating IBS with hypnotherapy. In just three months, symptoms such as pain and bloating, as well as the level of so-called “disease interference” with life, changed profoundly for most participants.
The findings also indicate that a mind-body technique such as hypnotherapy can be very cost-effective (especially compared to pricey medications and surgical interventions), and that relief from this notoriously hard-to-treat condition can be sustainable (improvements are long-lasting).
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Source: Gonsalkorale WM, Houghton LA, Whorwell PJ. Hypnotherapy in irritable bowel syndrome: a large-scale audit of a clinical service with examination of factors influencing responsiveness. Am J Gastroenterol, 2002; 97:954-961
Sleeping Disorders
Hypnotherapy can help with sleeping disorders including insomnia, sleep talking and sleep walking, teeth grinding, night terrors, bed wetting and snoring. Using HighTech Hypnotherapy we can successfully make changes at the subconscious level of the mind to reduce the symptoms of these and problems and often resolve your issue within one visit
Insomnia
Poor sleep is a very common problem and can affect the way people feel, the way they function and their health.
Insomnia can take a number of forms.
In some cases of insomnia learning to relax more deeply makes all the difference. In others, underlying worries and stresses need to be resolved and hypnotherapy encapsulating hypnosis can help with both to improve sleep. Sleeping well helps us to be at our best – feeling better physically, mentally and emotionally – having more energy, a clearer mind, feeling better inside, achieving goals ore easily and enjoy life more.
Sleep walking and talking
Sleep walking and talking are common in childhood and sometimes continue into later life. They can be very disturbing for family members and partners. Hypnotherapy is an obvious choice because all activity during sleep is fully controlled by the subconscious mind. A young man came to see me a while ago who had actually injured himself when sleep walking. It appears that as a child there was concern that the house was being burgled and the subconscious mind was still trying – during sleep – to run away. He told me the problem had gone after a couple of sessions.
Teeth Grinding (Bruxism)
Teeth grinding and holding the jaw tight can happen during the day as well as in sleep. It can result in damage to teeth and the jaw joint, painful jaw muscles and headaches. It is commonly assumed that it is caused by stress so by learning to relax, as well as dealing with the underlying causes of stress, hypnotherapy clients often report good results. I have worked with a number of clients who have been using both hypnotherapy and physiotherapy to help alleviate the problem.
Nightmares and Night Terrors
Children sometimes wake in a very frightened state and are then too scared to go back to sleep. On some occasions they are still asleep but in a frightened state. Reassurance in a relaxed state – which can be played on CD before sleep – has helped to restore peaceful sleep.
Bed Wetting
Children and sometimes older people suffer from the difficult problem of bedwetting during sleep. The subconscious mind needs to get the message to keep the bladder muscles closed throughout the night and if needs be, wake the person up to go to the bathroom during the night.
Snoring
The main concern here is for partners rather than the snorer. The subconscious mind manages all manner of things during sleep. If we are too hot or cold it can wake us; it can also wake us up five minutes before the alarm goes off! We move and turn during the night and we can be woken in response to particular noises such as children crying or the dog barking. Snorers have found hypnotherapy useful by giving the subconscious mind a very clear message to monitor the sounds being made and then to move or turn to keep the airways clear and quiet.
Addictions
Addictions ruin people’s lives and those of the ones they care about most. Through our unique techniques using hypnosis and other neural sciences learn how to successfully control the problem and stop.
At HTH we have helped many clients to quit their addictions that have often occurred for decades.
Just a few of the addictions we have worked with are:
- Alcohol
- Gambling
- Drugs
- Eating and/or Certain Food Addictions
- Drinking
- Gambling
- Substance Abuse
- Sex
We have found that people use their addictions for certain reasons. They may use their addiction to deal with stress of anxiety or perhaps just to unwind. Gambling for example is often used to help to deal with stress and unwind but it doesn’t really work. Some of our clients have spent tens of thousands of dollars a year on pokies or some other form of gambling. The only ones who win are the ones who own the machines. The only way to deal with this problem is to quit totally and stay completely free – always!
It is useful to find other ways to relax such as new activities (that ideally are not expensive) and self hypnosis. Some clients just need to break the pattern; others need to deal with the underlying issues that led to the problem in the first place.
Alcohol
Alcohol can cause a wide range of problems including abusive behaviour to family and friends, the dangers of drunk driving, health risks, expense, and not being able to function properly at work. Some clients I have worked with need to learn to control their use of alcohol, others need to quit totally.
Drugs
For some people drug use is a nuisance – for others it can be life threatening. Marijuana for example is very commonly used and some people can take it or leave it. But some smoke every day or even several times a day. There are other drugs that are almost guaranteed to lead to disaster e.g. Speed, Ice, Ecstasy and Heroin. Learning to change your mind about the habit and being committed to being free can make all the difference.
Chocolate, Coca Cola, Coffee
Addiction to chocolate can be expensive, unhealthy, cause weight and skin problems and be a nuisance. Clients have felt so much better giving up with addictions to chocolate, as well as coke and coffee. As one of my clients said recently “no chocolate of any form has passed my lips since my 2006 session with you … success!”
Panic Attacks
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Panic attacks are very sudden, discrete periods of intense anxiety, mounting physiological arousal, fear, stomach problems and discomfort that are associated with a variety of somatic and cognitive symptoms. The onset of these episodes is typically abrupt, and may have no obvious triggers. Although these episodes may appear random, they are a subset of an evolutionary response commonly referred to as fight or flight that occur out of context. This response floods the body with hormones, particularly epinephrine (adrenaline), that aid it in defending against harm.[2] Experiencing a panic attack is said to be one of the most intensely frightening, upsetting and uncomfortable experiences of a person’s life.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder OCD
OCD is generally characterised by obsessive thoughts and compulsive actions, such as cleaning, checking, counting, or hoarding. It is a potentially disabling condition that can persist throughout a person’s life. The individual who suffers from OCD becomes trapped in a pattern of repetitive thoughts and behaviors that are senseless and distressing but extremely difficult to overcome. OCD occurs in a spectrum from mild to severe, but if severe and left untreated, can destroy a person’s capacity to function at work, at school, or even in the home.
Hypnotherapy for Postnatal Depression
Postnatal depression (PND) occurs in all cultures and all socio-economic classes, and can happen to child-bearing women of all ages.
Postnatal depression is not a modern condition. Each generation calls it something different. What we call PND today may have been called a ‘nervous breakdown’ 50 years ago.
Mild, moderate, or severe symptoms can begin during pregnancy (antenatal depression), suddenly after birth, or gradually in the weeks or months following delivery. Symptoms can emerge at any time during the first year after birth, but most cases have their onset within the first 4 months.
Postnatal depression can happen after miscarriage, stillbirth, normal delivery, or Caesarean delivery. Pregnancy is the common factor. This disorder generally happens mostly after a first baby, but can occur after any other pregnancy. It has a 50 per cent chance of recurrence with a subsequent pregnancy.
Weight obsessions
There are a number of other weight related issues that we successfully deal with at HTH. There are multiple behaviours that can be part of a weight obsession; binging, purging, starvation or even extreme diets due to revulsion of “healthy foods” or strong belief systems. Eating disorders can become paralysing to the point that the individual is unable to maintain friendships of any kind due to the secrecy and strict regime involved in maintaining their weight.
- Anorexia
- Bulimia
- Specification eating
- Poor diet through dislike of certain foods
- Family beliefs
Pauls finds friends after ditching her weight obsession after 10 years
Paula is a 24 year old Consultant that tells her story about how she came to get rid of her eating disorder after a decade.
I came along because I had an eating disorder that that had been completely consuming my life for over 10 years. My life was designed around supporting my eating disorder and a hell of a lot of time was involved in maintaining that. I couldn’t maintain any relationships because it was such a regime and there was so much secrecy involved as no one had any idea I was doing this.
I was massively overeating to the point that I could gain as much as 10 kilos in a 3 week period. I would massively over eat and then would have to take on another whole regime to undo the eating. It was really expensive as I had incredibly complex specifications for eating; how much I would eat, under what circumstances I would eat, what kind of foods I would eat in order to satisfy the cravings.
I had excessive surgery to deal with what I had done to my body and I purchased everything in terms of products that would undo the eating and the weight gain. I had researched everything that was on the market to be able to do that to make myself skinny and undo the damage of the eating. The fact of the matter was that no one including my family had a clue of what was going on.
I got an astonishing result with the binge eating in just one session. I never went back to that kind of behaviour again. What was even more intriguing and probably necessary was that after this massive issue was out of the way the next layer of the onion was revealed since the binge eating had masked everything else that wasn’t working.
I am constantly surprised that Steve can bring about such powerful change which is so simple and quick – I feel that there must be some other magic going on here.
I now have incredible weight stability – this has been huge for me since I had this eating disorder for over 10 years.
I used to have severe panic attacks that were very debilitating these are completely gone now.
The most amazing result for me (I never came to Steve for) eventuated out of working with him has been for me to develop friends. This really has been the single most incredible result that I have gotten. The eating disorder brought enormous shame. Having an eating disorder takes a lot of time every day to manage; I didn’t want to share meals so it wasn’t conducive to having a social life. I couldn’t maintain friendships since there was so much secrecy and shame involved. When it was at its worst I used to isolate myself (by taking myself away). I have now gained friendships for probably the first time in my life because I am able to. I like myself enough now that even if I am having a hard time I can still communicate and have friends. I have gone from being suicidal with nothing to live for with a body that had this incredible maintenance attached to it for no reason to being able to experience the joy that comes in the simple acts of friendship! This is the most important thing in my life. You can take everything away materially but you can never take a feeling or a memory of someone who loves you or sharing a gentle time or space – you have the capacity to feel everything.
I have recommended Steve to many other friends because of the results I have gotten which I never had with anyone or from anything else. I have said to my friends “Why do it the hard way when you can have a session with Steve and just get the issue taken away?
