Using Self-Hypnosis to Control Pain
Much research carried out over the years proves that hypnosis is an effective tool in preventing and alleviating almost every type of pain. However, from an early age, and through no fault of our own, most people learn to fear and endure pain, rather than how to acknowledge and control it. Over-reactions from concerned parents, the sight of blood, the noise of other children crying when they are hurt, can all encourage a developing mind to react inappropriately to pain.
Our psychological conditioning greatly affects our natural response to pain. But this doesn't necessarily mean that we cannot alter our responses. Self-hypnosis is one such way to change your responses. For when the mind and body are as one in a state of total hypnotic relaxation, there simply is no pain. With hypnosis, your pain threshold is much higher. So whether you suffer from occasional migraine or severe arthritis, deep relaxation is one of the most natural and effective ways to control pain without the need for drugs. We should never suggest the direct removal of pain to the subconscious, but only its reduction. Pain is real, and is there for a reason. Charles Tebbetts taught his hypnotherapy students that pain is a warning that something is wrong with the body, so the cause must be diagnosed by someone qualified to do so (Hunter, 2000). Removing it without first understanding why it's there could result in a serious injury or possibly worse. Pain is a personal, subjective experience. By learning to respect its value, you learn to remove its ability to linger on.
Hypnosis can turn a sharp pain into a feeling of warmth. Using imagery, you can change the color of pain from red to blue, or into any other color you find soothing to your senses. We can visualize pins and needles as cotton wool, and feel daggering pains as relaxing ripples. You may desensitize the images that drive your fear by turning what you normally would imagine and associate with pain, into its exact opposite. Dark becomes light, pointed becomes round, sore becomes soothing, stiff become loose, and so on. By changing your mental images, you change your response. And by changing your response, you control pain.
Hypnosis for pain relief works in three phases. The first is complete physical relaxation. When people are in pain, muscles become tense and exacerbate pain. Hypnosis brings about the level of relaxation required for total muscular relaxation. The second phase is sensory alteration. Transforming pain into another sensation causes a different perception of the pain in the mind. The third phase is through mental diversion or distraction. This is when attention is drawn away from the source of pain, thus severing the connection between fear in the mind and symptom in the body.
If someone receives emotional gains as a result of their pains, this can help maintain or worsen existing symptoms. The pain may actually provide a means of getting more love and attention from family and friends. For some it can be a way of avoiding work. A person may experience stomach problems when thinking about going to social event they feel uncomfortable with. It isn't pain that stops them, but more an issue of self-confidence. Arthritis and back pain act up in the cold, but they also act up when your body is under stress. At times, pain can be an attempt by your subconscious to move you away from a situation it feels you are unable to handle. So it's up to you to inform your subconscious through suggestion and imagery that you fear nothing, and this is best done in self-hypnotic trance.
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