A Dramatic Change for Health and Healing
With that in mind, how do you help people you care about become aware of this important idea that can dramatically change their lives? The answer can involve a discussion of two additional ideas.
Idea 1: Chronic Symptoms Can Be Entangled With Our Emotions
Almost half of Americans have chronic physical symptoms. However, many of us are unaware of how our emotions play an important role in how these symptoms affect our lives. Consider these scenarios:
The presence of chronic physical symptoms can cause stress that can lead to anxiety or depression. Such psychological disorders can lead to worsening symptoms. For example, a patient with inflammatory bowel disease might be afraid of developing a terrible stomachache and requiring many bathroom runs during a trip. This fear can cause them to develop worsening stomach pain or even cause them to forgo the trip altogether.
In some patients, stress, depression, or anxiety can lead to physical symptoms. Any health care professional can attest that clinicians’ offices and emergency medical facilities frequently provide care for patients with stress-related extreme headaches, gripping chest pain, nausea, disruptive stomachaches, and many other physical symptoms.
Idea 2: Better Management of Our Emotions Can Be Healing
Studies have shown that when patients learn to recognize their emotional response and manage their stress through mental health techniques, including hypnosis, their physical health usually improves, and their symptoms sometimes even resolve (Anbar, 2014).
When healthcare professionals do not address the potential impact of the psychological state on physical symptoms, the improvement of their patient's health is hampered.
Learning to Better Manage Emotions
A question that naturally follows acceptance of these two ideas is: How easy is it to teach people to manage their emotions better? It’s as easy as learning how to use your imagination to help yourself. As described in my book, Changing Children’s Lives with Hypnosis: A Journey to the Center (Anbar, 2021), self-hypnosis can be used to harness the imagination. Some patients gain benefit following even a single instructional session. Most patients improve within several sessions.
I believe that hypnosis is the most efficient tool available to help people manage their emotions, especially in dealing with medical issues. Hypnosis instruction and its use takes far less time than other common therapies such as biofeedback, cognitive behavioral therapy, meditation, talk therapy, or yoga.
There are many reasons that people may be unaware of or uninterested in learning about the potential benefits of hypnosis. Among them:
The medical system is usually geared towards treating symptoms with pills, and thus many people expect prescriptions of medications for what ails them.
Many of us do not realize how much the mind can affect the body – both in good and bad ways.
Sometimes, we do not want to expend the effort to help ourselves by learning to think differently. It often appears easier just to take a pill.
Hypnosis is a word that carries negative connotations and thus is not easily considered as a therapeutic psychological tool with great potential to help change lives.
Call to Action
To spread the word about how hypnosis can help improve the lives of many individuals, I believe it is important for every provider who uses hypnosis to talk widely about its benefits.
In addition, I challenge every patient who has benefited from hypnosis to talk to their family, peers, teachers, students, co-workers, and health care providers about how their health and life outlook improved after learning how to manage their emotions better.
Together, we can help bring about an important change in our society’s approach to health and healing.