Alternative Medicine Alternative Medicine - Preventative

Headache, Hypnosis, and Stress: A Case History

Introduction

Now, more than ever, concerned physicians are beginning to ask about and understand the role of non-drug therapies to assist patients with headache. These therapies, alone or in combination with medications, can significantly impact headache treatment.

This pleases me. As a family physician and clinical hypnotist with 30 years experience in the field, I applaud this trend. Certainly, a capable and compassionate physician will struggle to assist his or her patient to find headache relief by whatever methods; complimentary, traditional, or both. Much can be gained if we look at hypnosis as a helpful tool in the battle for headache relief.

Training your brain
As our understanding of how the brain works and which compounds (or neurotransmitters) control our pain response expands, we begin to suspect that relaxation therapies, including hypnosis, may alter in a positive and fundamental way our brain chemistry such that pain relief is more likely. An interesting study was performed with patients who learned relaxation skills. The researchers checked the subjects' monoamine oxidase levels—since monoamine oxidase is what metabolizes serotonin, a pain relief chemical, and found changes in those levels consistent with what you would expect with preventive drug therapy. The study suggests that it is not just a matter of feeling relaxed that's important, but actually learning via these relaxation therapies to turn on and off certain pain pathways in the nervous system by changing monoamine oxidase levels and, consequently, serotonin levels.

In this article, I would like to introduce you to hypnosis and self-hypnosis as a modality of pain relief for patients who suffer from headache. Hypnosis is fun, effective, relaxing, and has no side effects.

What is this thing they call hypnosis? No, Virginia, it is NOT clucking like a chicken, barking like a dog or being “put under,” helpless and at the control of the master. Rather, for most people most of the time, it is a focused state of attention or harmony. It is easily achieved by visiting a professional skilled in hypnosis. This pleasant state has two fascinating and useful properties:

1) It is profoundly relaxing. In our stressful lives what person would not enjoy a few minutes of deep relaxation in the middle of the day from hell!

2) The mind becomes open to positive and therapeutic suggestions.Only suggestions given with your permission and for your own benefit are accepted. No one can be forced or coerced into doing something they do not wish to do.

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