How Hypnosis Can Affect Pain
Pain affects the lives of millions around the world at one point or the other. It is a universal form of suffering and is mostly treated with different kinds of medication. However, drugs involve additional risks, side effects, and potential for addiction. Once we start depending on them, it can be hard to stop.
Is hypnosis a feasible solution for pain management?
Yes! Hypnosis can reduce different types of pain that people deal with. Let’s explore the effectiveness of this method.
Since we all experience pain at some point in our lives, it’s interesting to learn what’s going on inside when pain is felt.
Pain can either be acute or chronic. Acute pain is immediate and can be short-lived while chronic pain is an ongoing pain that lasts longer than 3 to 6 months.
Our brain receives information about pain through our nerve endings; thicker nerve cells send information about pain from an acute injury while thinner ones communicate dull pain.
That pain information generally travels one of these two routes to the brain:
Via the thalamus, which is often described as the brain’s “relay station” for sensory information.
Via the somatosensory cortex, which is the part of the brain that processes physical sensory information.
Moreover, multiple brain areas become active during the pain sensation. The anterior cingulate cortex, insula, and prefrontal cortex react to the painful sensation by sensory discomfort while the amygdala and hippocampus react to the emotional impact of having pain by evoking strong emotions and memories.
This helps us understand that pain is experienced in two parallel, but connected dimensions. Imagine being in chronic pain in any vital part of your body. More often than not, it will affect your emotions. A positive emotional experience may be dampened by uninterrupted pain, reminding you of this chronic malady.
Physical and emotional pain exist in a kind of feedback loop. Pain and depression often go hand in hand, with chronic pain closely linked to low mood and lack of motivation. Some languages even use the same word for “in pain” and “depressed.” Perhaps this is because the person experiencing depression may look indistinguishable from someone experiencing physical pain, although we can’t say for sure.
How Can Hypnosis Help?
Several studies have highlighted that hypnosis can effectively reduce physical and emotional pain and may even be more effective than standard care and other psychological interventions. This can be achieved through hypnotic suggestions (explained more in this post). Hypnotic suggestions can address the sensory component of pain or the emotional component of pain, or maybe both, depending on your goals.
With hypnosis, your brain can reduce the extent to which pain bothers you and help you minimize its effects on your daily life. It can also literally reduce the amount of pain you feel!
As Dr. Spiegel often says, the strain in pain lies mainly in the brain, so these suggestions target processes that are managed by specific brain networks. Hypnosis reduces the amount of pain you feel (by 30-42%!) by helping the brain change how you feel.
Because of this, hypnosis generally improves other aspects of medical treatment as well. Through practice and experiments, Dr. Spiegel’s team has demonstrated that hypnosis can reduce surgical pain and emotional distress after surgery, reduce complications, shorten procedure time, reduce the need for pain medication, lead to a higher treatment success rate and decrease anxiety levels.
Furthermore, hypnosis is a safer option than medication. At a time when there are more than 100,000 drug overdose deaths per year in the United States, two-thirds of them caused by opioids, hypnosis is safer than most pharmacological treatments for pain.
So, hypnosis is safer, saves time, and is often more effective than standard care.
How do you do it?
A clinically licensed hypnotherapist who you trust can help you with your pain management goals. Alternatively, Reveri’s self-hypnosis exercises focus on a few common goals, including pain perception relief. The Manage Pain Perception Exercise can be done anytime, anywhere, and it takes about 10 minutes. The hypnotic suggestions offered by Dr. Spiegel range from imagining the pain as a tingling sensation or taking yourself to a pleasant place, among other options. You can choose the most helpful image during the exercise, and experiment to discover what works best for you and the particular pain you’re feeling.
With the help of Dr. David Spiegel’s soothing voice and knowledge stemming from decades of clinical research, you can tap into the powers of your own brain and overcome significant pain sensations. It involves a variety of techniques to change the way your body experiences pain.
In Summary
Hypnosis is one of the best drug-free treatments for pain management. It can reduce pain sensation, and in addition, it can also reduce the distress and negative emotions associated with experiencing it. Given its safety and effectiveness, we encourage you to give it a try today!
Contact us: support@reveri.com
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Many Reveri members experience the benefits of self-hypnosis after a single 10-minute session.
