Natural Medicine

How Hypnosis Helps

As an altered state of mind, hypnosis leads to deep relaxation and intense concentration. Used in ancient religious rituals, hypnosis has a long history of us and is continued today by psychologists, psychiatrists and certified hypnosis therapists. Research shows that hypnosis activates specific areas of the brain that control the ability to focus and concentrate.

Widely known as a form of entertainment in which participants do crazy, embarrassing things, hypnosis eventually became used as a self-help tool to stop smoking or to lose weight. However, hypnosis can be much more than that by helping in the healing process after illness and injury.

Different forms of hypnosis can offer help in a variety of situations. Guided imagery helps the patient visualize the stress or pain in order to release it. Direct suggestion involves putting the patient into a trance like state in which he/she is more receptive to a suggestion. This suggestion is then repeated to make the patient feel a certain way.

Clinical studies have shown that hypnosis can relieve pain in patients with cancer, burns or leukemia. Patients giving birth or undergoing dental procedures can effectively manage the pain with hypnosis instead of modern medicines. Hypnosis offers the chance to avoid highly addictive pain relievers in those who suffer from chronic pain. Those who use hypnosis instead of medicine have reported a greater relief from the pain than with the medicine.

Hypnosis has been so successful with pain management in childbirth and chemotherapy that many hospitals are offering it to their patients to aid in recovery. The University of North Carolina uses hypnosis to treat patients with irritable bowel syndrome. Burn patients at the University of Washington's Regional Burn Center have the option to use hypnosis during their painful sterilization treatments in which they have to remain awake. Previously, narcotics have been found ineffective with the pain management, but the hypnosis as worked. Stroke victims at Northwestern University use hypnosis to keep the function of their limbs. One Harvard study revealed that hypnosis speeds the healing of bone fractures by several weeks. Even insurance companies recognize hypnosis as a reliable method of treatment by covering it when it is used in conjunction with a medical program.

Other studies show that hypnosis helped surgery patients use less pain medication. These same patients left the hospital earlier with fewer complications than those who did not use hypnosis. However, even practitioners of hypnosis realize that it does not work for everyone since some people are more open to it than others. Even if hypnosis only works because the patient believes it works, it is still helping as it has for hundreds of years.

Common Herbs And Some Specific Uses

Valerian

A nerve tonic. Used for epileptic fits and St. Vitus dance, nervous derangement or irritations. Excellent for children with measles and scarlet fever. Promotes sleep.

Vervain

Also known as Wild Hyssop. Will strengthen the nervous system while easing depression and melancholia. Good for fever and best for colds.