Hypnotherapy for IBS
If you are currently suffering from IBS you are not alone. It is the world’s most common digestive disorder affecting approximately 1 in 5 people. IBS can have a significant and negative effect on everyday life, reducing the ability to cope positively with day-to-day situations. It creates considerable anxiety and stress from symptoms such as bloating, cramping, constipation, or diarrhoea. These can negatively affect all aspects of life. Using hypnotherapy for IBS can help to relieve the debilitating symptoms that you are currently experiencing.
It’s very probable that you are reading this with some of the symptoms above and are looking for help to relieve the pain and anxiety attached to them. My goal is to always make you feel safe and secure and to support you while you make the positive changes necessary to leave your anxiety behind and find relief from your symptoms.
How is anxiety created?
Anxiety is caused by worry or negative thinking. It’s a natural stress response created in our mind, that has evolved with us over hundreds of thousands of years. If our early ancestors thought they were under attack their stress response would be triggered. We often refer to this as the fight/ flight mode. This would be an unconscious reaction to the situation they found themselves in. Their brains would produce an overload of stress hormones and adrenaline. This would have a beneficial effect on their survival chances. In our modern lives, a build-up of stress hormones can often make us feel like we’re on edge. We, therefore, find it difficult to switch off and relax. Our lives are not in danger but we still generate the same response as if it was.
The effect of stress and anxiety on the gut
When you are stressed or anxious you mainly operate from your sympathetic nervous system. This can often be referred to as your fight/flight mode. Its main job is to help keep you safe. It acts as an early warning system for danger.
If you are anxious you will continue to build up your levels of health-damaging stress hormones. As a result blood flow to your digestive system is reduced. This can mean that your digestive process can be shut down. When you are anxious your body is in survival mode so blood flow to the muscles is given priority.
When our brain is operating as it should, once our fight/flight mode has kept us safe we will return to spending more time within our much more relaxing parasympathetic nervous system. It is probable that your anxiety surrounding your condition is meaning that you find it difficult to relax. The symptoms of your IBS are probably adding to your stress. Thankfully your suffering doesn’t need to be a long term part of your life. Together we can work together to lower your anxiety levels thereby lowering your production of stress hormones.
It may be that currently, the high levels of stress hormones are creating an overactivity in your gut. The symptoms of this are diarrhoea and stomach cramps. Or the opposite may be true and the processes in your gut may slow down. This results in other painful symptoms such as constipation and stomach pain.
Whatever your symptom it should come as a relief to know that together we can use online hypnotherapy to help you find relief and significantly improve your quality of life.
How IBS can create anxiety
There are many unpleasant symptoms of IBS, each one can have a debilitating effect on your life and as a result. Your thoughts surrounding these symptoms may naturally tend to be negative. You may find yourself worrying about the future and your ability to carry out everyday tasks without pain and inconvenience. The crippling effects of your symptoms have the potential to become the focus of your life. As a result, your thoughts about your IBS symptoms will tend to be negative. The more negative thoughts and worries you have the more anxiety is created. This can make the symptoms worsen.
If your anxiety levels are high, then your stress hormone production is excessive. These stress hormones can have a detrimental effect on your gut and impede the healthy bacteria within it. It can also play havoc with your immune response meaning you may build up an allergic reaction to healthy foods. High cortisol levels as a result of stress are known to increase the severity of the symptoms of IBS.
How hypnotherapy for IBS can help
Solution Focused Hypnotherapy is a type of talking therapy. During the therapy, we will focus a lot of attention on talking about some of the more positive aspects of your life. By shifting your conscious awareness to being more positive we naturally help to lower stress and anxiety levels. Your levels of the health-damaging hormone cortisol decrease. This helps to relieve the symptoms associated with your IBS.
When looking out for and recalling positive aspects we help to produce a constant flow of serotonin, leading to increased happiness. It also helps to develop areas of your brain linked to positivity and problem-solving. By developing these parts of the brain we are also better able to think with logic and reason. This can lessen your immediate emotional response and allow you to feel more in control of your condition.
We will spend time each session discussing the aspects of your future that you feel you would like to change. With Solution Focused Hypnotherapy we always look forward. You will be encouraged to visualise and discuss what your best hopes are for the future. We then use hypnosis to help you work towards attaining this wonderful picture built up in your mind.
I believe that you have everything that you need within you to gain freedom from your symptoms of IBS and you will be provided with all the knowledge and resources necessary to ensure that you can enjoy lifelong change. I will support you up until the point that you decide that you no longer need my help.
How can I find out more about hypnotherapy for IBS?
If you would like to find out more about how we can use hypnotherapy online to help you to live a life free from the debilitating effects of IBS, then please get in touch using this email link. I would love to help you make positive change.
If you are ready to book a consultation, please use the button below.