Hypnotherapy for Pain Relief
Types of pain
Acute pain is short-lived and acts as a warning. The pain tells us to stop doing something that is causing us harm and motivates us not to repeat that behaviour again. If you touch a hot pan and scold or burn yourself, for example, the pain you experience will ensure that you are careful not to repeat that action in the future.
Chronic pain tends to be long lasting and is often still present long after the initial injury has healed. It can negatively affect your life in numerous ways. It can increase stress and anxiety levels and can have a debilitating effect on your quality of life. You may well have already had to stop taking part in activities you used to enjoy, as participating in them now causes you pain. Using hypnotherapy for pain relief can help to relieve your symptoms, enabling you to look forward to a future full of the things that you enjoy.
It’s very probable that you are reading this feeling anxious, tired and fed up having been living with pain for a considerable amount of time. You may well be worried about what the future holds if you can’t find relief from your symptoms. My goal is to always make you feel safe and secure and to support you while you make the positive changes necessary, allowing you to find relief from your pain.
Chronic pain
Unlike acute pain, chronic pain serves no biological purpose and there is often no physiological reason for the pain. This often makes it hard to be medically diagnosed. You may well have been told that the pain is ‘all in your head’. I’ve no doubt that you felt abandoned and feelings of hopelessness and depression quickly followed. These feelings will be amplified if like many others you are suffering from sleep deprivation. This is very common if your medication is not effectively relieving your pain.
Pain stems from the activation of the nervous system. The brain and the nerves inside the spine make up the central nervous system. Your brain constantly receives and sends messages from the nerves in your spinal column. Pain is a sensation felt when receptors in your brain send the sensation of pain to the spinal cord through nerve fibres.
Acute pain is sent to your brain via A-Fibres, these pain messages tend to be localised, short and sharp. If you think back to a time when you’ve stubbed your toe, you’ll remember a sharp intense pain that remained in your toe for a few minutes.
When pain is more persistent we refer to it as chronic pain. Chronic pain signals are transmitted via C-Fibres. We may often think of these as aches and pains that tend to stay with us for an extended period of time.
A-fibres are fast transmitters and take priority over C-Fibres whose pain messages take a longer time to reach the brain. This is why even if you are suffering from chronic pain and you stub your toe, you will feel intense pain in that area and your chronic pain will temporarily subside.
A-Fibres transmit sensations of pressure, touch and vibration which is often why rubbing or massaging the area of pain can help to relieve the feeling of pain.
Feeling pain
Pain is often felt as a result of our state of mind at the time. Pain is complicated, it brings physiological, psychological, behavioural, social and emotional factors into play. You may remember times when you experienced pain but were so engrossed in an activity you barely felt it.
There are also times when your pain can feel much worse. If you are stressed, depressed, bored or if you focus on the pain it appears to magnify its signals. We know that if we can distract ourselves with other activities then our level of pain lowers significantly. This is because something else more beneficial has temporarily occupied our mind.
Perhaps you can remember when you were free from the debilitating effects of chronic pain but now it seems to be at the centre of your thoughts. Thankfully the pain you are currently experiencing doesn’t need to be a permanent part of your life. Together we can use online hypnotherapy to help you to break free from the cycle of pain, allowing you to positively look forward to the future.
Stress and anxiety
One way to think about pain is that it passes through a gate. Nerves from all over your body run to your spinal cord. Think of your spinal cord as having a series of gates with which messages to your brain. When these gates are open you will experience greater sensations of pain. When the gates are shut the reverse is true and you will feel less pain.
It is highly likely that your pain is causing your stress and anxiety levels to increase. This in turn elevates your feelings of pain. It’s all too easy then to find yourself in the grip of a vicious circle. When you are stressed your body will produce an abundance of stress hormones. These hormones will open your gates allowing the signals of pain to travel to and from your brain via the spinal cord.
When you experience high levels of stress and anxiety your fight/flight response is engaged. These changes are a direct result of a hormonal shift as your body is flooded with stress hormones. In this state and as a result of the stress response, your feelings of pain can increase. Hormones such as cortisol are known to open our pain gates.
How hypnotherapy for pain relief can help
Solution Focused Hypnotherapy is based on scientific research as to how your brain works. It offers a holistic approach to mental health and well-being improvement. The methods used replicate the way your brain works when it’s functioning well. As your stress and anxiety levels lower, so will your production of stress hormones, which are responsible for exacerbating your pain.
During our hypnotherapy for pain relief sessions, you will be helped to see things from a different perspective. By focusing on the more positive parts of your life you will naturally increase your levels of serotonin. Serotonin is a natural analgesic. It helps to block out pain signals by closing the pain gates which are currently being kept open by your stress hormones.
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 find relief from your pain 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 pain relief?
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 chronic pain, then please get in touch using my contact form. I would love to help you make positive change.