What is pain?
Before we talk about how we can help, it’s useful to define the two categories of pain – acute and chronic. Hypnotherapy can help with both, but at ONE LIFE we help clients with chronic pain.
Acute pain happens when something happens to damage your body. It might be putting your hand on a hot stove or going over your ankle. It typically lasts less than 6 months. Acute pain has a “purpose” – it means you take your hand quickly off a hot surface or prevents you from aggravating an injury. Hypnosis has been used successfully to help people cope with surgery without anaesthetic and can help women through labour (known as “hypnobirthing”).
Chronic pain differs in that it can last for years, and is often permanent. It doesn’t serve a useful function like acute pain, and can be accompanied by feelings of hopelessness and depression. Illnesses such as fibromyalgia and ME are often accompanied by chronic pain.
How we can help
Chronic pain is worsened when you feel anxious – the nerves which transmit the perception of pain to the brain increase in activity (hence “nervous”). Hypnotherapy helps to reduce your levels of anxiety, and this can help the pain sensations to reduce.
At ONE LIFE, we offer “solution focused” hypnotherapy, which combines talking therapy with hypnosis. This enables our clients to look for the next small step which will bring an improvement to their life. This helps with chronic pain sufferers by moving their focus of attention away from their pain and on to what’s good about their life. This reduces the impact that the pain has on their life and reduces their suffering.
Finally, hypnotherapy helps our clients increase the production of their body’s natural “happy chemicals”. This makes them feel generally happier, but also these chemicals are natural painkillers. The more we produce, the less we experience the pain.
So, make today Day One and start the fight back against your pain. We’re here to help.
