Participation in a relaxation response based mind-body group intervention was associated with improvements in disease-specific measures, trait anxiety and pain catastrophizing in patients with irritable bowel syndrome and inflammatory bowel disease, according to study findings.The quality of life in patients with IBS and IBD is often significantly affected and influenced by stress and resiliency
Source: Relaxation intervention improves symptoms, may help treat IBS, IBD
Hypnotherapy Helps Mother to Conceive after 5 Miscarriages
Source: New mum credits hypnotherapy sessions for helping her conceive after five miscarriages
New mum credits hypnotherapy sessions for helping her conceive after five miscarriages
Wednesday, Jun 24 2015 WRITTEN BY Lara Martin
Leah Elliott had endured five miscarriages before the birth of her beautiful baby son Joseph.
And on today’s ITV’s Good Morning Britain she spoke out about believing her pregnancy was helped by sessions of hypnotherapy.
Leah Elliott discusses using hypnotherapy to boost conception chances Leah endured five miscarriages in four years.
Leah did three months of hypnotherapy with a fertility specialist via Skype and said today it taught her body and mind to relax. “It made me a little more at easy through the fertility journey. It is a stressful journey, an emotional journey,” she said.
The 40-year-old had endured five miscarriages in four years and said doctors diagnosed her with Graves’ disease and endometriosis but had been unable to explain the exact cause of her miscarriages.
She and fiancĂ© James considered IVF but were reluctant to go down that route believing it to be “very taxing” on the body. Baby Joseph was conceived after three months of hypnotherapy.
Discussing her hypnotherapy sessions, Leah said: “I think because, without realising it, I was telling my body it wasn’t safe to conceive because of these diagnosis. And my body was listening. It’s all about the mind-body connection.
“We just let go of the struggle and let go of the idea of fertility being our whole life at the time. Without giving up, we just decided to stop trying for a while and I went for the hypnotherapy treatment.”
Dr Sarah Jarvis said: “Women do get pregnant. There is a good outcome overall even with recurrent miscarriage. A study came out recently showing women who had an average of four miscarriages have a seven per cent chance of getting pregnant and keeping the baby next time, so we know it does happen.
“Once you’ve had three miscarriages⊠we know up to one in five pregnancies tragically ends in miscarriage anyway but once you’ve had three, that goes up to 40 per cent. That does mean many people will keep their baby.”
With Leah, she relaxed and let go. There is no science behind it but as a GP for 25 years I’m amazed at how many people who have been trying and their whole lives are consumed with getting pregnant, once they get to the stage where they have been referred to a clinic and are waiting for tests, they start to relax.
Dr Jarvis said there were many things that could boost the chances of conceiving including not smoking, no alcohol, exercising, making sure you’re not underweight or overweight, eating correctly and taking folic acid supplements.
She added: “Relaxing and just genuinely allowing your body to do its own thing can make a difference. Easier said than done. If hypnotherapy works for you, fine.”
source:Â https://fertilityroad.com/fertility/leah-and-james-elliott-welcome-little-joseph-jake-cruz-10330/
Why You Should Stop Focusing On Your Problems By Emma Hypno On September 14, 2014 ·
How you can help yourself overcome anxiety and depression by understanding why you should stop focusing on your problems.
“Have you ever been caught by someone picking a scab and theyâve scorned â âdonât pick itâ and itâs true isnât it, if we persist in picking that scab, not only does it hurt, but the healing process is delayed â but there is something irresistible about picking a scab.  This rather childish analogy does actually go a long way to explaining why you should stop focussing on problems. Zits, spots, pimples, acne â what does everyone say? âdonât pick themâ, âdonât squeeze themâ, and we know they are right, but it is very difficult to resist. But even worse than with a scab, pick a zit and not only does it hurt and make it worse, but it also spreads, the bacteria infects the surrounding areas and we can end up with even more spots.Sorry, I know itâs a bit of a gross subject, picking scabs and zits, but it is an apt analogy for why we shouldnât keep going over and over our problems â mostly it keeps hurting, it will make them worse and can even spread the feelings into more anxiety and depression and aggravate whatever symptom you are experiencing which could be OCD, IBS, eating disorders, over eating, anger and in particular insomnia and sleep disorders.Take insomnia and sleep disorders as an example â when you canât sleep at night or you wake up in the middle of the night â why is that? Have you got thoughts going around and around in your head? Do you keep going over some problem or another or keep thinking about something or someone who has upset you?Just like someone says to you âStop itâ, when youâre picking a scab or spot â stop thinking about the problems, itâs not going to change anything.The solutions is not in the problem, so going over and over the problem, over analysing it, is not going to solve it but most probably, your imagination will step in and you start imagining lots of different scenarios, taking it to the worst possible scenario. We need a different part of our brain to come up with solutions.Have you ever done this? Youâre expecting someone to call, a family member or loved one, partner or child perhaps, or you said you would call them, but then they donât call or you canât get hold of them. What happens â well, initially you might just brush it off, staying logical and tell yourself theyâve got delayed, their battery might be dead, they canât call right now and so you wait.As time goes on and you still havenât heard, your anxiety levels start to rise, you start to worry and slowly you lose intellectual control and the part of your brain responsible for the fight/flight systems starts to step in and this part of your brain always works within the parameters of anxiety, depression or anger â so you could get angry with them, you might feel miserable and tell your self things like, well they donât care or you start to worry about why. But significantly, your imagination then starts to work with your fight/flight systems and you start imagining why they are out of contact, you might start imagining all sorts of scenarios of whatâs happened, you might even start imagining what they are thinking or why they havenât called â your imagination runs wild â but your brain doesnât know the difference between imagination and reality, so you believe you and you think these things are actually true and your anxiety levels increase any further to the point of obsession.The actual reality is usually fine and there is some simple explanation, but you have been to hell and back in the meantime with your imagination and did you find the answer there â no!The same is true when we focus on our problems, our imagination steps in, but in a very negative way and imagines everything else which could go wrong as a result, we make it into a catastrophe, we imagine the worst possible scenario and the problems grow and spread, increasing our anxiety, depression or anger â will you find the answer there â no!The intellectual mind is the part of your brain which will come up with solutions, can work it out and will know what to do, it is your job to access that part of your brain.You know the old saying âsleep on itâ, very good advice. When you go to sleep at night, to put it simply, during REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, the brain reorganises everything from the day before, sorts it out and puts it in perspective and when you wake up in the morning, you often feel better about the problem from the day before or have a better idea of what to do.  OK, so this doesnât always work as effectively as it should, but thatâs because there is just too much worrying for your mind to deal with in just one session and you then continue nurturing the problems by going over and over them, but it does help. Another self help is exercise and spending time with friends and family â going for a long walk or run, cycle, swim etc or go and see a friend, spend time with some family.
If you do, it will help two fold, positive activity (exercise and hobbies) and positive interaction (spending time with friends and family) will help engage that intellectual part of your brain which can come up with solutions and distracting yourself with something more pleasurable which doesnât hurt will also stop you picking the scab and going over and over the problems.
You cannot come up with a solution while you are thinking of the problem, they just donât go together, you have to stop the problem thinking before you can engage the solution thinking. Your brain is already aware of the problem you need to solve or resolve â give it credit, you donât need to keep reminding it and throwing in a whole load of imagined problems. Distract yourself with something pleasurable and fun and let your vast intellect do what it is so well designed to do.
I understand that if you have been in the habit of focussing on your problems for a long time, it can be incredibly difficult to stop doing that, this is where hypnotherapy helps. Solution focused hypnotherapy can help you find the solutions from within.
An exhausted mum beats insomnia with hypnosis sessiona after six years of surviving on just one hours sleep every night
Source: Exhausted mum beats insomnia after six years of surviving on one hourâs sleep – BT
Source: Treament of IBS should focus on head as well as gut : Family Practice News
The pathophysiology of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) was the focus of a presentation given by Dr. Anthony J. Lembo at the 2nd annual Digestive Diseases meeting in Philadelphia.
Specifically, Dr. Lembo discussed the debate about whether diagnosing the condition should focus on a patientâs gut or head; that is, if enhanced perception of a bowel disorder can lead to visceral hypersensitivity and altered motility, which results in a diagnosis of IBS when, in fact, the issue is psychosomatic. Dr. Lembo, a professor at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, explained that there is a growing shift toward diagnosing IBS as a brain-to-gut interaction rather than as something based purely on limited motility. Patients presenting with comorbid conditions such as depression, migraine, anxiety, neuralgia, chronic fatigue or pain, or fibromytosis are all more likely to not only have IBS, but to have more severe symptoms and lower quality of life.
Dr. Anthony J. Lembo
âWhen I see a patient who has a lot of these symptoms together, I realize that I need to be very aggressive and use a multimodal approach,â said Dr. Lembo. âI talk to their other physicians, and do more of the brain treatment, psychological treatment, CNS drugs, as well as some peripheral ones.â
For these reasons, Dr. Lembo said that the current Rome III criteria for treatment of IBS are not sufficient to be used on their own in diagnosing and treating IBS, saying âIBS is a heterogeneous disorder with both peripheral and central mechanismsâ that must be treated as such. In treating the central nervous system, Dr. Lembo discussed 5-HT3 antagonists, serotonin modulators, antidepressants, and placebos. Peripheral treatments can come in the form of either diets, fiber regimens, antibiotics, GC-C agonists*, 5-HT3 antagonists, and probiotics/prebiotics, although efficacies and approvals vary.”
Bunny Besley adds comment:
Treatment involving both medication and psychologial intervention gives a more holistic approach and hypnosis is indicated as having successful outcomes to reduction of symptoms caused by the stress reaction in the gut.
If there was one thing you could do to heal your relationships, would you do it? I’m the kind of person who loves to understand the deeper reasons behind
Source: If Your Relationship Is Failing, Hereâs Why. ~ Dr. Margaret Paul
“If there was one thing you could do to heal your relationships, would you do it?
Iâm the kind of person who loves to understand the deeper reasons behind behavior, and Iâve spent most of my life learning about what creates loving or unloving relationships. In the 43 years Iâve been counseling couples, Iâve discovered that there really is one major cause of relationship problemsâone issue that if you address and heal, changes everything.
The one cause: self-abandonment.
When you abandon yourself emotionally, physically, spiritually, financially, relationally and/or organizationally, you automatically make your partner responsible for you. Once you make another person responsible for your feelings of self-worth and well being, then you attempt to manipulate that person into loving you, approving of you and giving you what you want. The controlling behavior that results from self-abandonment creates huge relationship problems.
Letâs look at the various forms of self-abandonment and how they result in relationship conflict and power struggles, or in distance and disconnection.
Emotional self-abandonment.
When we were growing up, many of us experienced much loneliness, heartache, heartbreak and helplessness. These are very big feelings, and unless we had loving parents or caregivers who helped us through these feelingsârather than being the cause of themâwe had to find strategies to avoid them.
We learned four major ways of avoiding these core painful feelings of life, and these four ways now create our feelings of anxiety, depression, guilt, shame and anger, as well as relationship problems.
Did you learn to judge yourself as a way to try to get yourself to do things ârightâ so that others would like you? Self-judgment creates much anxiety, depression, guilt, shame and emptiness, and can lead to many addictions in order to avoid these feelings. Self-judgment also leads to needing othersâ approval to feel worthy, and your resulting controlling behaviors to gain othersâ approval can lead to many relationship problems.
When you have not learned how to manage your feelings, you want to avoid them. Do you find yourself focused in your head rather than in your body, more or less unaware of your feelings?
We emotionally connect with each other from our hearts and souls, not from our heads. When you stay in your head as a way to avoid responsibility for your feelings, you cannot emotionally connect with your partner.
Addictive behavior, such too much alcohol, drugs, food, TV, gambling, overspending, work, sex and so on, can create much conflict and distance in relationships.
When we emotionally abandon ourselves, we then believe it is someone elseâs job to make us feel loved and worthy. Do you try to control your partner with anger, blame, criticism, compliance, resistance or withdrawal to get him or her to give you what you are not giving to yourself? How does your partner respond to this controlling behavior?
Many relationships fall into a dysfunctional system, such as one person getting angry and the other withdrawing or resisting, or both getting angry or both withdrawing. In some systems, one is angry and the other is compliant, which seems to work until the compliant partner becomes resentful. In all of these systems, each person is emotionally abandoning themselves, which is the root cause of the dysfunctional relationship.
Financial self-abandonment.
If you refuse to take care of yourself financially, instead expecting your partner to take financial responsibility for you, this can create problems. This is not a problem if your partner agrees to take financial responsibility for you and you fully accept how he or she handles this responsibility. But if you choose to be financially irresponsible, such as overspending, or you try to control how your partner earns or manages the money, much conflict can occur over your financial self-abandonment.
Organizational self-abandonment.
If you refuse to take responsibility for your own time and space, and instead are consistently late and/or a clutterer, and your partner is an on-time and/or a neat person, this can create huge power struggles and resentment in your relationship.
Physical self-abandonment.
If you refuse to take care of yourself physically by eating badly and not exercising, possibly causing yourself severe health problems, your partner may feel resentful by having to take care of you. Your physical self-abandonment not only has negative consequences for you regarding your health and well being, it also has unwanted consequences for your partner, which can lead to conflict and power struggles.
Relational self-abandonment.
If you refuse to speak up for yourself in your relationship, and instead become complacent or resistant, you are eroding the love in the relationship. When you abandon yourself to another through compliance or resistance, you create a lack of trust that leads to conflict, disconnection and resentment.
Spiritual self-abandonment.
When you make your partner your source of love rather than learning to turn to a spiritual source for your dependable source of love, you place a very unfair burden on your partner. When your intent in the relationship is to get love rather than to share love, then you will unfairly lean on your partner for attention, approval, time or sex. When you do not take responsibility for learning how to connect with a spiritual source of your own for sustenance, your neediness can create relationship problems.
Spiritual self-abandonment is related to emotional self-abandonment, in that you cannot commit to 100% responsibility for yourself without a strong connection with a spiritual source of love and wisdom.
Learn to love yourself rather than abandon yourself.
Learning to love yourself is the key to a loving relationship. When you learn to connect with a personal source of spiritual guidance and access the love and wisdom that is always within you, you learn to fill yourself up with love. While self-abandonment creates an inner emptiness that relies on others to fill you, self-love creates an inner fullness. Self-love fills your heart and soul with overflowing love so that, rather than always trying to get love, you can now share your love with your partner.”
Fertility specialists are using hypnotherapy and meditation to improve conception rates in women undergoing IVF
A therapy session which coached people to use their bed only for sleep – rather than the frustration and misery of sleeplessness – helped many, say Northumbria University.
Medical reports citing how hypnosis can be used in conjunction with other remedies have been around for some time. There are at least 12 compelling evidences pointing out that hypnosis works. It’s real, and many people can attest to it.