Posts Tagged ‘Cognitive hypnotherapy’
Wounds ‘take longer to heal when you are anxious or stressed’
In my approach of Cognitive Hypnotherapy, we have long used it for helping the body healing itself. This article explains a link with stress and anxiety and the body taking longer in the healing process. It would stand to reason then, that being able to deal with stress and anxiety in a positive way, would be condusive to better healing. Read on and let me know what you think…
by That’s Fit Staff (Subscribe to That’s Fit Staff’s posts)
Jun 10th 2010
Categories: Mind and body
Scientists have discovered that stress and anxiety can make it harder for wounds to heal.
Researchers inflicted small ‘punch’ wounds on healthy volunteers whose levels of life stress were gauged using a standard questionnaire. The wounds of the least anxious participants were found to heal twice as fast as those of the most stressed, and changes in the levels of the stress hormone cortisol reflected the difference in healing speed.
Professor John Weinman, from the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College London, has previously shown that healing can be enhanced by psychological help aimed at easing emotional stress.
He says: “These studies focus specifically on how the life stresses people experience can impact on their ability to recover from different types of wound, such as those caused by surgical procedures and by different medical conditions, including venous leg ulcers.
“I hope that these findings can now be used to identify psychological interventions to help speed up the recovery and healing process.”
Common to ‘underestimate how many calories they are eating’ when dieting
This article from The Telegraph (www.telegraph.co.uk) re-iterates what I say to people that come to see me for weightloss. Dieting doesn’t really work, because if we don’t address the relationship that we have with food first, once we stop dieting, and start eating ‘normally’ again, the weight will start to pile on again.
I aim to help people get a better relationship with food, and then they don’t tend to need to overeat anymore, and their weight naturally stabilises over time. It’s great to be able to do this and know that you will never need to be on a diet again. Read below to find out what the article says…
Most dieters vastly underestimate how many calories they are eating, according to a survey of GPs.
Published: 7:30AM BST 17 May 2010
Data from 10,000 slimmers and 200 doctors found 87 per cent of GPs believe dieters are in the dark about how much they actually eat.
Meanwhile, more than nine out of 10 people (92 per cent) see their dieting attempts end in failure, with 18% ending up weighing more than when they started.
Only around one in three (32 per cent people take up more exercise when they are trying to lose weight, while only 23 per cent check food labels before buying.
Most (91 per cent) never weigh out food or control their portion size.
Overall, 90 per cent of GPs said people needed to change their eating habits to lose weight and that losing excess pounds can be as difficult as quitting smoking.
Two thirds (66 per cent) regard overeating as a form of addiction, while 73% of GPs said fad diets do not work, despite 51 per cent of Britons having tried them.
Nutritionist Dr Chris Fenn said: ”People need to adopt a personalised approach to weight loss tailored to their own situation, challenges and strengths.
”They need to understand the causes of their weight gain and the barriers to weight loss, including their relationship with food.
”People are often ill-prepared to lose weight and underestimate what is required.”
The survey was commissioned by Shape. Smart, which makes diet products.
Locus of Control
I have had a number of discussions recently with clients and their difficulties around taking responsibility for their own behaviours/decisions etc. It stems around where their locus of control is, either externally or internally.
At the moment there is a great trend towards letting the Universe provide – ask, and it shall be given you. The trouble with this way of doing things is that the locus of control is external, ie it lies outside of you.
I prefer to think that the Universe may provide things – and it may not, but I don’t have to sit and wait for it to happen. I can be doing much to help things happen for me in all areas of my life. This gives me an internal locus of control – I’m in charge.
Now, I’m not saying the things always go the way I would like them to. I’m a fellow struggler through life, the same as everyone. So, of course, there is a downside to having an internal locus of control – who can we blame if it doesn’t go the way I want?
Well here’s the thing. I could try and blame others for my faults and failings, couldn’t I? Afterall, it then gives me every reason to continue making mistakes and not taking any responsibility. It’s someone else’s fault then.
However, I choose to take responsibility for both my mistakes, and my successes – they are mine too. And that’s the up-side, isn’t it.
But I also choose to see mistakes, not as failings, but as learnings. As far as I’m concerned the only mistakes are the ones we don’t learn from. And I intend for my whole life to be a chance for me to learn whatever there is for me to learn, that means I progress.
So, where are you going to put your locus of control? Is it outside, giving someone else the power over you? Or are you going to take responsibility, have an internal locus of control that gives you the power over your own path?
The Universe might provide, but you could be a long time waiting if it doesn’t.
Hypnotherapy ‘can help’ IBS (irritable bowel syndrome)
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This was posted on the BBC News (http://news.bbc.co.uk) on 17th March. It suggests that research is backing up the claim that hypnotherapy can be very effective in the treatment of Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). |
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 Greater use of hypnotherapy to ease the symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome would help sufferers and might save money, says a gastroenterologist. Dr Roland Valori, editor of Frontline Gastroenterology, said of the first 100 of his patients treated, symptoms improved significantly for nine in 10. He said that although previous research has shown hypnotherapy is effective for IBS sufferers, it is not widely used. This may be because doctors simply do not believe it works. Widely ignored Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a common gut problem which can cause abdominal pain, bloating, and sometimes diarrhoea or constipation. Dr Valori, of Gloucestershire Royal Hospital, said the research evidence which shows that hypnotherapy could help sufferers of IBS was first published in the 1980s. He thinks it has been widely ignored because many doctors find it hard to believe that it does work, or to comprehend how it could work.
He began referring IBS patients for hypnotherapy in the early 1990s and has found it to be highly effective. “To be frank, I have never looked back,” he said. He audited the first 100 cases he referred for hypnotherapy and found that the symptoms stopped completely in four in ten cases with typical IBS. He says in a further five in 10 cases patients reported feeling more in control of their symptoms and were therefore much less troubled by them. “It is pretty clear to me that it has an amazing effect,” he said. “It seems to work particularly well on younger female patients with typical symptoms, and those who have only had IBS for a relatively short time.” Powerful effect He believes that it could work partly by helping to relax patients. “Of the relaxation therapies available, hypnotherapy is the most powerful,” he said. He also says that IBS patients often face difficult situations in their lives, and hypnotherapy can help them respond to these stresses in a less harmful way. NHS guidelines allow doctors to refer IBS patients for hypnotherapy or other psychological therapies if medication is unsuccessful and the problem persists. Dr Valori thinks that if hypnotherapy were used more widely it could possibly save the NHS money while improving patient care. Dr Charlie Murray, Secretary of the British Gastroenterology Society, said: “There is no doubt that hypnotherapy is helpful for some patients, but it depends on the skill and experience of those practising it. “But the degree to which it is effective is not well defined. “I would support using it as one therapy, but it is no panacea.” |
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It is pretty clear to me that it has an amazing effect 
Mindfulness… Just for today
This poem, call Just for Today, was shared with me, and it made me stop and think, so I thought I’d share it with you too. It really is about Mindfulness, and being in the moment, which is something many of us struggle with. I might be able to help with that if you’re one of those people.
by Che von Lindbergh, 2006
Today I will delete from my diary
two days: yesterday and tomorrow
Yesterday was to learn
and tomorrow will be the consequence
of what I can do today.
Today I will face life
with the conviction that this day
will not ever return.
Today is the last opportunity
I have to live intensely,
as no one can assure me
that I will see tomorrow’s sunrise.
Today I will be brave enough
not to let any opportunity pass me by,
my only alternative is to succeed
Today I will invest
my most valuable resource: my time,
in the most trascendental work:
my life;
I will spend each minute
passionately to make
of today a different
and unique day in my life.
Today I will defy every obstacle
that appears on my way trusting
I will succeed.
Today I will resist
pessimism and will conquer
the world with a smile,
with the positive attitude
of expecting always the best.
Today I will make of every ordinary task a sublime expression,
Today I will have my feet on the ground
understanding reality
and the stars’ gaze
to invent my future.
Today I will take the time to be happy
and will leave my footprints and my presence
in the hearts of others.
Today, I invite you to begin a new season
where we can dream
that everything we undertake is possible
and we fulfil it,
with joy and dignity.
Opportunityisnowhere!
What did you read when you saw the sentence above?
Depending on whether you are an optimist or a pessimist you may have read it one way, or another.
Opportunity is now here.
Opportunity is nowhere
We tend to notice whatever it is that are mind is primed to see, either the positives in life, or the negatives.
Have you ever been thinking about buying a particular model of car, and noticed that you see that type of car on the streets more and more? It’s not that there are any more of that model of car on the streets, just that your mind is primed to notice them, and so you do.
It may have happened with other things. When I was expecting my first child, I seemed to see pregnant ladies, or young babies everywhere!
If you believe that you might be a little bit of a pessemist, here’s an exercise that you might enjoy doing at the end of the day:
Look back over your day, and note three things that you have seen or have happened in your day that you would consider good things. It could be seeing something of natural beauty; how someone did something for you that was unexpected; it may even just be getting a phone call – you choose what you would consider those 3 good things – your three gifts for the day.
The only rules are that there must be three gifts that you have to note, and that if you can think of more than three, you have to narrow it down to the three best, for that day!
Do this every evening for at least a week, and notice how much easier you find it to start noticing the positive things that are going on around you everyday, if only we take the time to notice them!
Are you resolute?
So, here we are six weeks into the new year (and your resolutions?). Â How amazing is that. Is it me, or is time going by more quickly these days? Perhaps that’s just what happens as we get older!
Many people start their new year making all sorts of resolutions or promises to themselves. You might have even set yourself some goals to achieve for the coming year.
Is that something that you do every year? Quite often by about this time into the new year, for many people, if they stop and take stock of exactly how they are doing with regard to these resolutions, promises and goals, quite frankly to coin a common teacher’s phrase they ‘could do better’.
We have all these great plans and ideas for how we want things to be different or better at the beginning of the year, but sure isn’t it strange how sometimes there’s a dirty great spanner thrown in the works?
That’ll be your unconscious thinking that whatever you have in mind is not as good idea as your conscious might have thought. Until you get your unconscious on board, we can say all the things we like, consciously, but in the end, the unconscious is always victorious. Afterall, it is in charge around 90% of the time, you know.
So what do you need to be successful this time; motivation, determination, confidence in your own ability? Maybe you’re not completely sure exactly what you need to do this time, to do things differently.
The good news is that with the right help, you can get your unconscious onboard; find the resources you need; access those strengths, easier than you might have once thought possible. And it just so happens that I have the tools and techniques available to help you make it happen. Click here to go to my NLP information page.
So if you are having a problem keeping to those resolutions, promises and goals, remember that you don’t have to forget about them until next New Year’s Eve. Get in contact and let’s have a chat about how we can get you back on track.
Reflections on what we control and what we don’t
| Once again my this blog comes from Michael Neill’s weekly email, and is all about control and our perception of it. It is reproduced here with his permission.His emails can be really inspiring and you can sign up to receive them too by using the link at the bottom of the page. I hope you enjoy it …Â Did you know that “worry” is a verb? That is, “to worry something” is to shake it about – it is an activity, not a thing.
The kind of worrying that most of us do is with our thoughts. We take a particular thought and “worry it about” in our minds, shaking it back and forth and flipping it around until we become absolute experts on everything that could possibly go wrong. Â
I myself am an expert “worrier” – I seem to have been granted the ability to pick out the worst-case scenario at a puppy farm, or to imagine all the things that could go wrong at an OSHA convention. Â
Which is why I’ve always found it a bit curious that when I’m actually IN a difficult situation, I tend to handle it with remarkable ease and grace. Being stuck in traffic doesn’t upset me, even if I’m running late. If the recording equipment stops working at an event where I’m teaching, as it did recently, I can generally incorporate it into the proceedings without batting an eyelash, even if I had previously been worrying about the possibility. Â
The difference, or so it seems to me, is this:Â Â Once something has actually happened, whether or not it happens is clearly no longer within my control. And if I know that something is not within my control, I see no point in worrying about it, or more accurately, in worrying it about.
Which is why when I woke up a couple of days ago without control over the left side of my face, I was oddly calm. In fact, the only real thought my worrying mind gave me to play with was how it might affect the television pilot we’re working on, and whether or not they will be able to film me exclusively from the right side until whatever it was cleared up. Â
When others kindly pointed out to me all the other things I could be worrying about that might be a wee bit more important than how I looked on TV, like a brain tumor or a stroke, it did occur to me to go to the hospital, and they quickly diagnosed it as a mild case of Bell’s Palsy, a strange form of facial paralysis the explanation for which sounded completely made up, even to the doctor who diagnosed me with it. Â
The good thing about Bell’s Palsy is that a. Most people recover within 2 – 3 weeks and b. With the exception of a cocktail of drugs that may or may not speed recovery and that I am faithfully taking each day, there’s nothing much which can be done. Â
And I find that sort of behavioral helplessness incredibly comforting. Oh sure, I get that if I maintain a relatively positive mind and a relatively relaxed body, that will create an internal environment which promotes healing. And even after only a few days, I’ve discovered that ordering soup for lunch is just a bad idea. But when there’s nothing to be done about something, there’s nothing to be done about it – and that leaves our energy free to enjoy whatever it is we can do.  Twenty years ago, I remember seeing the quadriplegic motivational speaker W. Mitchell give a talk from his wheelchair. The line which burned into my memory was this: “Before I was paralyzed there were 10,000 things I could do. Now there are 9,000. I can either dwell on the 1,000 I’ve lost or focus on the 9,000 I have left.” Â
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What we control, in my experience, is not what happens to us and not even which thoughts, positive or negative, come into our head. What we control is what we do and which thoughts we dwell on. And funnily enough, that’s more than enough control to create a magical life, regardless of whatever circumstances you happen to find yourself in.  Recently, I was watching a video of the spiritual philosopher Syd Banks and he shared an old Irish philosophy:Â
With love, Michael
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Cog Hyp rocks at the diet show
Getting the message out there that losing and maintaining weight isn’t all about being on a diet… this from the blog of Trevor Silvester.
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by Trevor Silvester.
Cognitive Hypnotherapy had a high profile at the Olympia Diet show. SlimQuest had a stand, manned and womanned by Questies eager to educate the public in how easy it is to to lose weight when your mind is working for you. On the Saturday Rebecca Silvester gave a presentation on how to use simple techniques to keep the mind in control of your weightloss. This was followed on Sunday by Questies Katie Abbott, who gave a talk on Cognitive Hypnotherapy and NLP, and Cathy Simmons who presented on using EFT. Cathy is a member of SlimQuest, which runs group weight loss courses for the public using Cog Hyp techniques. All course leaders are graduates of our Diploma course.
The Problem with Problem Solving
“The reason this hasn’t been making any sense,” I explained, “is because you’re trying to help me solve a problem I don’t actually have.”
A few days later, a client was explaining to me his concerns about his big break – his first gig in front of over 1000 people. Â He wanted tips on how to find the “extra” confidence to make his performance “really, really, really good”.
I told him that I could share tips with him, but what would make the biggest difference was to have fun and not try to make this performance any different to any of the ones he had done that had led to this opportunity.
As I explained it to him, here’s how the problem-solving cycle usually works:
- Something happens.
(In this case, he got offered a great gig.) Â - We imagine all the bad things – “problems” – which might happen as a result of it.Â
(In this case, what would happen if he suddenly lost his nerve in front of all those people and “blew his big chance”.) - We then “problem-solve” by doing things to prevent the bad things we’ve imagined from happening.
(In this case, try to learn confidence tricks and techniques to “ensure” that nothing will go wrong.)
The problem is, apart from the original event, nothing’s actually happened except our over-reaction in the physical world to the problems in our imagination!Â
He didn’t quite seem to get what I meant, I told him the following story:
Â
| Imagine that it’s the Wild West and you are surrounded by hostile Indians. Your only hope is if the cavalry comes to save you. Just as you are about to abandon all hope, you hear hoofbeats in the distance and see a lone rider coming towards you at a gallop.  He pulls up beside you, leans down from his horse, and in a voice dry and crackling from the trail, says “I’ve got some bad news and I’ve got some good news…””The bad news is that the cavalry’s not coming. The good news is, this isn’t the Wild West and there aren’t any Indians.” |
He laughed, and called me a couple of days later to tell me the gig had gone phenomenally well. Â
Have fun, learn heaps, and relax… while life will always have its ups and downs, coping with them is inevitably much simpler than you think.
With love,
Michael