Using your mind to help manage and relieve your IBS symptoms
Nausea affects roughly one-third of people with IBS. Nausea and vomiting are controlled by a combination of the vomiting centre in your brain, and areas within your gut. Hypnotic suggestions can be targeted at changing how the brain interprets and responds to vomit signals from the gut, such that nausea is significantly reduced.
Hypnotherapy is effective in treating Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), and other gastrointestinal (GI) disorders.
Hypnotherapy for gastrointestinal health - or gut-directed hypnotherapy - addresses the 'miscommunication' between the brain and gut.
IBS and other GI problems are complex disorders with symptoms unique to each patient. Hypnosis is a brilliant way to tailor the treatment intervention according to the individual’s needs - and can also work to alleviate other occurring symptoms such as nausea and fatigue.
Systematic reviews and reports on hypnosis by the British Psychological Society, British Medical Journal, (UK) National Institute of Clinical Excellence, (US) National Institutes of Health support the effectiveness of hypnotherapy for IBS.
The British Psychological Society report findings: There is encouraging evidence demonstrating the beneficial effects of hypnotherapeutic procedures in alleviating the symptoms of a range of complaints that fall under the heading 'psychosomatic illness.' These include - Gastro-intestinal complaints such as irritable bowel syndrome.
Anyone suffering from irritable bowel syndrome can benefit to a greater or lesser degree from gut-directed hypnotherapy. It could be you.
It’s 2020 and are you resigning yourself to another year of living with your IBS symptoms?
Before you do you might want to give IBS hypnotherapy (also called gut-directed hypnotherapy) a go. It’s not a miracle cure, but multiple well-controlled studies, including one close to home,at Monash University, have shown that it improves gastrointestinal symptoms in people with IBS by 70-80% and these improvements are maintained in the long-term.
The Monash hypnotherapy study – led by Dr Simone Peters – wanted to consolidate findings by UK researchers suggesting the therapy was effective. Dr Peters is part of Monash University and the Alfred Hospital’s Department of Gastroenterology. Dr Peters says, “It was hugely surprising. We found hypnotherapy was incredibly beneficial.”
The Monash reserachers also found that:
hypnotherapy was effective psychologically, too – patients were less anxious and less depressed after esperiencing it.
a low FODMAP diet helps reduce IBS symptoms and that hypnotherapy is as beneficial as the low FODMAP diet. .
To read the full article about this research head over to the Monash University site - https://bit.ly/2tGvXpL
IBS hypnotherapy could mean the difference between another year in which IBS dominates your life and robs you of happiness, and a year in which you begin to enjoy the freedom being free of IBS brings.
To learn more about how Tony can help you gain lasting relief from your IBS, contact him today – 021 056 8389 / email tony@tycoaching.nz for a free, no obligation on line consultation. No matter where you are in the NZ or the world Tony can help.
Who do you think you are? This is your sense of identity.
The powerful psychological effect of ‘I am…’ can really serve you well, so long as your sense of identity is a helpful one. This is because our identity, together with our beliefs and values are three of the key reference points our mind uses in order to interpret the plethora of information it’s receiving from the environment moment by moment. And our actions are driven by that interpretation. So, holding the sense of identity – “I am a highly resilient and optimistic person”, would be highly likely to serve you well in relation to coping with your IBS symptoms.
Unfortunately being diagnosed with IBS by a doctor or medical specialist can lead some people into taking on an unhelpful identity, that of IBS sufferer. By assuming the identity of “IBS sufferer” an individual can start to believe that IBS is a fixed and permanent part of who they are, leading to them arriving at the conclusion that the best they can do is live with the symptoms or treat them with medicine.
The fact is you are not your IBS.
IBS is something you experience - something your body does. And because it’s something your body does you have the ability to change how your body does it. And this ability allows you to significantly reduce, and even eliminate, the IBS symptoms and their impact (mentally, emotionally and physically) on you. The outcome is a greatly improved quality of your life. Research tells us that the most effective way to change the way our body is behaving in relation to IBS is gut directed hypnotherapy.
And remember you are not your IBS.
So when you catch yourself thinking/saying “I’m an IBS sufferer” or “I have IBS,” correct yourself by thinking/saying:- “At the moment my gut isn’t behaving the way it should and I’m taking steps to get it working normally again. I am a highly resilient and optimistic person and I believe I can do this.”
