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Hypnotherapy
practitioners have known for years that hypnotherapy
helps with irritable bowel syndrome. With most
research programmes hypnotherapy is often overlooked
but thankfully (at last!) the medical community has
taken an interest in hypnotherapy as a treatment for
IBS and the results have confirmed what we always
knew. Channel 4's Health website lists hypnotherapy as
the most effective complementary therapy available for
IBS. You can view that here.
Science
Daily tells us (Feb 2007) that "Overly anxious
and driven people are prone to irritable bowel
syndrome". A study of 620 people followed across
a six month period found that : Those with IBS were
significantly more likely to have reported high levels
of stress and anxiety and psychosomatic symptoms than
those who did not develop the condition. They go on to
tell us "Gastroenteritis may trigger the
symptoms, but cognitions, behaviour and emotions may
help to prolong and maintain them over time," BMJ
(British Medical Journal) Specialty Journals (2007,
February 26). That article is available here.
Professor
Peter Whorwell, Professor of Medicine and
Gastroenterology at Manchester University has been
researching the use of gut-directed hypnotherapy for
over 20 years. He says (of hypnotherapy as a treatment
for IBS) "We've found it to help all the
symptoms, whereas some of the drugs available reduce
only a few." His research concluded a
"success-rate" of approximately 70% using
hypnotherapy.
So,
let's have a look at the why and how of hypnotherapy
as a treatment for Irritable Bowel Syndrome. First of
all...what is IBS?
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Irritable
Bowel Syndrome is another one of those catch all
titles applied to an “undiagnosed” digestive
difficulty. Basically when you rule out
"known" medical problems, then often the
clinical diagnosis given will be one of IBS. It is an
extremely common problem affecting as many as one in
ten people in the UK and America. It is a digestive
system disorder often involving constipation or loose
stools, or even just stomach cramping and bloatedness.
The need to continually visit the toilet can become a
source of great anxiety and inconvenience, in some
cases even forming an obsessional pattern of behaviour
(not being able to go out without being near a toilet
for instance)..
Symptoms
may include:
-
Abdominal
pain, which is often experienced in one of the
four 'corners' of the abdomen. Pain may be
triggered by eating and relieved by opening the
bowels.
-
Diarrhoea
and constipation (often alternating)
-
Bloating
-
Indigestion,
rumbling wind and flatulence (gas)
-
Early
satiety (feeling full within a short time of
starting to eat)
-
Stools
may be ribbon or pellet like and sometimes contain
mucus
-
Although
opening your bowels may temporarily alleviate pain
you may feel as if they are never emptied
properly.
Research
has shown that the bowel of an IBS sufferer looks
normal to all intents and purposes. There is in fact
nothing physically wrong with an IBS sufferers bowels.
There can still however can be a great deal of
discomfort. It is well recognised that although
the "cause" of IBS is medically unknown, the
condition will often begin or worsen during periods of
stress or anxiety. It follows therefore that this
condition responds very favourably to hypnotherapy as
an intervention because hypnotherapy, at one level, is
all about reducing stress and anxiety. Providing that
the condition has not been caused by something
physical such as a bug, an allergy, parasites,
poisoning, a food intolerance, or an illness, then we
can understand why the illness occurs by looking at
what happens in the body when we become anxious.
Essentially,
when we are faced with danger, the body releases
adrenaline and cortisol which are stress hormones
which prime us for fight or flight. It is well known
that people placed in a situation of extreme fear can
involuntarily urinate, defecate, or vomit. This is
actually a part of the fight or flight mechanism. This
response would theoretically have offered our earlier
ancestors some adaptive advantage. When faced with an
extreme danger, the logic is that emptying the
bladder, bowel, and stomach, may have been the
difference between life and death. Even being just 1
or 2 lbs lighter would enable a human being to run
just that bit faster thus conferring an evolutionary
advantage when escaping from predators or aggressors.
More importantly though, digestion uses a great deal
of bodily energy. When we eat, we feel nicely sleepy
for about half an hour at least afterwards. This is
because energy and oxygen is diverted away from the
brain and the muscles and sent to the gut instead to
process the food. Now, we know that too much stress or
anxiety in our lives is “read” by the subconscious
mind as being danger, so if we are constantly stressed
or anxious then the body and mind remains constantly
primed in fight or flight mode to some degree.
The message that this state sends to the body is that
it should be on high alert at any given moment to flee
or do battle, and what this means physically is that
the digestion of food itself, although energizing in
the long term, is actually viewed as a drain on
immediate resources (energy) which might be otherwise
needed for short term survival. In other words, the
anxious body seeks to get food in, and out, as quickly
as possible, and to allocate as little energy as
possible to this function, which of course means
essentially that the digestion and bowel function does
not work nearly as well as it can when it is receiving
the correct allocation of functional energy. We can
also see that there is a perceived survival advantage
in keeping the stools “loose” in order to ensure a
quick evacuation of the bowels in a crisis.
We
also know that the gut is unique as an organ because
it actually has its own "brain". The Enteric
Nervous System (ENS) directly controls the
gastrointestinal system (the gut) and can operate
independently of the autonomic nervous system. The
Enteric Nervous System is often referred to as the
second brain because it can operate independently of
the central nervous system, and contains as many as a
billion neurons (brain cells). Interestingly we know
that the enteric nervous system also makes use of the
same neurotransmitters as the Central Nervous System
such as, dopamine, and serotonin. Dopamine and
serotonin makes us feel good. When these transmitters
are present in balanced levels (they are regulated by
mood incidentally), then we feel good! The brain and
the gut work together too. When the brain is stressed,
so too is the gut. The images we deliver at the mental
level are also "heard" by the gut
"brain". So what does all this mean in plain
English? Well, it means that in the same way that your
brain can respond to hypnotherapy positively by
relaxing and going into a solution focused mode, so
too can your gut! This is not just hearsay...the
research findings back this up.
So
treatment works in a number of ways. Firstly by
reducing anxiety generally it is possible to bring the
body out of “fight or flight” mode, thus restoring
the proper allocation of bodily resources to the bowel
and digestive functions. Secondly, we know that stress
increases our perception of pain. When we stop
worrying about a symptom, our subjective experience of
that symptom becomes much less stressful (and
painful), thus we overcome the self perpetuating cycle
of stress leading to more pain leading to more stress
etc. Then we can stop "worrying" about the
IBS and give it time to settle down. We work directly
on fortifying the gut with hypnotic techniques,
including "suggestion", positive
visualisation, and creating "triggers" for
calming the gut in moments of stress. We also will
look at the CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) style
approach of ensuring that you are mindful of the way
in which your thoughts can affect your sense of alarm.
Treatment will be likely to take between three and ten
sessions depending on your lifestyle circumstances. If
you'd like to explore hypnotherapy, I would invite you
to meet me for a telephone consultation to make a fuller
assessment of your needs. Even though IBS may be the
symptom, you'd probably benefit in many other ways
from treatment because we would be reducing your
anxiety both generally and in "trigger"
situations. It's not unusual for a symptom to be the
deciding factor in seeking help, but then we improve
lots of other things along the way. So it's often
worth the commitment, because these aren't just quick
fixes. This treatment will teach you how to ensure
that you retain control both now and for the rest of
your life....
Here
are some further links: -
Hypnotherapy
works for bowel pain
Imagine
your gut as a river....
Hypnosis
can ease bowel illness
If
you'd like some help with your difficulty, please click
here to contact me and make an appointment.
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