For those who suffer from chronic pain such as fibromyalgia life can be a real struggle. If you suffer from pain that lasts for more than 12 weeks, that pain is classified as ‘chronic pain’ and can be felt for months or even years, often silently with no outward signs or wounds.
Chronic pain can be anything from arthritis, osteoarthritis, fibromyalgia, muscle pains and back pain, and in the world of neuroscience there are noted shifts from acute pain to chronic pain in brain activity. Chronic pain that lasts for a long time can lead to high stress levels, anxiety, depression and other problems in the long term.
It is important to know that when it comes to pain, past experiences and any emotional trauma that may have occurred often go hand in hand, and can actually increase the amount of pain felt. Those who suffer PTSD or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder are more likely to develop some type of chronic pain, as well as irritable bowel syndrome, persistent headaches, anxiety and stress.
The more anxious you are, the more tense your muscles are and ultimately, the more fatigued they become, resulting in chronic pain. If you experience an extremely traumatic event, your nervous system will cope by going into ‘survival mode’ increasing blood pressure, blood sugar, reducing the immune system and increasing stress hormones; sometime the body will struggle to return to a relaxed state after trauma, and this is where the bodies function starts to become impaired.
Luckily, hypnotherapy can be a great way to lessen or even totally remove your chronic pain, and in a session a trained hypnotherapist will typically enter you into a deep state of relaxation before trying to discover the root or cause of your chronic pain. Over the course of one or more sessions the hypnotherapist will then communicate with your subconscious mind to change the negative reactions you have into more positive reactions, switching off you mind completely to the pain signals which are causing you distress.
When it comes to hypnotherapy for chronic pain, it is important that any medical issues are investigated and declared first and it must be noted that any conditions such as arthritis which are medical may still cause you pain after hypnotherapy – although that pain may be reduced.
Your hypnotherapist may also give you some self-hypnotherapy techniques to use at home when your pain needs some extra attention.
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