September 20, 2024 – There is an unexpected treatment for Hot flashes and other menopausal symptoms which are becoming increasingly popular: clinical hypnosis.
“Hypnosis is a state of highly focused attention that works by dissociating from or putting aside things that would normally be in your awareness,” said Dr. David Spiegel, psychiatrist at Stanford Medical School.
“It increases your cognitive flexibility — a way to approach an old problem from a new angle and simply let go of your old ways of thinking,” he said.
As a rule, women aged around 50 are affected menopausewhich represents the top of her menstrual cycle. The estrogen level drops and Hot flashes can occur 12 to fifteen times a day, said Gary Elkins, PhD, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Baylor University.
Both clinical hypnosis and cognitive behavioral therapya standard type of talk therapy, have proven effective as a non-hormonal treatment for warm flashes, particularly in women who're unable to accomplish that Hormones for health reasons, e.g. B. if you will have suffered from estrogen-sensitive cancer up to now (e.g Breast cancer), after to a study published by the Menopause Society in 2023.
A brand new review presented last week on the Menopause Society's 2024 annual meeting in Chicago analyzed 23 studies from 1996 to 2022 and compared how well clinical hypnosis and cognitive behavioral therapy worked in treating hot flashes and other menopausal symptoms. Researchers found that clinical hypnosis is healthier at making hot flashes less frequent and fewer intense, and even reduces symptoms by 60%. Results from cognitive behavioral therapy, then again, showed only a slight reduction in hot flashes, even though it helped reduce day by day stress related to hot flashes.
Hypnosis can combat the “perfect storm” of mental and physical problems that accompany menopause symptoms, explained Spiegel, who runs a well-liked self-hypnosis app called ” reverse. “Their level is dropping estrogen And progesterone“But it's also a reminder that you're entering a different phase of life where you're no longer fertile and you're getting older,” he said. “[With hypnosis]“You can separate pain from your awareness of things that would normally impair your awareness and make you unhappy.”
A hypnosis session can help separate psychological complaints from physical complaints, said Spiegel. “Typically, people in hypnosis who're fighting menopause imagine themselves swimming in a lake and feeling cool, tingling and numb,” he said. “You can literally change how hot you feel. You can change the hot flash and imagine being cool and comfortable. If you're worried about something, imagine it on an imaginary screen. Just imagine it, but don’t feel it.”
Hypnosis for sleep
Hot flashes that occur at night are known as night sweats and can affect sleep. Hypnotherapy can help reduce both hot flashes and night sweats until sleep is no longer interrupted, Elkins said. “As sleep improves with hypnotherapy, so does overall leisure,” said Elkins, director of the Mind-Body Medicine Research Laboratory at Baylor University. “When women practice self-hypnosis at night, they enter a calmer and more relaxed state, which may facilitate a great night's sleep or improve sleep duration and quality.”
Our subconscious influences ours Sleep patterns largely through experience rather than words or thoughts, according to Emilie Leyes, a certified hypnotherapist based in Philadelphia. This explains why simply saying the words “I'm relaxed” is often less effective when stressed than taking a few deep breaths or a warm hug from a family member or friend, said Leyes, who hosts a brain-training podcast called Mindset Transformation “How to Like Your Life”.
“Similarly, hypnosis, which accesses the subconscious directly, allows us to provide our minds with new, powerful experiences to reduce our stress, improve our mood and increase our access to positive emotions,” she said. “Consistently exposing ourselves to these positive experiences in our minds can increase our ability to feel good and impact how we feel in our everyday lives.”
Your first hypnosis session
A hypnosis session always begins with deep relaxation, which can help your mind and body adjust to the feeling of calm, Leyes said. “By giving the brain and body the experience of safety, relaxation and inner peace, we can more easily let go of our stressful thoughts of the day and fall asleep easily at night.”
You often begin by sitting or lying in a comfortable position, and then the hypnotic induction begins with a focus of attention, says Elkins. The person concentrates with their eyelids closed and then receives suggestions to deepen their relaxed state. “It's normally a secure and nice place, like a walk within the mountains or near a beach,” he said. “And it makes suggestions that target the mechanism underlying the symptoms [such as hot flashes].”
Spiegel typically begins with a neutral test that can help measure how hypnotizable a person is on a scale of zero to ten. For example, instruct the client to imagine their hand floating in the air. When they pull their hand down and it floats back up, the client finds that he can “actually separate the psychological from the physiological facets of his experience – his left hand feels different than his right hand,” Spiegel said. “I take advantage of that for instance to get them to say, 'See how you possibly can change the way in which your body feels.' Now let's use it to enable you to together with your anxiety about your menopausal symptoms.'”