# Do Mike's tapes re-teach your body peristalsis?



## Call_Me_Colt (Apr 27, 2002)

This is something I have been wondering. If IBS is due to a disfunctional mind/gut connection or a totally spastic colon which flexes its smooth muscle whenever it wants to, has hypnotherapy been proven to improve the peristaltic efficiency of the digestive system. In other words, after hypnotherapy, does the digestive tract contractions approach that of when we used to be normal? Am I stuck with this totally spastic gut forever and the hypnotherapy is more for just keeping me calm and preventing the spasms from occuring?


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## eric (Jul 8, 1999)

Callmecolt, hypnotherapy is working on a lot of different issues in IBS.I will post some info for you, but it is working on a lot of issues and they are working on even more aspects and research about for IBS.This is one, but I will also post some links for you in all this.with permission.The Effects of Hypnosis On Gastrointestinal Problems Olafur S. Palsson, Psy. D. Research Associate, UNC-CHAPEL Hill Department of Medicines Hypnosis is a treatment method, which still carries an aura of mystery,that unfortunately continues to be promoted by misrepresentations in movies and stage shows for entertainment. In reality, there is little mysterious about hypnosis anymore. It is a well-researched clinical technique which was formally accepted as a treatment method by the American Medical Association and the American psychological Association over thirty years ago. Clinical hypnosis is currently used by thousands of clinicians in the U.S. to treat both psychological and medical problems. Until recently, the possibilities of using hypnosis to treat gastrointestinal problems had received little attention. In the last 15 years, however, research has shown that hypnosis can influence gastrointestinal functioning in powerful ways, and that in particular, it is effective in helping patients with irritable bowel syndrome and to control nausea and vomiting. How Hypnosis Works: Hypnosis is a special mental state in which a person's focus of attention becomes narrow and intense like the beam of a bright flashlight in a dark room. This state is usually created with the aid of a hypnotist,who guides the person systematically to relax, focus only on one thing, and to allow things to happen by themselves. Whatever the mind focuses on while in this special mental state of hypnosis holds the entire attention. Therefore, people tend to experience things they think of, imagine or remember, more vividly and clearly than under usual circumstances. This is why people can sometimes recall things from their distant past under hypnosis even though unable to do so in the normal waking state (research has shown, however, that such hypnotically enhanced recall can be highly contaminated by the person's imagination). The narrow hyperfocus of this mental state is also why therapists using hypnosis are frequently able to help people make strong positive changes in their emotions and physical functioning. Hypnosis can work like a magnifying glass on the mind's effects on the body and emotion. Clinical hypnosis relies on suggestions, imagery, and relaxation to produce its therapeutic effects. Hypnotic suggestions are things that the hypnotist verbally suggests may happen while the person is under hypnosis. Due to the focused and receptive state of the hypnotized person, these suggestions happen almost automatically and without conscious decision or effort. If you, for example, receive the suggestion under hypnosis that your arm may be getting heavy, you will very likely feel it becoming heavy, without trying to do anything to make it happen. This "automaticity", the feeling of things happening by themselves, is by some considered the hallmark of hypnosis, and is often surprising to people experiencing hypnosis for the first time. Hypnotic imagery consists of picturing mentally events or situation or place in a way that has a desired positive physical or mental effect. For example, patients undergoing surgical or dental procedures are sometimes taught to enter a hypnotic state and go to a pleasant place in their mind. When successfully applied, the person gets completely engrossed in the vivid enjoyable imagery and is therefore happily unaware of the unpleasantness of the procedure. The hypnotic state is naturally accompanied by relaxation, and the physical relaxing effects are often deliberately strengthened further by clinicians through suggestions and relaxing imagery. Some of the benefits that come from hypnosis treatment are likely to result partly or entirely from the fact that hypnosis is a powerful relaxation method. Over decades of research and clinical experience, hypnosis has proven to have many valuable therapeutic uses. In psychotherapy, hypnotic techniques can speed the therapy process in various ways - for example by facilitating patients' self-understanding, extinguishing unfortunate habits, uncovering repressed or forgotten memories, reducing anxiety and phobias, and helping people to adopt a new and more adaptive outlook. In medicine and health psychology, hypnosis is used to reduce pain and discomfort associated with medical procedures such as childbirth, treatment of burns, and surgery where chemical anesthesia cannot be used effectively. It is also used to treat chronic pain and psychosomatic problems and counter unhealthy habits that contribute to illness. In dentistry, hypnotic analgesia is an effective needle-less alternative to topical anesthetic drugs, reduces bleeding and discomfort in oral surgery, and is used to treat teeth grinding and temporomandibular disorder. In recent years, the effects of gastrointestinal functioning and GI symptoms have been studied extensively. The Effects of Hypnosis on Gastrointestinal Functioning: The hypnotic state itself, without any particular suggestions, seems to slow down the gut, and clear-cut and specific changes in GI functioning can be induced in individuals by directing thinking or inducing specific emotional states under hypnosis. For example, one study(1) found that when healthy volunteers were hypnotized and simply instructed to relax, the orocaecal transit time (the time it takes material to pass through the GI tract from the mouth to the first part of the colon) was lengthened from 93 to 133 minutes. Another study(2) found that being in a hypnotic state decreases muscle movements in the stomach. The same study demonstrated that the emotional state of happiness, created under hypnosis, suppresses gastric muscle activity but anger and excitement increase muscle movement in the stomach . A pair of other studies(3) showed that when volunteers were guided to use imagery of eating a delicious meal while they were under hypnosis, gastric acid secretion was increased by 89%, and that acid production of the stomach could also be deliberately decreased during hypnosis using hypnotic instructions. Close to fifty published studies have reported on the therapeutic effects of hypnosis on nausea and vomiting problems related to chemotherapy, after surgery, and during pregnancy. Overall, this substantial body of literature indicates that hypnosis can be a powerful aid in controlling nausea and vomiting. Hypnosis may also be helpful in preventing gastrointestinal problems from recurring after they have been treated with medication: One study(4) of thirty patients with relapsing duodenal ulcers who had been successfully treated with a course of medication, found that only 53% of the patients who received preventive hypnosis treatment had a relapse within one year. In contrast everybody (100%) in a comparison group receiving no hypnosis relapsed in the same period of time. In 1984, researchers in Manchester in England published a study(5 )report in the journal Lancet, showing that hypnosis treatment dramatically improved the symptoms of IBS patients who had failed to benefit from other treatment. The researchers had randomly divided patients with severe IBS problems into two groups. Fifteen patients were treated with seven hypnosis sessions. Fifteen comparison patients were treated with seven sessions of psychotherapy, and those patients also received placebo pills (pills with no medically active ingredients) which they were told were a new research medication for IBS symptoms. Every patient in the hypnosis group improved, and that group showed substantial improvement in all central symptoms of IBS. The control group showed only very modest improvement in symptoms. Partly due to these dramatic results with treatment-refractory patients, a dozen other studies have followed, including three U.S. studies. The general conclusions from most of these studies are that hypnosis seems to improve the symptoms of 80% or more of all treated patients who have well-defined "classic" IBS problems, especially if they do not have complicating factors such as psychiatric disorders. The improvement is in many cases maintained at least for a year after the end of treatment. What is particularly remarkable is that this high rate of positive treatment response is seen even in studies where the participating patients all have failed to improve from regular medical care. The dramatic response of IBS patients to hypnosis treatment raises the question of exactly how this kind of treatment influences the symptoms in such a beneficial way. Four studies to date, two in England and two in the U.S., have tried to discover how hypnosis treatment affects the body of IBS patients. Since it is well known that many people with IBS have unusual pain sensitivity in their intestines, which is thought to be related to the clinical pain they experience, much of the focus of these studies has been on assessing the impact of this kind of treatment on intestinal pain thresholds. The two English studies both measured intestinal pain sensitivity with balloon inflation tests. The second study also measured muscle tone, to see if hypnosis relaxes the smooth muscles of the GI tract. No overall changes in pain sensitivity were detected, and gut muscle tension was also unchanged after treatment (except a subgroup of unusually pain-sensitive patients had lessened pain sensitivity in the second study(7). . In 1995-1996, during my post-doctoral fellowship in the Division of Digestive Diseases and Nutrition at UNC-Chapel Hill, we conducted the first U.S. study(8) on hypnosis for IBS under the direction of Dr. Whitehead. We evaluated the effects of a highly standardized treatment protocol, delivered verbatim following written scripts, on rectal pain thresholds and muscle tone. Seventeen out of the 18 patients we treated with hypnosis showed significant improvement in their clinical symptoms. However, we found, like the English researchers, that gut pain thresholds and muscle tension were unchanged after treatment. In a second study(9,) which I conducted with co-investigators at the Eastern Virginia Medical School, we used the same treatment protocol but this time measured autonomic nervous system functioning and blood levels of a gut hormone called vasoactive intestinal peptide. These are regulators of GI functioning in the human body, and the aim was to see if they would change due to treatment. Again, we found no changes in our physical measures after treatment (with the exception of reduction in sweat gland reactivity) even though 21 out of 24 treated patients were clinically improved. It should be noted, though, that in both our studies, we found clear improvement in the psychological well-being of our patients after treatment. In summary, it is clear from our work and other research that hypnosis treatment substantially improves all the central symptoms of IBS in the majority of patients who receive such treatment (see the effects of our two studies on clinical symptoms in the Figure). What happens in the body of these patients to cause such improvement, however, remains a mystery. Future prospects: In light of the many studies which have shown hypnosis treatment to be effective for such problems as IBS and nausea and vomiting, the question may be raised why this kind of treatment is not more widely available or generally offered to patients with such GI problems. One limitation is the fact that not everybody is equally hypnotizable. Research has consistently shown that at least 15% of people are practically non-hypnotizable, and even those who are able to enter a hypnotic state vary greatly in how well they respond. Interestingly, the ability to be hypnotized is a stable mental trait. In other word, if you are highly hypnotizable now, you will most likely be so also in thirty years. Fortunately, the majority of people are sufficiently hypnotizable to have a potential for enjoying at least some of the medical and psychological benefits of clinical hypnosis. Furthermore, the idea of being hypnotized does not agree with all people. Even individuals who are sufficiently hypnotizable, may not like the idea of "letting go", may have difficulty trusting a therapist to guide them in hypnosis, or may have other concerns about the hypnosis experience. Fortunately, other forms of psychological treatment for gastrointestinal problems - in the case of IBS especially cognitive-behavioral therapy -- have also been found to be effective and are good alternatives. Finally, an obstacle which has barred many patients from receiving help for gastrointestinal disorders with hypnosis is the fact that in the U.S. the technique is more commonly used by psychologists and other mental health professionals than by physicians. Many mental health professionals who use hypnosis are not accustomed to treating gastrointestinal disorders, and therefore reluctant to take on treatment of such problems. As the reliably beneficial effects of hypnosis on gastrointestinal functioning become better known both to health professionals and the general public, this benign and comfortable form of treatment will hopefully become a more popular treatment option for GI patients - especially for those who have not received much relief from standard medical management. As far as IBS is concerned, we have been making an effort in the last two years to encourage clinicians across the country who have adequate training in hypnosis to provide such treatment for IBS. We have done this by providing them, free of charge, with the complete standardized treatment protocol which has proven effective in our research. To date, more than eighty licensed health professionals, practicing in almost all states, are started using our protocol, making it a little bit easier for patients in many geographical locations to receive help with hypnosis. References 1. Beaugerie, L., Burger A.J, Cadranel J.F, Lamy, P., Gendre J.P., & Le Quintrec, F. (1991). Modulation of orocaecal transit time by hypnosis. Gut, 32, 393-394. 2. Whorwell PJ; Houghton LA; Taylor EE; Maxton DG. Physiological effects of emotion: assessment via hypnosis. (1992). Lancet, 340, 69-72 3. Klein K.B., & Spiegel, D. (1989). Modulation of gastric acid secretion by hypnosis. Gastroenterology, 96, 1383-1387. 4. Colgan, S. M. , Faragher, E. B. , & Whorwell, P. J. (1988). Controlled Trial of Hypnotherapy in Relapse Prevention of Duodenal Ulceration. The Lancet, 1(8598), 1299-300. 5. Whorwell, P.J., Prior, A., & Faragher, E.B. (1984). Controlled trial of hypnotherapy in the treatment of severe refractory irritable bowel syndrome. Lancet, 2, 1232-1234. 6. Prior A., Colgan, S.M., Whorwell P.J. (1990). Changes in rectal sensitivity after hypnotherapy in patients with irritable bowel syndrome. Gut, 31, 896-898. 7. Houghton, L.A., Larder, S., Lee, R., Gonsalkorale, W.M., Whelan, V, Randles, J., Cooper, P., Cruikshanks, P., Miller, V., & Whorwell, P.J. (1999) Gut focused hypnotherapy normalises rectal hypersensitivity in patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Gastroenterology,116: A1009. 8. Palsson, O.S., Burnett, C.K., Meyer, K., and Whitehead, W.E. (1997). Hypnosis treatment for irritable bowel syndrome. Effects on symptoms, pain threshold and muscle tone. Gastroenterology, 112, A803. 9.Palsson, O.S., Turner, M.J., & Johnson, D.A. (2000). Hypnotherapy for irritable bowel syndrome: Symptom improvement and autonomic nervous system effects. Gastroenterology, 118,(4) A174.This is a public website from the doctor above a renown Dr in IBS and Hypnotherapy.www.ibshypnosis.comI could also post about pain and hypnotherapy and nausea and hypnotherapy and about possible hormones connections,and stress hormones and about the immune system and on the benefits of general relaxtion and excess body tension and anxiety and stress, anticipation, distraction and parts of the subconcious that run digestion and even some phycological food issues and even reason to believe it is altering neurotransmitters for the better and calming the central nervous system and fight or flight responce ect.. If you want more information just let me know.These more worth reading. http://www.med.unc.edu/medicine/fgidc/relax.htm http://www.ibsgroup.org/other/usnews000403.htm http://www.ahealthyme.com/topic/mindbodygu...TVTWCYSYZSFEQ#0


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## Call_Me_Colt (Apr 27, 2002)

Thanks, Eric. It appears to me that the studies show that hypnotherapy is very successful for treating many physical disorders, including IBS. From what I read, The actual how's and why's are still a mystery.Just how powerful and open to suggestion is the brain? I believe that the positive suggestions used to treat IBS are combating negative suggestions that the brain took in which started the IBS in the first place. Could a set of detrimental suggestions such as "If you ride in a car, you may not be able to make it to a bathroom" have found their way into the brains of IBS sufferers while their subconscious mind was vulnerable and accepting them as reality? In other words, is it possible that the true cause of IBS may have been by our own self-hypnosis and believing negative thought patterns? All of us IBS sufferers consciously know that the triggering thoughts are not true, but we somehow have been self-hypnotized to believe them. SO I RAISE THIS LONG QUESTION. IF HYPNOTHERAPY WITH CONTINUAL POSITIVE THOUGHT PATTERN REINFORCEMENT IS THE CLOSEST THING TO A CURE FOR IBS, COULD THE TRUE CAUSE OF IBS BE EQUALLY THE SAME BUT OPPOSITE IN THAT CONTINUAL NEGATIVE THOUGHT PATTERN REINFORCEMENT CREATES THE IBS AND KEEPS IT WITH US AS LONG AS WE CONTINUE TO THINK THAT WAY? IS THE CAUSE THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF THE CURE?


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## eric (Jul 8, 1999)

callmecolt, I am working today, but will come back to this and try to answer some of this the best I can.







There is a physical problem in the gut though and I will go over this for you.


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## cookies4marilyn (Jun 30, 2000)

Yes, yes and yes. You have nailed it right on the head. Go back and re-listen to Mike's introduction and he says this very thing. In fact, we were discussing this recently. You do not have to belabor the why's and wherefores of IBS as a funcitonal disorder,as Mike says just to listen and relax and replace all the negative IBS thoughts with positive ones. It is like a well-worn groove in the IBS record that the brain automatically thinks, OK, going shopping, time for some D! The HT retrains the brain to dissassociate those thoughts and replace them with the fact that you are in control... this all on a subconscious level, just as the negative thoughts are.On a physical level, the gut of IBS patients is hypersensitive and the motility is out of whack. The trigger for this is the thoughts as you mention, but it is on an automatic level; the brain transmits to the gut... the brain-gut connection. But it is not necessary to dwell on it, in fact, it is best you just listen, because the program is such that you gradually and in a subtle way start to feel better. By bringing all this into the conscious mind, it is ok, but not a necessary component to feeling better.Hope this helped ya a tad bit! Take care!


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## eric (Jul 8, 1999)

Call me colt, Marilyn answered this well for you which is why I did not rush back to post.Hope your doing well if you have any more questions keep them coming and will do our best to answer them.







Just fyi but they have a lot of research pointing to IBS is a brain-gut dysfunction and HT helps the two communicate together better in most people.


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## cloverleaf (Dec 18, 2001)

Colt- I have been thinking the same types of things that you expressed, in the past year or so. I believe that I did and do have some GI troubles, but I kept associating them with negative thoughts and worsening symptoms. I believe it's easier for the mind to create disaster than create harmony and optimism. Or maybe this is just true for IBS-ers, who are lucky enough to have weak GI systems and weak positive thoughts about our GI systems. In any case, I consider my treatment of IBS to be a path of reversal of the path I took to get to bad IBS. I believe I have to take baby steps to believe I can feel better in anxiety-provoking situations, then actually feel physically a little better than before in the situations, then build on that. I have seen some progress, but I believe you are on the right track when it comes to why IBS spirals out of control rapidly and why it's so difficult to get back to where we were when we first had symptoms.


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## AZMom (Oct 13, 1999)

Absolutely Colt! You've got it!The problem is that we can't change those thought patterns with conscious effort. Hypnosis gets past the conscious mind to the subconscious where the changes are effective. Some people may not realize their thought patterns affect their IBS. For instance, I had a pattern of having a D attack when I was at the library. I remember thinking "Everytime I go to the library I have a D attack." Well, my subconscious mind accepted that thought as a fact, made that thought a reality and everytime I went to the library I had an attack.I don't know if you've done the tapes yet. You may not recognize my name because I don't stop by often. I'm too busy getting on with life, and IBS is no longer much of an issue for me. No more D, no more anxiety, no more worry...It's great!AZ


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## Jadair (Aug 28, 2002)

Colt,Thank you so much for asking the questions you did, it helped me understand more then I thought I knew.Thank you to everyone who answered Colt's questions, I learned more then I have known. I am a person who just loves to learn, and to learn from people with the same problem (IBS) as I have, makes it much easier to understand.Thank you all, and, I







Love







you all. You're My kind of people/Friends.







Take care for now...







Jadair---


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