# How does it work?



## gbrown546 (Aug 8, 2009)

Hey guys,I know CBT and Hypnotherapy appear to be the most helpful in easing the symptoms of IBS and sometimes making it go into remission but how and why is it so effective? I'm just curious to know Thanks


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

> In reviewing the research on the mechanism of action as to how hypnosis works to reduce symptoms of IBS, some evidence was found to support both physiological and psychological mechanisms of action.


http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15754863If you were to get the whole paper there would be more info.The way it seems to me (having done CBT for IBS) is that the brain and the gut nerves are connected and interact (I mean you can't really say they can't connect and can't interact as they have obvious connections to each other.Now some of the interaction is under your control, so your mind can intensify or damp down symptoms (like an athlete who can play the game with an injury and not really feel the injury but can barely limp off the field once they are done, that is the mind interacting with pain to damp it down when something else has to be done).So if you can change the feedback the gut nerves are getting from the brain (either the ones you consciously can control or the other feedback that happens whether you have higher thought processes or not) then you can reduce symptoms.I liked how one doctor described all functional illnesses (when the body part can do all the right things, but isn't for some reason). Basically no matter what the problem, the body part isn't getting the right feedback so it kinda goes on autopilot and does the best it can with either no (or in some cases the wrong) information. If you can reintergrate it so it now gets the right signals at the right times then the symptoms go away.


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