Being chronically ill: how do you get on with your life?

Life comes with ups and downs, and sometimes those downs are such that they "bother" you for the rest of your life. Does this mean you can't get any more ups? Certainly not, because the way you deal with chronic illness determines whether you can still get a nice up in your life.

When are you chronically ill?

You have a chronic illness if you have a condition that generally does not go away. Examples include asthma, diabetes, irritable bowel syndrome, arthritis, COPD, kidney disease, Parkinson’s disease, and similar conditions.

You may also suffer from chronic pain due to the condition, but you don't have to.

Self-management of chronic illness

Of course, chronic illness can leave you needing a lot of medical help. With some kidney diseases, you simply cannot do without dialysis, and so you may have other conditions that require regular visits to a doctor or other specialist.

Of course, take care of yourself physically and see medical experts as needed for your chronic illness.

In addition to the help you can get from certain medical experts, self-management is also an important part of being chronically ill, and that is specifically about how you cope with your life and the problems you may experience because of the disease.

When it comes to self-management, it’s helpful—first and foremost—if you believe you can handle the responsibility of taking care of yourself. For example, you believe that you can stick to a healthy diet and regular exercise, such as when you have diabetes.

In addition, good self-management is also important for maintaining and improving your well-being, mental state, functional state and quality of life[1].

I am chronically ill

If you are chronically ill you may feel that there is nothing you can do about it, because after all, you "have" it or in the case of chronic depression, for example, then you "are" it.

I often say, "It's not you, it's you." Now you don't have to take that entirely literally. If you have asthma, you have it. If you have diabetes, you have that.

What I am trying to make clear with that sentence above all else is that you can do a lot yourself to suffer less and seek help to deal with your illness in a different way.

You can then change the aspect of your chronic illness that you, so to speak, “create” because of certain beliefs you hold about the condition, so that you are only bothered by the symptoms that truly stem from the illness and are no longer troubled by your own thoughts about how the condition affects your life.

Hypnosis for chronic illness

For example, did you know that you can use hypnosis to affect asthma? Some people can use hypnosis to be less bothered by something getting in the way of your airways and to reduce respiratory sensitivity and reactivity.

The way hypnotherapy is delivered is especially important to the success of that treatment[2].

Another chronic condition that hypnosis can help you suffer less from thoughts is irritable bowel syndrome (PDS). With this syndrome, you may suffer from inflammation in the intestines, and research shows that stress, anxiety and depression can worsen the symptoms of PDS.

Hypnotherapy focused on the abdomen can reduce IBS symptoms. This is partly because it gives you a sense of greater control over your symptoms, which in turn reduces stress and other anxieties. It also improves your overall quality of life[3].

There are now also preliminary studies into the role hypnosis can play for people with type II diabetes . These pilot studies show that hypnosis holds promise for managing the disease. In one study, participants who received hypnosis experienced less stress after the session and had better control over their blood sugar levels than the group that did not receive hypnotherapy[4].

If you have COPD, it’s important to quit smoking. This is often done with hypnosis. In addition, a pilot study shows that hypnosis can not only help people with COPD quit smoking, but it can also help slightly improve lung function. During the study, techniques such as visualizations and breathing exercises were used while the client was under hypnosis[5].

With some chronic conditions, you may also suffer from pain, such as arthritis. Many older people suffer from this. Hypnosis can therefore play a role in managing pain. An exploratory study that used hypnosis against pain on thirty elderly people who suffered from pain due to arthritis found that they all felt a significant difference[6]. So this is quite promising.

How does hypnosis work for chronic illness?

So hypnosis can do a lot that will make you suffer less from pain, other symptoms, stress, anxiety and depression due to being chronically ill, but how does hypnosis do it?

Hypnosis is a state in which your attention is focused, usually that focus is on the therapist. You can also fall into hypnosis naturally, such as when you are completely absorbed in a movie or book and lose track of time.

In the case of hypnotherapy, the therapist gets you into that state and you become absorbed in the suggestions he or she gives.

Hypnosis against pain and discomfort

In the case of pain or discomfort, visualizations are often used. With PDS, you focus your visualization on the abdomen in order to gain a sense of control over your abdomen. For example, you can visualize how your gut is actually completely calm and functioning properly. You can visualize how a magic light removes inflammation from your body. Of course, it's not that this happens immediately, but the visualization can allow you to relax, which in turn helps your immune system to function better.

In fact, stress partially blocks the normal function of your immune system. So visualizing that you can do something about it internally can bring a lot of relaxation.

However, if there are times when you feel this isn’t appropriate, you can also use other visualizations to help you relax.

You can also control pain with visualizations where you can turn your pain up and down, so to speak, just as you can with music. This requires the state of hypnosis and proper guidance from a hypnotherapist to pull this off.

Hypnosis for managing your illness

In addition to managing pain, hypnosis can also help you manage your illness. For example, your ideas about healthy eating and exercise can be examined closely. This can help you eliminate limiting beliefs and shift your focus from all the things you can’t do because of your chronic illness to all the things you can do.

Much of it also depends on your sense of ability and self-confidence.

For example, you might think you can’t go anywhere because someone would have to drive you. You might then feel like you’re a burden to someone, even though that person would be happy to drive you. But that person might not be able to say so, because they’re afraid they’ll seem like they’re feeling too sorry for you, instead of just wanting to help you have a nice day. Asking for help can become a lot easier with hypnosis.

For example, you can visualize how you can get certain things done.

Hypnosis for your thoughts and disease

Much of what you do depends on how you think. Your thoughts, in turn, often depend on unconscious beliefs about how life works and how you are supposed to function in it. This can be very difficult when you are chronically ill, especially if you think you have to do everything yourself and that nothing should go wrong.

What beliefs block you from doing certain things that are good for you, such as walking or eating healthier, you can find out with hypnosis. Then you can also change those with hypnosis.

This is sometimes a matter of noticing how ridiculous a certain belief is and setting a new belief in opposition to it.

Sometimes the issue is a bit more complicated, and in those cases, you often turn to regression. Through regression, you go back to the moment when a belief formed that no longer serves you. These are often moments from your childhood, perhaps long before you became chronically ill. You then reexamine this moment, which can provide you with many new insights that make it easier to maintain a positive mindset even while living with a chronic illness.

Would you like to learn more about hypnosis and how you can use it to help people? Then join us for the free online masterclass.

Or enroll in one of our training courses.

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