Reducing Fibromyalgia symptoms with hypnosis

January 20, 2016

"You have to learn to live with it." A phrase many patients with fibromyalgia symptoms are told by their doctors. That's easier said than done. After all, when you suffer from fibromyalgia, you suffer from pain. Pain can turn your life upside down tremendously. It makes you less mobile, because moving around hurts, and it makes your ability to concentrate go downhill, because that pain is distracting. That's why in this article I go into what fibromyalgia really is and how you can use hypnosis to reduce the symptoms

What is fibromyalgia?

If you suffer from fibromyalgia, your brain’s pain processing mechanisms have become disrupted. As a result, various parts of the brain no longer function properly when it comes to processing pain stimuli correctly. Scientific research shows that activating different parts of the brain can already provide a different perspective on the pain experience in people with fibromyalgia. This alone shows that the brain misinterprets nerve signals, causing you to feel pain even though there is no logical explanation for it.

Then there's also the fact that pain is a subjective thing. We all talk about the pain threshold and that it can be pushed for a reason. Who doesn't know that a friend can tolerate pain a little better than you can, or that that person can't tolerate anything compared to you? This also makes fibromyalgia difficult to diagnose because one person suffers more than the other because his/her pain threshold is different.

What causes fibromyalgia?

Health scientists are not yet entirely sure what causes fibromyalgia. Stress, hormonal changes, and heredity are cited as possible causes. In addition, researchers are also looking at the neurotransmitter serotonin. This is because fibromyalgia primarily affects women, and it is known that women have as much as seven (!) times less serotonin in their brains than men.

So Fibromyalgia seems to take place mostly in your head, but a lot of the nerves that transmit a signal are really in the body. Therefore, a doctor will always examine a number of pressure points and your reaction to the examination to determine if you have fibromyalgia. The pressure points are mainly on the back, hips and around the joints in the limbs. These are the well-known 18 fibromyalgia tender points.

Fibromyalgia symptoms

In addition to pressure points that can be painful, a patient may also suffer from other pain symptoms:

Chronic muscle pain.
Tense muscles.
Fatigue or quickly running out of your daily energy.
Not waking up rested.
Stiffness while getting up.
Insomnia.
Not waking up rested.
Stiffness while getting up.
Stiffness after sitting in 1 position for a long time.
Concentration problems.
Memory problems.
Difficulty with simple tasks.
Bloating.
Nausea.
Constipation.
Diarrhea.
Tension headaches.
Migraine.
Jaw pain and facial pain.
Sensitivity to smells, sound, bright light, certain foods, cold and some medications.
Anxiety or depression.
Facial and/or limb numbness.
Need to pee more often or have that urge.
More trouble with exercise and the muscle pain afterwards.
Having a swollen feeling on the hands and feet without being swollen.

These are a lot of symptoms you may experience if you suffer from fibromyalgia. The symptoms can worsen throughout the day. Most people experience their symptoms especially in the evening. The symptoms can also get worse after a period of inactivity.

Even the weather and your hormone levels affect fibromyalgia symptoms.

Naturally, you want to reduce or eliminate these symptoms as much as possible.

Reduce fibromyalgia symptoms

To lead as normal a life as possible despite these bothersome symptoms, you naturally want to reduce them. Hypnosis is already used for pain management in many other medical conditions. That’s why hypnosis can be used to combat the pain of fibromyalgia and to reduce other symptoms.

Hypnosis suggestions

Scientific research shows that, when combined with hypnosis, cognitive behavioral therapy is more effective than the same treatment administered without the patient being under hypnosis. Forty-six people participated in this study. First, the patients were asked to rate their pain level on a scale of 1 to 10. They were then asked to rate their pain again after receiving a suggestion from a therapist, while some of the participants were under hypnosis. This demonstrated that pain levels fluctuated in response to the suggestions given by the therapist.

Visualization of pain

In particular, this research found that reducing pain through hypnosis and visualizations works best. For mentally magnifying the pain, there was no difference whether this was under hypnosis or not, but since we want to reduce pain, hypnosis is certainly something the researchers recommend for this as well. Visualization also used the scale from 1 to 10, but instead of visualizing what the pain was now, the desired scale was visualized. This helped well under hypnosis for reducing pain.

These two techniques, suggestions and visualizations, were also studied while people were in an MRI scanner. The brain images showed that hypnosis also has an effect on which parts of the brain are active and which are not. For example, the part that deals with how much pain you are in becomes less active under hypnosis. This may explain why hypnosis has a strong supportive effect on other therapies and treatments.

Regression

A stressful moment or traumatic event can also be a cause of fibromyalgia. Through regression, the hypnotherapist can help you view that moment in a different light. By observing the event as if from a third-person perspective, you can gain new perspectives that may alter the outcome of that event. By coming to terms with the stressful moment, you can sometimes resume your life with no or fewer fibromyalgia symptoms. Otherwise, there are other techniques that can help reduce the symptoms.

Relaxation

Because stress can contribute to the onset and worsening of fibromyalgia, relaxation to reduce stress is very important. When you use hypnosis, it always includes a relaxation exercise so that you can focus on your visualizations and suggestions during the session. In addition, relaxation also reduces stress.

Self-hypnosis

Visualizations and suggestions are directed by the hypnotherapist in a normal hypnosis session. By using self-hypnosis, you can also direct your thoughts and pain at home or at other times when you are struggling with fybromyalgia through your own visualizations and suggestions. A hypnotherapist can even give you homework for that.

In self-hypnosis, the first step is to relax. You can do this lying on your bed or in a comfortable chair. In doing so, you focus first on breathing. Next , you can repeat in your mind suggestions given to you by the therapist. Because fibromyalgia not only causes pain, but can also cause uncertainty, these are suggestions that address that.

One such suggestion might be:

"From my body is a lightness that causes the pain to fade more and more."

After that, you can also start visualizing. You then visualize, for example, that you have just no pain while you are exercising and that everything is going nicely. You can also visualize breathing out the pain and breathing in fresh, revitalizing and energetic air. Every breath again.

A study in which self-hypnosis was used by women suffering from fibromyalgia for three to six months found that they had a significant decrease in their symptoms. They felt that they were doing better overall, and sleep also improved dramatically.

Self-hypnosis during sports

Exercise helps manage fibromyalgia, but the condition itself makes it difficult to exercise. Self-hypnosis techniques can help you better cope with pain while working out, making exercise enjoyable again—or at least a little more so. For example, you can focus on the music you listen to while exercising or on your goal, such as experiencing less pain after exercising or achieving a fit body.

Summary:

Fibromyalgia is a very annoying disease that still causes a lot of misunderstanding. The symptoms may seem physical, but they can mainly be traced back to processes that go wrong in the brain. Stress and depression, for example, can cause fibromyalgia.

Hypnosis is already used for pain management and can also be the solution for fibromyalgia to "learn to live with the pain." This can be done through relaxation exercises, suggestions and visualizations. Scientific research has already proven that these techniques work to reduce fibromyalgia symptoms such as pain and insomnia.

In addition to therapist-led hypnotherapy, you can also apply self-hypnosis to better manage symptoms during daily activities and live a full and free life.

Would you like to learn more about what hypnosis can do for you, or how you can help others with hypnosis? Then check out the courses, webinars, and hypnosis events offered by the Hypnosis Institute of the Netherlands.

Also pin this handy infographic as a reminder:

Sources:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1016/j.ejpain.2008.06.010/abstract

http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/2003-06077-004

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00207144.2013.729441

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2752362/