Hay fever tablets: How about hypnosis?
Years ago, a man came to me who had suffered from hay fever all his life. This is an interesting problem because there is often not much you can do about it. You can get drops or even sniff something, but that is often only symptom control.
Most people get completely exhausted by this. He did all of this too, but he could no longer run, even though that was his passion and his life.
Hay fever is like that annoying neighbor
In the exploratory interview, I explained to him how I see an allergy. I said, "I compare it to your neighbor. Do you have one? Nice guy? Now imagine you are walking outside, you see him and then you react to that in a certain way. Probably friendly by saying hello.
But now imagine that you don't like your neighbor at all. You think he's a jerk, an asshole. Then you'd probably react very differently, say irritated. You could also react very differently to those people, in theory. To that piss bucket of a neighbor. You could also react kindly. Could.
That neighbor is like that little pollen in your nose. With me he does nothing, but with you tears roll out of your head. You would like to respond differently to this, but you don't know how. Just like with that neighbor. You know somewhere that you could react differently, but he just gets under your skin. This is exactly the same with that little poll. You are reacting to something and that is behavior."
That’s also how it’s defined in the Dikke Van Dale. Behavior is reacting to something or someone. The poll is reacting to something. So it’s behavior. So it’s something you do, and therefore you could also do something else.
I'm going to teach you how you might respond differently.
There are a few ways to do that with hay fever.
What does hay fever get you?
For example, you can look at what hay fever brings you. What does that fatigue bring you, for instance? This can be quite difficult, but the idea is that everything stems from a positive intention. That way of thinking is quite difficult for people. That you almost always do something because it brings you something positive. Even if you do something that seemingly brings you nothing but crap, it’s still something that brings you something.
For example: if you get hay fever, then you can't do certain things. Then you can't do certain things. And it could be that that's a positive thing for you. Because you might not want to go there, but you might not dare to say so. Then hay fever is a perfect excuse not to go.
You also see this in people who have been traumatized. They associate certain behaviors with that trauma that prevent them from ending up in the same situation again. For example, some people become so overwhelmed that they can no longer find themselves in certain situations. Some people, of course, become very afraid—most people can understand that. Some people, on the other hand, develop hay fever.
Imagine someone has been assaulted in a hayloft or farmhouse. Now you may think this is far-fetched, but make no mistake. The person in question did not know, never linked the two events. That hay fever took on a life of its own. Until you look back and think "Hey wait a minute so this happened.
Then it's still pretty obvious. There is correlation.
Regression to resolve hay fever
But with this gentleman, we went into regression—back in time—and arrived at a situation where he had just returned from the pool. His eyes were extremely red from the chlorine, which he didn’t tolerate very well. When he got home, his grandfather saw him and immediately said, “You have hay fever, just like me.” Then he replied, “Well, no, I think it’s the chlorine.” Grandpa then said, “No, I have hay fever, you have hay fever, your dad has hay fever—everyone has hay fever. You have it now, too. Now you have to start doing all kinds of things—using eye drops, nasal sprays, and that sort of thing.”
From that moment on, he had hay fever. While he didn't.
We reversed that decision during the regression. He realized that this was merely a suggestion from his grandfather. As a result, he can now simply enjoy running and act normally.
These kinds of conscious moments are hard to figure out after all this time. In hypnosis, we found out. For example, I know of several cases where the person started creating hay fever because it gave them something.
Like that they can then stay home, get out of school earlier or just even want to get away from the environment, but were afraid to say so.
For example, someone had bought a dream home, but still didn't quite like it. So what do you tell your partner? That you want to leave anyway? So that person got hay fever in one year, so they had to move.
So I invite you to think about it that way. What is the positive intention? Isn't this just something I do, but why am I doing this?
Then you'll find that when you figure it out, you'll also find it easier to resolve.
Feel and retrieve the feeling you don't have
What we as hypnotists often do with an allergy technique is we say, "In some places you don't have it." For example, at the beach you don't have it or you don't do it. Then that makes sense because you don't have trees there.
If you then imagine that you are there and you start to feel completely like you are really there and you anchor that for yourself with a gesture or sound, so you can easily go back to that feeling. You slowly move with that feeling to the environment where pollen is present, then you can easily transfer this behavioral program from hay fever reactions to a behavioral program without hay fever reactions. You are then going to behave as far as hay fever is concerned as you would at the beach, namely not.
This is pretty short, though, because you often spend a day or at least an hour to change this. Maybe the program was once valuable to do and had a function? But if it no longer has a function or value, then it can go away.
I still see many people around me suffering from hay fever, even though my students and I have helped so many people overcome it. It’s just a shame not to give it a try.
Be sure to listen to this podcast as well:
Self-hypnosis against hay fever
Anchoring and evoking the feeling of not having hay fever is a form of self-hypnosis. A study on the impact of self-hypnosis on hay fever shows that it dramatically reduces symptoms and the use of all remedies.
Similar to regular hypnotherapy, this technique was taught to participants in an average of 2.4 sessions. After a year, the symptoms were gone, so much so that even the control group was fed up and had since taught themselves hypnosis as well. After 2 years, in the first group the symptoms were still gone and also in the control group - who did not want to wait, because there was a solution that was ultimately much cheaper and more enjoyable - they suffered much less to no hay fever[1].
A 1982 study was also conducted on the stuffy nose or runny nose you can get from hay fever and the effect hypnotic suggestions have on it. There were 3 things examined in this study, hypnosis, a placebo and a hay fever medication. Here's the thing: hypnosis and the placebo had the best effect on reducing nasal symptoms[2].
The interesting thing is that the placebo effect is also a kind of hypnosis effect. It influences your beliefs. So if you believe (truly feel) that you won’t suffer from hay fever, then you won’t suffer from it.
So with hypnosis, you can achieve this.
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Sources:
[1] https://www.karger.com/Article/Abstract/84001
[2] https://www.elibrary.ru/item.asp?id=7391125