Parkinson's disease is a debilitating illness that has a lot of impact on your life. Your motor skills become impaired, which can be incredibly frustrating. Therefore, this disease has more effects than just the physical motor aspect. Because of the difficulties it causes, you also face a mental challenge to keep the fun in life and to find the motivation to make every day a fun day.
What this disease is and how to deal with it I am going to explain in this blog.
What is Parkinson's?
Parkinson's disease is a progressive neurological disorder. Most people think of Parkinson's as the trembling hands that many patients suffer from, but that is not the only problem people with this disease struggle with.
For example, your arms stop moving as you walk. Your face shows less expression and even your way of speaking may change. Other symptoms include:
- Vibration of limbs, even when resting
- Slowing down movements
- Muscle stiffness that also limits your movement
- More bent body posture
- Reduced sense of balance
- Loss of automatic movement, such as waving the arms while walking or blinking the eyes.
- Changing how you talk
- Changing how you write, this is more difficult and your handwriting may appear smaller[1].
What causes Parkinson's?
It is not always entirely clear what causes Parkinson's, but there are factors that increase the likelihood of developing this disease. For example, trauma to the brain, such as boxers often have, contributes to the development of this disease.
Consider, for example, Mohamed Ali. This legendary boxer suffered from Parkinson's disease in old age.
There are also other influences, such as eating or drinking dairy products and exposure to pesticides[2].
Complications in Parkinson's disease
Because Parkinson's is a progressive disease, you may experience the following symptoms over time:
- Problems with thinking, dementia-like symptoms
- Depressive symptoms
- Anxiety
- Loss of motivation
- Problems with swallowing
- Problems with chewing
- Trouble sleeping
- Sleepwalking
- Problems with your bladder (control)
- Constipation
Parkinson's disease treatment
Generally, people with Parkinson's disease are given medication to reduce their symptoms. Dopamine, for example, is a substance that helps to reduce tremors, but over time habituation can occur, causing the tremors to return.
Thereby, dopamine often doesn't help as much during stressful periods, and you can certainly suffer from that if you have Parkinson's disease.
Therefore, other ways to treat the disease are also increasingly being explored. These can range from brain surgery to hypnosis.
Hypnosis and Parkinson's
As can be seen, Parkinson's disease has quite a few symptoms that are both physical and mental. For example, muscle stiffness can cause pain, and all the other symptoms and the progressiveness of the disease can in turn cause anxiety for the future and even depression.
There are certain treatments that slow the progression of the disease, such as brain stimulation. This stimulation is also performed while the patient is under hypnosis to reduce pain and anxiety during treatment[3].
Hypnosis Against Trembling
At times of relaxation, such as when you sleep, the tremors in people with Parkinson's disease diminish. Because hypnosis helps you relax, scientists have investigated whether hypnosis can also help reduce tremors when you are awake.
In this study, patients were examined during self-hypnosis with an EEG device. It showed that hypnosis can help reduce tremors. In the study, participants had to perform self-hypnosis three to four times a day. In addition, they had to use their normal medication[4].
So by learning self-hypnosis, you can do a lot to reduce tremors. A case study even shows that a 94% reduction is possible[5].
In the case study, the man received suggestions such as:
"You slip into a relaxed and calm hypnosis...deeper and increasingly calm with each breath...so that and relaxed...you are so relaxed that you can respond to any suggestion. There is a relationship between your body and your mind...and the further you get into the deep trance...the higher your levels of dopamine become...your vibrations become less a less...the dopamine...rises...and the vibrations become less..."
Hypnosis and anxiety
Because Parkinson's disease is progressive, it can cause a lot of anxiety. For example, people who receive dopamine sometimes find it difficult to cope with the fluctuations of the disease, because the dopamine should make them go away.
Those fluctuations can cause depressive symptoms, anxiety, panic attacks and even thoughts of suicide[6].
To reduce anxiety, several hypnosis techniques are possible. Most often, they focus on the beliefs you have that are causing the anxiety.
For example, many people with Parkinson's disease find that their social circle has limits and therefore are afraid of losing friends or losing close ties with family. By finding out where that fear comes from, it is possible to reduce it.
Beliefs can be found out in multiple ways. Such as with a Socratic conversation in which the why question is repeated several times. With this type of conversation you often find out that your beliefs are not based on anything. This already helps to reduce anxiety.
In the process, you can also get new hypnotic suggestions to help you reduce anxiety. You can often listen back to these suggestions on a self-hypnosis mp3 as well.
These may include the following suggestions:
"It's better to get to know your real friends," says the company's CEO, "but it's better to get to know your real friends."
"Enjoy the little things in life."
"Taking care of each other strengthens social bonds," says Mr. K.
"Love can be found in the most surprising places."
These are just examples of hypnotic suggestions. Depending on the problems you face as a Parkinson's patient, you may receive other suggestions from your hypnosis expert.
Hypnosis for anxiety can also help with depression symptoms in people with Parkinson's disease.
Hypnosis and sleep
Parkinson's and poor sleep also unfortunately go hand in hand. Of course, this can be due to the worries associated with Parkinson's and tremors. Hypnosis also helps you sleep better because it helps with relaxation.
There are a number of techniques that help relax. Initially, even breathing is encouraged and hypnosis causes you to relax your muscles as well. This can also be done very well with a mindfulness body scan.
Once that physical relaxation is there, of course you want the mental relaxation as well. Hypnosis can help with that mental relaxation in several ways, but a visualization of a nice place often works best before bed.
This is because this visualization can turn into a fine dream.
Initially, your hypnosis expert may help you with a guided visualization. You will first be asked about places you have been, where you felt completely comfortable and relaxed.
Then they can also ask for colors that have meaning for you, which can then be combined in the guided visualization.
A guided visualization can take the following form:
"You walk into the warm sea and lie down in the water. The wonderful warm water relaxes your muscles and you feel yourself floating. The weightless feeling relaxes you further. The warmth of the sun on your skin also relaxes your limbs. The yellow sun rays full of soothing energy make you feel nice and sleepy. You are not affected by vibrations and feel good and relaxed. You float away delightfully on the water."
This is just an example of a guided visualization for better sleep. Depending on your problems, preferences of fine places and symbolic colors, the guided visualization may differ from this.
When you work with your hypnosis expert to grab a good visualization, chances are you'll get to take it home on mp3 so you can listen to it before bed.
So Parkinson's disease has direct problems that can be addressed with hypnosis, such as the tremors, and indirect problems that can be addressed with hypnosis, such as the anxiety and sleep problems.
If you have Parkinson's disease, it is important to continue taking your medication and use hypnosis as an additional support for treatment.
Want to learn more about exactly how hypnosis works and how you can use it to help yourself or others? Then come to a hypnosis playshop or enroll in one of the training courses of the Hypnosis Institute Netherlands. Ask about online options if that suits you better.
[1] https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/parkinsons-disease/symptoms-causes/syc-20376055
[2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1474442216302307
[3] https://www.thieme-connect.com/products/ejournals/abstract/10.1055/s-0037-1603841
[4] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00029157.1990.10402910
