Hypnosis: Reducing headaches without drugs

Headaches are incredibly annoying because they cause you to actually just be unable to do anything. If you only suffer from a headache and nothing else, you may still think you have the energy to accomplish tasks. However, if you are busy, you notice that the headache prevents you from doing so. Even socializing with friends and family is out of the question when you have a headache.

In this blog, we discuss how hypnosis can stop or relieve headaches.

Types of headaches

There are all kinds of headaches you may suffer from such as:

Tension headaches, migraines, cluster headaches, sinus headaches, hormonal headaches, medication -induced headaches , and headaches caused by underlying medical conditions.

Not every type of headache can be treated with every type of hypnosis. Self-hypnosis often helps, but sometimes specific hypnosis techniques are needed for one type of headache that aren’t necessary for another. Hypnosis in general can help with all kinds of headaches, but the approach may vary depending on the type of headache.

So here's a little overview of in what ways hypnosis can help with headaches.

Tension headaches and hypnosis

Headaches in your face, neck, and head can be caused by tension, and hypnosis works very well against this type of headache. Hypnosis can be especially helpful when the pain is exacerbated by emotional or mental issues.

In the study making this clear, acupuncture was compared to hypnosis. Hypnosis helped the best of the two treatments. People were given a sound recording as a treatment with healing suggestions on it[1].

Migraines and hypnosis

In any case, research already shows that hypnosis helps against migraines. People combining hypnotherapy with relaxation exercises helped in the short- and long-term against migraine attacks.

In the studies, people used visualizations, muscle relaxation, and techniques to reposition pain[2].

For example, during hypnotherapy, you can suggest to people with headaches that they move the pain from their head, to their neck, to their shoulder, to their arm, to their finger, and then the pain can flow out of the body through the finger. For example, they can point to something where they then send the pain.

Muscle relaxation is also good to give along with guided visualization.

Recurring headaches

Sometimes you have a headache that keeps coming back. This can also affect children and young adults. A study on the effect of self-hypnosis on these types of headaches found that when children and adolescents learn self-hypnosis it reduces the amount of headaches that come back. On average, participants had headaches 4.5 times a week before learning self-hypnosis, and that went down to an average of 1.5 times a week with self-hypnosis.

Headache intensity also went down from a 10.3 to a 4.7. And the amount of time they suffered from headaches also went down from more than 23 hours, to three hours.

So if you suffer a lot from headaches, learning self-hypnosis can very well help you suffer less from them. At least if you are still young[3], but even if you are older I'm sure it can't hurt 😊.

Cluster headache

Cluster headache is a terrible type of headache that is terribly painful. Currently, deep brain stimulation is something that can work against cluster headaches, but there are few treatments that are sure to work well against these headaches.

Research from the 1980s shows that progressive relaxation can reduce but not eliminate the pain of cluster headaches[4]. So relaxing with hypnosis is something that could provide some relief, but unfortunately it is not the way to get rid of cluster headaches.

Hormonal headaches

As a woman, you may be experiencing hormonal headaches if you’ve only started having regular headaches since you began menstruating. These headaches often go away after menopause and are caused by fluctuations in your estrogen levels[5].

Hormonal headaches are often migraines or tension headaches[6], and you may also experience other symptoms such as nausea, breast tenderness, lower back pain, and cramps.

If you become pregnant, hormonal headaches may be more common during the first trimester, but they often disappear in the last two trimesters.

Medicated headaches

Medication-induced headaches are often caused by people taking too much medication. Paradoxically, the use of pain relievers in particular can actually worsen headaches[7].

For example, people who get a painkiller at the drugstore because they suffer from headaches often use that medication several times a week. So actually really quite regularly. Ironically, in people with chronic headaches, the pain medication may be the very reason for the chronic headaches.

So it's important then to stay off those medications so that your pain receptors can return to normal and you can stay free of headaches without medication.

Even prescription medications, such as those for depression and codeine, can actually cause headaches when taken in certain doses (source 7).

It is always wise to check with your doctor to see if medication could be a cause and to see if you can then reduce that medication.

Hypnotherapy can be very helpful if you want to reduce and eventually stop certain medications.

Best of all, research shows that hypnotherapy is at least as effective against tension headaches and migraines as many medications that can be used against them[8].

Headaches due to an underlying condition

Headaches sometimes come from things other than stress and just plain bad luck. In fact, it can also be a symptom of other problems, such as cerebrovascular disease. This refers to conditions that occur because there is something wrong with the blood supply to your brain.

A possible consequence could be, for example, a stroke or a brain hemorrhage.

It is important (especially if you are older) to also discuss this option with your doctor if you suffer from headaches that just won't go away.

Hypnotherapy for headaches

So for many types of headaches, hypnosis helps reduce the attacks and the amount of time you have a headache, but how does a hypnotherapist do it?

Tension headaches and migraines are often caused by stress, and stress is a reaction you have to circumstances in your life. You often don’t like those circumstances, and that causes you stress. But why don’t you like those circumstances?

This stems from the beliefs you hold about life, the world, and how you’re supposed to function within it.

Only if you suffer from headaches all the time is something wrong. In that case, those beliefs may prevent you from realizing that your life is actually just fine, or they may prevent you from standing up for yourself and setting boundaries, which leads to stress.

Whichever of these two possibilities for stress it is, you can figure it out with hypnotherapy.

There are several ways a hypnotherapist can do this. Initially, there will be an exploration session in which you state your own ideas about possible causes. The therapist can then incorporate those ideas into treatment.

Once you’ve been put into a hypnotic state, other exercises can be performed. For example, you can work with symbols to eliminate sources of stress.

Regression can be used to identify the cause of limiting beliefs and to correct them[9].

Instead, do you have difficult family relationships that cause stress? Then you can also work with the social panorama. A technique that helps you to look at your family and friends in a different way, making you less bothered by them.

Stress reduction can be done in many ways; there are even more options than just these two.

Pain relief with hypnotherapy

In addition, hypnosis can also be used practically against pain. For example, you can visualize how certain colors or lights cleanse your head inside and thus "brush away" the pain.

Or you can visualize how to use a button to make the pain worse or less bad.

This may sound a little implausible as you read this, but these types of techniques work with hypnosis. Especially if you have already worked on stress and other causes of headaches.

Would you like to learn more about hypnosis and how you can use it to help yourself—or others—get rid of headaches? Then join us for the free online masterclass.

Or sign up right away for one of our seminars or training programs. There, you’ll learn the techniques mentioned above and more to help people overcome stress, tension, anxiety, and other problems.

The training is delivered online from a professional studio and with plenty of 1-on-1 attention so you can fully master the material.

Ideal if you coach people, provide psychological help or work with people in any other way.

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