Vomiting is incredibly annoying. It gives you a foul taste in your mouth, it affects your teeth, and in the process you can start eating all over again when otherwise you just can't keep anything down at all. Whether you vomit on purpose or not, sometimes you just want to stop. To stop vomiting, in this blog I describe possible causes of vomiting, what you can do if you vomit on purpose and what you can do if you have another medical cause for vomiting
Why are you vomiting?
Initially, it is important to know why you are vomiting. This is because there are people who vomit on purpose and people who don't want to vomit at all, but for one reason or another (usually physical) can't stop.
Therefore, first check for yourself whether you are vomiting on purpose or not on purpose.
Vomiting is a symptom of...
Are you not vomiting on purpose? If so, vomiting may be a symptom of an underlying (physical) problem. As a woman, for example, you may be pregnant and suffer greatly from morning sickness. In some severe cases you may not be able to keep anything down, in which case you often suffer from GERD and require medical attention because you are eating for 2.
Vomiting can also be a symptom of a type of severe migraine. In the case of cyclic vomiting syndrome, vomiting is a type of migraine in which you may vomit 6 to 12 times an hour. This usually lasts for a few hours, but in severe cases, you can vomit appallingly for up to 3 weeks. No wonder then if you are desperately searching for ways to stop vomiting.
Fortunately, this condition can be treated well[1].
Vomiting due to psychological reasons
Unfortunately, some people vomit on purpose. If you just thought to yourself, I vomit fairly intentionally. I don't want to vomit, but I really do it myself, then chances are you are vomiting for psychological reasons.
Generally, people who vomit on purpose suffer from an eating disorder. This can include bulimia, anorexia and binge-eating or purging disorder.
Even with psychological reasons, the cause is not always in the person's environment. After all, the odds of throwing up on purpose are genetically 50%[2]. But if you vomit regularly, such as at least twice a week, the genetic probability becomes lower, at 8%. To tell if you have a disorder, it also looks at vomiting behavior and whether you have been vomiting on purpose twice a week for more than 3 months in a row, for example.
Still something to do something about, even if you can say it runs in the family. In fact, many conditions in which you vomit on purpose can be deadly in the long run. Anorexia, for example, is still an incredibly deadly disease.
Express vomiting, for example, is often used as a means of controlling weight and body shape. This is caused by feelings of not liking your body, and those feelings are often caused by the environment (possibly cultural environment) where being slim is important.
In doing so, people may consider being slim important for achieving success or for having a good life. Beliefs about the importance of being slim need not be true.
For example, the psychological reason is then that you feel you are not successful or happy, you think being slim is a solution to this. You find yourself not slim and to get slim faster you start vomiting.
Purging disorder and vomiting
If you suffer from purging disorder, you don't even have to eat so unhealthily. You may have a very normal diet, but in doing so you find it important to have nutrition out of your system. Vomiting and laxatives are then among the options you have given yourself for this.
People with this disorder, in addition to being dissatisfied with their weight, are more likely to suffer from depressive feelings than those who primarily use exercise to get their weight to their desired level[3].
Binge-eating and vomiting
Sometimes you just binge eat, and some people can handle it better than others. When you feel horrified by your binge eating, for example, you may start vomiting on purpose. This is something people with bulimia can also do.
Binge-eating is much related to judging your own body as if you were a stranger. This includes being dissatisfied with your body and having low self-confidence[4].
Eating disorders and vomiting
With bulimia, you often throw up food again after you have eaten and not always just after binge-eating, and someone with anorexia often does this after having to eat as well.
Beliefs and vomiting
As can be seen, eating disorders and intentional vomiting are something that often go hand in hand. The beliefs are often about how having a slim body will make you happy or make you successful at what you do.
A slim body becomes so important that you will do anything for it, like vomiting. While vomiting in general has an incredibly bad effect on teeth, and having nice teeth can also be important for having social connections.
The beliefs you have about being slim and its importance in the world often also largely determine whether or not you will vomit on purpose when you do not conform to the image of being slim while believing it is vital to your life.
Finding out the basis of your beliefs
Changing these beliefs is usually done with cognitive behavioral therapy and hypnosis. For example, changing beliefs is done by finding out the basis of a belief. This can be done by having a Socratic conversation or with regression.
A Socratic conversation involves repeating the why question several times to get to the core of your beliefs. So another way is regression. With regression you go back to the moment when your subconscious came up with a belief, that way you go back to the basis of the belief.
Because many beliefs originate in your childhood, that is often the moment you go back to during a regression. For example, the situation that can cause you to think being thin is incredibly important is because one of your parents was overweight and was fired. As a child, you may see a connection there that is not there at all for you as an adult. This realization alone can change your beliefs so much that it becomes a lot easier to stop vomiting.
Changing beliefs about the importance of vomiting
In particular, beliefs about being slim and its importance in getting success and happiness are often the cause of vomiting. Especially when combined with an environment that also considers being slim to be very important. Besides finding out the basics, sometimes more change work is needed.
Hypnosis can change beliefs and behaviors in 2 ways, with hypnotic suggestions or post-hypnotic suggestions. Hypnotic suggestions aim to supplant unhealthy beliefs with healthy beliefs. You can often also repeat these beliefs during self-hypnosis. These may include, for example:
"Being happy is a mental thing and has nothing to do with your body."
"Success comes from hard or smart work, not a slim body."
"Your success depends solely on you, not on what other people think of you," says the company's CEO.
"You only have to deal with people who make you happy."
These are just examples of hypnotic suggestions. Depending on your beliefs about the importance of vomiting, you may receive other suggestions from your hypnosis expert.
A post-hypnotic suggestion is precisely a suggestion that affects your behavior after you have been in hypnosis. For example, a post-hypnotic suggestion might be:
"You just had a delicious meal and you want your body to absorb all the nutrients properly to be healthy. You have absolutely no guilt and know that this delicious and healthy food is necessary for a nice and healthy body. You take a moment to feel how the food fills your stomach and how happy this makes you. You go on with your day and don't even think about vomiting anymore."
This is just one example of a post-hypnotic suggestion. Depending on your relationship with food, you may receive a different suggestion to help you stop vomiting.
So vomiting can be physical or more psychological. Don't have a clear cause? Then see a doctor first to make sure there isn't something physical going on with you. Then you can check if you have a mental aspect to the vomiting and for this you can get psychological help or seek help from a hypnosis expert. Vomiting is incredibly unhealthy, so seek help either way.
Want to learn more about how hypnosis works? Then come to a hypnosis playshop or enroll in one of our trainings. Ask about online opportunities.
[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/ajg2007549
[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4834264/
[3] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/eat.22811
[4] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/eat.22535
