Of course, pain is very annoying whether you are a woman or a man. The point I want to make is that women suffer from chronic pain more often than men. In doing so, women generally deal with pain differently than men. Fortunately, hypnosis can do a lot to reduce pain whether you are a man or a woman.
The difference between men and women in pain
There are a number of logical explanations why women suffer more from pain than men. For example, women have more nerves that transmit pain than men.
Your skin thickness and body size can already have a tremendous impact on how you feel in pain. Women are generally smaller than men and have thinner skin.
In the process, women also pay more attention to pain than men. Women sense that something is wrong, because pain, and then go to a doctor. While men still tend to ignore pain if it is not too extreme. As a result, some men may unfortunately turn to a doctor too late as a result. So always see a doctor if you suffer from pain and it persists for an extended period of time, such as a week.
Because of this, women are also more likely to be diagnosed, which may also explain why statistics say women suffer more from pain than men.
In addition, male and female hormones also play an important role in pain perception, and since they are present in different amounts in men and women anyway, this can also explain the difference in pain perception. Between boys and girls, for example, there are very few differences in pain and then there are also very few differences in hormones.
Chronic condition
As mentioned, women are more likely to suffer from chronic conditions than men. Conditions such as fibromyalgia, endometriosis, chronic bladder pain, vulvodynia and Temporomandibular dysfunction are more common in women than men. Three of these conditions may also occur only in women.
Thereby, even with diseases such as cancer, women are more likely to report pain and the intensity is worse.
Hypnosis for chronic pain
Hypnosis can help with chronic pain in several ways. First, your beliefs about pain and impact of pain on your life are scrutinized by the hypnosis expert. Next, you are given techniques that teach you to suffer less from the pain.
One such technique is visualization that reduces chronic pain. For example, you might visualize how a heat lamp takes the pain out of you because of the relaxing warmth you get from it. Or you can get a different kind of visualization that focuses more on pleasant memories and thoughts and moments on symbols that are important to you.
Example: You love the color green and get calm in the woods. In this case, a guided visualization can take the following form.
"You walk through the forest. It's a very nice forest with grass on the ground and deciduous trees. You hear a nice breeze blowing through the leaves and occasionally the rays of the sun reach you. It is nice and warm in the forest and the leaves keep it from getting too hot and not too cold. In a patch where the grass is nice and thick you lie down. You relax and let all the greenery around you relax you. The sun shines through the green leaves and the green light reaches your body. The green light causes all the sore spots to be nicely warmed so the pain becomes less and less intense. It is a wonderful relaxing feeling and you feel your breathing getting deeper and deeper as you start to feel better and better."
This is just an example of a guided visualization against pain. Depending on your symbols, you may get a different visualization.
Pain after surgery
If you've had surgery, it makes perfect sense that you're suffering from pain. Yet here too, medics notice the difference between men and women.
Immediately after surgery, women use more painkillers than men, but after more time has passed, men use more painkillers again than women.
Even painkillers can work differently. For example, women are more likely to get nauseous from morphine and codeine than men, and some painkillers have a stronger effect on women than men.
Hypnosis before and after surgery
Hypnosis is increasingly used in hospitals around surgery and sometimes even during surgery. Hypnosis before surgery is widely used to relieve anxiety. Fear of anesthesia or fear of the total lack of control you have at that moment.
After surgery, you get the very hypnosis that helps you cope with the pain. In fact, movement promotes healing after surgery, and if you then suffer from movement anxiety due to pain, it is detrimental to how soon you can leave the hospital again.
You can also use hypnosis during surgeries, but this is something you can really leave mostly to the truly trained hypnosis expert, even then a local anesthetic is pleasant.
One way to be less bothered by pain is to consider all that you can still do. A hypnosis expert will talk with you about how pain affects your life and what you can do despite pain to optimize your quality of life. You will then be given hypnotic suggestions that you can practice at home during self-hypnosis.
For example:
"When I move more I have less pain in the long run."
"I can still walk."
"People care about me and not the pain."
"I can have fun without exercising, too."
"I remain who I am, pain or no pain."
These are just examples of hypnotic suggestions. Depending on your symptoms and beliefs, you may receive other suggestions from the hypnosis expert.
Before practicing self-hypnosis at home, learn this from the hypnosis expert.
Emotions and pain
Unfortunately, unpleasant past events can also be found as a cause of pain. Research has shown that women who have been bullied or mistreated in their past are more likely to suffer from pain around the genitals and bladder.
This is because you remain alert after a traumatic event. Your body stays alert to danger and stimuli, such as pain, so you know to get away. Unfortunately, that alertness is often unnecessary and so is pain.
When you experience a lot of stress in daily life, your body is also more alert, as this is the instinctive response to danger. So when you have a lot of stress and negative emotions, you may also suffer from more pain symptoms.
Hypnosis against stress and trauma
Fortunately, hypnosis offers relief if you are suffering from trauma or stress. There are several techniques you can use to reduce stress, for example.
When stressed, there are a number of relaxation exercises you can make use of, such as:
- Visualization of a fine place.
- Breathing exercise.
- Muscle relaxation exercise.
For a visualization of a nice place, the hypnosis expert will ask you about things you like or places you have ever been where you were completely at peace. These things are then incorporated into a guided visualization about the fine place.
The breathing exercise is something that is also used to induce self-hypnosis. So it is very helpful if you have mastered that one. For the breathing exercise, you sit or lie down in a comfortable place. You close your eyes and relax your muscles. Then you gently breathe through your belly. Three counts in and three counts out. Doing this for a few minutes will bring you peace and more relaxation.
Sometimes it can be very difficult to relax your muscles. In that case, you start doing this very consciously, for example with a mindfulness body scan. You then tense and relax your muscles per body part. For example, you start with your feet and end with the muscles in your face. By consciously relaxing in this way, you also notice muscle tension faster and you can exercise more control over it.
In cases of trauma, NLP (neuro linguistic programming) is more commonly used. For example, with anchoring. This technique allows you to disconnect the emotions from the trauma. This does not mean that the emotions go away, but it does mean that events and objects that normally cause a flashback no longer do, and you suffer less panic because you see something that reminds you of the trauma.
Want to learn more about hypnosis and how you can help yourself or others with it? Then come to a playshop or check out the other events in our calendar.
Sources:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/how-healing-works/201808/why-is-it-more-painful-be-woman?collection=1079908
