Hypnosis

Hypnosis is widely known across the world, usually as an aid to combat addictions like smoking, or to lose weight, or get rid of phobias. It is also popular as a stage act. But research is being done to test the benefits of hypnotherapy and the claim that it helps us to improve our lives. A lot of people are either afraid or don’t believe. Is it mind control? Is it the devil’s work? Or is it a real tool that can be used to improve many aspects of our lives?

In 2007, a research team at Mount Sinai School of Medicine published their trial results showing that the use of hypnosis before surgery in breast cancer patients not only reduced the amount of anesthesia administered during the operation, but also pain, nausea, fatigue, discomfort, and emotional upset at discharge were greatly diminished in comparison with standard procedures. The time and cost of the procedure were dramatically reduced also, and the team concluded that, overall, the present data supports the use of hypnosis with breast cancer surgery patients.

In addition, researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine scanned the brains of hypnotized subjects and could see the neural changes associated with hypnosis. Fifty-seven brains were scanned in total using a guided hypnosis technique used clinically to treat anxiety, pain, or trauma. Altered levels of activity were recorded in distinct sections of the brain, and David Spiegel MD, the study’s senior author, concludes this is confirmation of which parts of the brain are involved in this kind of treatment. Consequently, he enthuses that how we use the mind to control perception and the body can be changed using this very powerful means. He also suggests that it has taken 150 years to acknowledge that the mind has something to do with pain and controlling it. “It is now abundantly clear that we can retrain the brain,” Spiegel writes.