Sophie's Blog

US shotpoutter Adam Nelson has been talking to the Los Angeles Times  about how he has been using hypnosis to prepare for a gold medal at the next Olympics.

Brushing aside nay-sayers who told him that hypnosis was a load of baloney, Nelson has been working with sports hypnotherapist, Pete Siegel, and feels that he is benefiting from the experience. So strongly does he believe in the power of hypnosis as a kind of mental training that he has even allowed this video to be made of a hypnosis session with Siegel in his hotel room. 

Have a listen. It is always interesting to see how other therapists work. We are all a little different.

I love working with sportsmen and women. I have worked with many now, from show jumpers to waterskiers to runners. I don't generally get them shouting 'power words' when in hypnosis. I tend to create power 'anchors' that people can use to trigger feelings of focus, success and self-belief.

There are some other funny things I noticed about this video such as the Los Angeles Times' captioning of the video as 'Olympic medalist ritual'. Hmmmm... I had better go and get my ritualistic cloak out of the wardrobe, along with my pendulum and magic wand.

Have a play of the video. (I have been trying to embed it here but it doesn't seem to want to be embedded.) Let me know what you think. I'm off for a swim now.

Over the weekend, the news agency Reuters has been reporting on a UK study that suggests that hypnotherapy 'may help ease some of the bowel inflammation seen in ulcerative colitis' and may also be potentially helpful in other inflammatory bowel diseases such as Crohn's. 

The article rather curiously refers to 'hypnosis therapy' and "hypnotherapy," in inverted commas, almost as if the writer is embarassed to be speaking about the phenomenon. As this is such a short article, I'll reproduce some of it here: 

'Ulcerative colitis is a disease that causes chronic inflammation in the lining of the colon and rectum, leading to symptoms such as abdominal pain and diarrhea. There a number of medications for the disorder, but there is some research to suggest that hypnosis could serve as an additional therapy.

For example, "hypnotherapy" has been shown to aid irritable bowel syndrome and ulcers -- conditions that, like colitis, involve inflammation and can be worsened by psychological stress.

For the current study, UK researchers had 17 patients with active ulcerative colitis undergo a 50-minute session of "gut-focused" hypnotherapy aimed at relaxation and relief of inflammation. Another eight patients, who acted as a "control" group, listened to their choice of music for 50 minutes.

Afterward, the researchers found, blood levels of IL-6 -- a marker of inflammation in the body -- fell by 53 percent in the hypnosis group, whereas music listeners showed no substantial change. Similarly, certain other chemical markers of inflammation declined in the hypnosis group, but not in the control group, the investigators report in the American Journal of Gastroenterology.

"This work shows that a single short session of hypnosis can return some of the chemical changes in the bowel associated with inflammation back towards normal in patients with ulcerative colitis," senior researcher Dr. David S. Rampton, of Barts and the London, Queen Mary School of Medicine and Dentistry, told Reuters Health.

Exactly why hypnosis might ease inflammation is not clear. According to Rampton's team, the therapy might have direct effects on colon activity or it might affect people's pain tolerance or perceptions of their symptoms.

The current findings, Rampton said, provide "a scientific basis for a properly designed clinical trial" to see whether hypnotherapy, given over weeks or months, might benefit people with ulcerative colitis.'

So, bring on that clinical trial, please! I am pretty confident that the researchers will find that hypnotherapy is the single most efffective treatment for such bowel inflammation, in the same way that Dr Peter Whorwell has been researching and working with IBS so successfully at Withington Hospital, near Manchester for many years now. Dr Whorwell advocates hypnotherapy as the only truly effective treatment for IBS. It brings lasting and effective relief where there was previously none available.

The study also shows that hypnotherapy is not simply deep relaxation - as in listening to music - but that something else is going on when we work with the power of our subconscious minds. The study does not say what kind of hypnotherapy methods were used with the patients in the study but I suspect that it might have included visualisation techniques, such as those being used by Whorwell. 

A 53% drop in inflammation in the body is a pretty amazing outcome from one hypnotherapy session. If hypnotherapy were a drug, they'd be rushing to get the patents on it in place right now!  How wonderful that people can be taught to use self-hypnosis techniques easily and naturally for themselves.

So I do hope that anyone suffering from ulcerative colitis or IBS will benefit from the publicity around this latest research study. And if there is anyone out there reading this who would like more information about how to use hypnotherapy and self-hypnosis for the treatment of IBS or inflammatory bowel conditions, do please give me a call.  

I have just been reading this article in The Mirror about 'changing your mind set' to achieve successful weight loss.

The article contains some very good advice  such as thinking about losing weight not in terms of 'loss' but in terms of what you will gain. Regular readers of this blog will know that I hate the term 'weight loss'.

It also advises using your imagination to visulaise the future, slim and attractive you and letting-go of 'all or nothing thinking; about food and eating. 

All good stuff. And what i really like about this article is its use of the term 'hypno help'.

I'm loving that. Hypno help.

The article says:

Go for hypno help: If all this seems too much like a struggle, seek help. One solution is hypnotherapy, which works on a subconscious level to help you achieve a state of mind where you'll make healthy choices willingly. 

I rather like the fact that I can offer people 'hypno help'.

Off to do that right now...

Our local paper here in York in the North of England, where I run my practice, has been buzzing with the news that, according to a recent survey, York is the third happiest place to live in the UK. 

York was pipped to the post by Bristol and Wolverhampton, whilst apparently a little further Up North, our Geordie neighbours are amongst the most unhappy people in the UK, followed by people in Cardiff, Birmingham, Swansea and Leeds.

As this article explains, the survey was conducted by national food firm, Mr Kipling. Researchers spoke to 2,000 people nationwide and found that:

'almost half were happy with their life in general, and only six per cent were completely unhappy. Forty eight per cent were satisfied with their social life and 67 per cent were happy with their friends and family.'

The article goes on to say: 

'Researchers also discovered that it's not necessarily the big things that make us most cheerful, with more than 92 per cent saying they would be happier with a small, unexpected gift rather than an expensive car or holiday.

The findings show that Brits are peppering the day with small moments of happiness that provide light-hearted enjoyment to raise the spirits. A simple message from a loved one was named as the little thing which makes us happiest, followed by getting into a bed with freshly-washed sheets and waking up on a sunny day.'

This is great stuff, isn't it? Doesn't it just show that a little act of kindess or a simple ritual - and of course some sunshine - is all that most of us need to feel good.

So, if you're feeling a bit low today, why not write someone a little note telling them how specal they are to you, or get out into the sunshine for just a few moments - yes, it really is out there at the moment! - or make a list of all the very ordinary everyday things you can do that help you to feel good and then make a pact with yourself to do at least one of them a day for the next week. Feel happy now!

Just as a little aside to this topic, I actually noticed the headline 'York is third happiest place to live in UK' written on a hoarding for The York Press yesterday as Tom and I were enterng our local farm shop. As I commented on it to him, a very stylish lady in her seventies appeared at my shoulder, making a loud disapproving 'tutting' sound.

'We're supposed to have all these stylish restaurants and bars and plenty of things to do,' she said, shaking her head, 'Have you seen them? Because I haven't!'

So no matter where you are and whatever city you live in, you can still be happy - or indeed miserable. It depends on the way you choose to look at things. :-)

So I have just been browsing through one of my favourite magazines, Scientific American Mind, which has this great lead article called, 'How to Unleash Your Creativity'.

The article is an interview with three leading experts on creativity: Julia Cameron, author of 'The Artist's Way'; John Houtz, a psychologist and author of books on the educational psychology of creativity; and Robert Epstein, visiting scholar at the University of San Diego and author of several books on creativity.

What leaps out at me from all the different ideas explored in this article is the experts' agreement that everyone is creative in some way and that creativity is something that can be taught, cultivated and developed through particular exercises and techniques and by understanding certain approaches. 

In the article, Epstein says:

'One thing I like to do with people is to give them permission to have a daydream. We all just close our eyes and daydream together. It can be quite a liberating experience. Virtually everyone has amazing daydreams and dreams, and those can be used to boost creative output. In fact, when you really start letting yourself go, you can end up with too many ideas.'

Yes! And what better way to allow yourself to dream and day-dream than to use self-hypnosis. Or even Hypnotic Journaling. :-)

And, of course, you can use hypnotherapy to let go of any limiting blocks and beliefs that may have been holding you back from dreaming those dreams.

Although quite general, the article is well worth taking a look at as an introduction to some of the ideas and research in the area of the psychology of creativity.  

As regular readers of this blog will know, I love working with sportsmen and women to help them to enhance their performance, remove psychological obstacles and limiting beliefs and achieve great results. 

Maybe this is because I used to study ballet. Between the ages of three and fifteen, my dream was to become a prima ballerina. Ballet is one of those areas where performance and consistency are key to success and I know lots about the temptation to drive yourself towards a goal whilst ignoring physical signs that you should really be paying more attention to... like my poor old tendons, for example... :-)

I wish I had known back then what I know now about using hypnotherapy and hypnosis to train your mind for success as well as your body.

Roadcyclinguk.com has a great article here about using hypnotherapy to achieve peak performance and great results. The article states:

Sports Psychology utilising Hypnotherapy has been developing since the 1950s when, in the 1956 Melbourne Games, the Russian Olympic team employed the services of no less than 11 hypnotherapists to greatly enhance both the team and individual performances, with excellent results. They finished first in the medal rankings.

I didn't know that. Did you?

It goes on to say:

'You don't need to look too far in any sport though, to find champions using hypnotic techniques to improve performance. The reason most of them don't like to talk about it is because of the age-old myth that hypnosis is a magical power to make you do strange things. This is a misconception, in that nobody can be made to do anything against his or her will. The people we see on stage shows are pre-selected and vetted for willingness to co-operate. (If you really want to walk and squawk like a chicken, nobody is stopping you). Being in a hypnotic trance is simply like being in the Flow state, and you will recognise it immediately.'

Ha! Brilliant! A great bit of myth-busting. 

The article looks at the particular challenges facing cyclists and how hypnotherapy can help. It suggests that 'every sports person has different issues that need to be addressed, so a custom approach is always preferable to a ''cover all eventualities” scheme'.

A great article with sensible advice to cyclists and athletes everywhere. The photo accompanying the article did make me giggle though. Go and have a look!

I've been coming across a few mentions of this article from The Times about one young boy's story of using hypnosis to stop bed-wetting and how hypnotherapy compares to other treatments.

Before I go on to talk about this story, I'd just like to say here that, as I read through it, I began to feel a little concerned that The Times had used  the nine-year-old's real name.

Just imagine! The poor little guy goes to school and one of his classmates just happens to have found out that, until very recently, he wet the bed... because he read it in the paper over the weekend!

Now, you may think I'm being a little paranoid, but I think that my clients' confidentiality is crucial, particularly when I'm working with children, because they are not always in a position to make decisions for themselves about what to disclose and what not to disclose.

So I felt a bit cross with The Times about this article because there is absolutely no reason not to change the name of the boy in order to protect his anonymity. 

But back to the content of the article. It's a great story about how the boy in question used a CD made by hypnotherapist, Lynda Hudson, which helped him to stop wetting the bed completely in just three nights. 

His mother was apparently nervous about her son working one-to-one with a hypnotherapist and so chose the CD option. Sadly, the article doesn't go on to explore the mother's safety concerns, which is a shame because that is a real opportunity to discuss the safe and respectful framework that hypnotherapy provides for working with chidren. 

Within a month, the boy was continuously dry through the night and, best of all, he continued to fall asleep to the CD for the next three months because he found it so relaxing. In the article hs mother states:

'He started to wake up with a smile on his face and rapidly regained his confidence.'

Brilliant! And then comes the unexpected twist. The article goes on to say:

'Where Andrew was once withdrawn at school and in social situations, he now has high self-esteem, and even put himself up for school council this year.

"But the best testament to his new-found confidence is that he agreed to be featured and photographed for this article,” says Joanna [his mother]. “I warned him that he might be ridiculed for being a bedwetter, but he said, ‘Well, I did it, Mum. I don't wet the bed any more'.”

Hang on a minute! Photographed! I read the online version of this article in which there is no photograph. You mean, they actually put a photo of him in the paper? What were they thinking of?

But, OK, seriously... It seems that it was this young client's own decision in the end to go public with the details of how he used a self-hypnosis product to overome his own particular challenge. And good for him.

Hypnotherapy and hypnosis are now becoming more understood and it is wonderful when people are happy to share their success stories because it helps others who may be considering using these tools but are still feeling a little apprehensive about what that might entail. 

So I do hope that Andrew received only support and encouragement from his peers. I do hope so.

The article, rather disappointingly, then goes on to give hypnotherapy a score of 2/5 for effectiveness, compared to a 3/5 for prescription drug treatments including desmopressin, which suppresses urine production during the night, even though 'a review of 22 clinical trials, published in 2000, found that children tended to relapse when the drugs were stopped.'

What the article actually says about research into hypnotherapy to prevent bed-wetting is the following:

'There is some limited support from clinical trials to suggest that it is an effective treatment. A 2005 review by the Cochrane Collaboration concluded that there is some weak evidence that hypnosis could treat bedwetting, but it was less effective on children between 5 and 7.'

So what exactly are these trials showing 'limited support,' what do we mean here by 'weak evidence' and how does this compare to the 'good evidence' for the drug therapies? 

Confused?

I really hate this bad science and lazy reporting because it is not giving people real data that they can look up and verify.

Great story. Brilliant young client. Better data, please. 

I have just been reading this excellent article on the use of hypnosis in dental anaesthesia over at The Daily Mail .

It has a slightly misleading headline. For example, I could be wrong but I don't think that this is the first patient ever to have teeth removed using hypnosis? The recent BBC documentary on hypnosis showed an impressive and lengthy tooth extraction and replacement carried out on a female patient in Glasgow using hypnosis.

And I think the words 'dull the pain' in the headline are misleading because it appears from the content of the article that the patient, Leslie Mason, father-of-seven from Colchester in Essex, didn't experience any pain at all during the procedure.

But I am nit-picking, because it's great to see The Daily Mail spreading the word about the use of hypnosis as a safe and cost effective alternative to anaesthesia.

The article tells us:

'After avoiding the dentist for the best part of a decade, Leslie Mason was in pain and knew he needed some work.

He needed two rotten teeth and four roots removed but could not afford to pay £400 for the work and was dreading the agony he was about to endure.

He mentioned his dilemma to his friend John Ridlington, a qualified hypnotist, who revealed he had been discussing the potential of hypnosis to a dentist he knew.

A quick check confirmed Mr Mason could act as a guinea pig to test the theory and have the dental treatment for free.'

According to the article, Mr Mason underwent a two-hour procedure without anaesthetic last month and 'afterwards reported feeling nothing more than a "little sting" ':

'It was incredible. There is no worse pain than that inflicted by dentists but I didn't feel any,' said Mr Mason, 54, a DIY store worker from Colchester, Essex.

'The dentist had to dig away at the rotten roots that were right up into my jaw.

'There isn't anything I wouldn't have done under hypnosis now. It's incredible.'

Wow! I love that!

It turns out that Mr Mason had also previously used hypnosis to 'quit a 40-a-day smoking habit'.

Well done to Leslie Mason, for being such a great pioneer of hypnosis and congratulations to hypnotherapist, John Ridlington, frm Dunmow in Essex for carrying out this successful procedure. Great stuff!

I have just been reading about some interesting research over at the BBC web site.

The research was conducted by linguist Andrew Linn of Sheffield University and sound engineer Shannon Harris and commissioned by Post Office Telecoms. It claims to have found the mathematical formula for the perfect human voice, based on a combination of tone, speed, frequency, words per minute and intonation.

According to the study, the best female voice is a mixture of Mariella Frostrup, Dame Judi Dench and Honor Blackman, whilst the best male voice is a mixture of Alan Rickman and Jeremy Irons.

Linn and Harris concluded that the ideal voice should utter no more than 164 words per minute and pause for 0.48 seconds between sentences. Sentences themselves should fall rather than rise in intonation.

Vocal traits associated with positive characteristics, such as confidence and trust, scored highly with listeners.

Prof Linn says in the article:

"As humans we instinctively know which voices send shivers down our spine and which make us shudder with disgust.

"The emotional responses panellists had to the voices were surprising and go some way to explaining how voiceover artists or radio DJs are selected, or why particular celebrity voices appeal."

He said most men found presenter Mariella Frostrup's voice "mesmerising" because it was deep, slow and confident.

So Mariella's voice is hypnotic - in case you didn't already know that.

I'd like to read more about how this research was conducted. As a hypnotherapist, I find the effect of the voice and sound on the human brain fascinating and I've recently been researching and preparing some exciting new audio products that make use of this kind of information. 

This study strongly suggests that, if you want to gain someone's attention and trust at a subconscious level, it's important not to speak too quickly and to use falling intonation. So have fun with that idea, next time you need to persuade someone of your point of view!  

So who was watching the Champions League final last night?

I only caught the end of the match - and the lead-up to the final penalty shoot-out.

What can I say? Each player came up to take their penalty... and then it was Ronaldo's turn. As he strode up to the ball, I found myself saying out loud: 'He's going to miss'.

How did I know that? Beause every muscle in Ronaldo's face and the expression in his eyes said that he was going to miss. Ronaldo didn't think he was going to take that penalty successfully... and so he didn't. In that moment, Ronaldo didn't believe that he could do it. And he was right.

I've been working with lots of sports people recently, from runners to water-skiers to skiers to horseriders. They all tell me that, to get the edge in their particular sport, it is all about the mind. They know this and understand it.

If you are fully fit and trained to perfection but you're not giving your ultimate performance, it's all about what's happening in your mind. Maybe it's the core beliefs about yourself that have formed over the years: what you believe you're ecapable of, what you've been told, so many things that can affect you hypnotically without you even realising it.

Maybe it's something that has happened to you during a match or competition that has lodged firmly in your mind and won't let you move on. For Ronaldo, this might have been the penalty he missed recently in an earlier stage of the competition against Barcelona. Missing a penalty in front of a crowd of 98,000 would certainly have been enough to set up a doubt in his mind.

So Ronaldo, if you're interested in releasing the emotions around these past experiences so that they just don't bother you anymore and you can get on with the business of taking penalties, you know where I am. Give me a call.