Glasgow Anxiety Therapy

Is that two things on your To Do List, or just one?

Stress can make you physically ill. There is lots of medical research to showing that stress, especially certain types of chronic stress, have predictable effects on the body's  defences, particularly by reducing the activity of natural killer cells.

The brain is hard-wired to the autonomic nervous system and the endocrine system. The brain is in constant contact with these systems through well-defined pathways. So it is not surprising that what happens in the brain can alter host defences.

And this has important consequences for how we manage our wellbeing. If we become defeatist, seeing only the worst outcomes, then that brain-ANS-endocrine link will result in lowered immunity.

Based on the recognition of this connection, Professor Leslie G Walker (Chair of Cancer Rehabilitation) at Hull University and Director of their Institute of Rehabilitation (and a Scot previously based in Aberdeen) uses hypnotherapy to induce a positive attitude in cancer patients. He found that the use of hypnotherapy with cancer patients improved.

Sixty-three patients with Hodgkin’s disease or non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma were randomised to one of three interventions: (1) training in progressive muscular relaxation and cue controlled relaxation, (2) relaxation plus hypnotherapy (direct hypnotic suggestion) or (3) standard treatment. The purpose of these was to reduce the severity and prevalence of chemotherapy side effects (nausea, vomiting and anticipatory anxiety).

37% of the patients who got the  standard treatment were still alive at the end of the trial.  50% of those offered relaxation techniques with or without hypnotherapy were still alive. The average survival of those in the standard treatment group was 74 months compared with 115 months in those offered relaxation with or without hypnotherapy.

Reducing stress makes a difference to people suffering with a serious illness. So it can help you too. Reducing stress improves your wellbeing.

Easily hypnotised people can hallucinate colours whenever they want to. They can even choose which colour. This research comes from
University of Hull. Psychologists gathered together two groups - one group where they considered themselves  highly suggestible and another group that said they were not easily hypnotised. The groups were shown some black-and-white patterns and asked to try to see colors in them. The highly suggestible group while in hypnosis was consistently able to see colours while the second group generally failed at this task.

The psychologists were able to measure some extraordinary brain activity in the highly suggestible group. These subjects showed significant changes in the parts of their brains responsible for visual perception. Previous research has shown hypnosis can get people to see colours that aren't there, but this new research indicates that the hypnosis simply unlocks a natural ability.

What this is showing is that people who are easily suggestible can alter their brain activity at will. Lead researcher Professor Giuliana Mazzoni says "These are very talented people. They can change their perception and experience of the world."

Some people are naturally good at hypnosis - which is a skill and can be learned. You get better at it with practice. Hypnosis is totally voluntar. This research shows that you can change your perception of the world through hypnosis. This is very helpful if you are trying to change something troublesome in your life. Because hypnosis allows us to alter our perception of the world, it means we change change from being anxious and worried, bounced around by our emotions or other people,  to feeling calm and in control.