Research update: Hypnotherapy and the stress response

While conducting clinical trials with hypnotherapy that honour the individuality of each client is complicated, a recent pilot study by researchers on the use of hypnotherapy for managing stress yielded some interesting results not only in terms of the experience of the patients using the hypnosis, but also on a physiological marker for inflammation – considered a reflection of the stress response.

The researchers gave 11 participants a self hypnosis CD designed to recondition and improve participants’ emotional and physical reactions to perceived work and life stressors. The patients then had their subjective measures of coping, resilience, and stress tolerance measured, as well as, IL-6, an objective blood measure of inflammatory activity. The pilot study took place over 12 weeks.

The participants in the trial reported a significant decrease in negative thinking patterns such as, self-deprecating statements, perfectionism, and pessimistic thinking, and an improvement in eating/nutritional habits following the hypnosis as well as a reduction in the marker for inflammation.

It’s interesting that even a generic self hypnosis cd could produce such positive change and one could wonder how those results might be improved upon with a highly tailored and individualized hypnotherapy program working with a hypnotherapist in the context of a therapeutic relationship. In this context, it’s possible to work  with suggestive work that is personally tailored to be specific to each client – a very important part of good hypnotherapy since everybody experiences their problem and their idea of what constitutes a solution, in a very different way. For me, and for those using Cognitive Hypnotherapy, this is a key factor in effective hypnotherapy.

All in all the research was suggestive that hypnotherapy can produce some promising results in managing stress, good news for anyone that might be looking for how hypnotherapy could help reduce their stress levels naturally.

I provide hypnotherapy for stress management at my hypnotherapy clinics in Berkhamsted and Milton Keynes and can be contacted by email or telephone if you have any questions about what hypnotherapy could do for your stress levels.

The details of the trial mentioned can be found here:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23561065