Reiki is an ancient technique used for stress reduction and relaxation and has been shown to have several benefits for both physical and mental health. It is a gentle non-invasive therapy that involves the practitioner gently packing their hands on or near the body.
Benefits of a Reiki treatment
Relieves pain, anxiety, and fatigue
Treats depression
Enhances quality of life
Boosts mood
May improve some symptoms and conditions
Can be used to manage:
Headaches
Tension
Insomnia
Nausea
What is hypnosis?
Hypnosis is a state of deep relaxation and focused concentration. It’s a type of mind-body medicine.
A trained and certified hypnotist guides you into this deep state of focus and relaxation with verbal cues, repetition and imagery. When you’re under hypnosis, this intense level of concentration and focus allows you to ignore ordinary distractions and be more open to guided suggestions to make changes to improve your health in a gentle, but profound way.
How does hypnosis work?
How hypnosis works isn’t completely understood. However, it’s commonly believed that in the deep state of focus and relaxation that’s achieved with hypnosis:
●Your Conscious mind is quieted.
●You’re able to tap into the part of your brain where your thoughts, beliefs, perceptions, sensations, emotions, memory and behaviors originate.
●In this state, you’re more open to gentle guidance from your hypnotherapist to help you modify or replace the unconscious thoughts that are driving your current behavior.
What conditions is hypnosis helpful in treating?
Hypnotherapy may help treat any number of medical conditions in which psychological factors influence physical symptoms.
Common mental health uses include:
●Stress and anxiety, especially before medical or dental procedures; panic attacks; and post-traumatic stress syndrome(PTSD).
●Phobias
●Behavior control issues, including giving up smoking, losing weight and enuresis (bedwetting
Common medical uses include:
●Insomnia.
●Asthma.
●Hot flashes during menopause.
●Gastrointestinal disorders, including irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).
●Pain control, including after surgery, childbirth, cancer, fibromyalgia, burns and headaches (migraine and tension).
●Skin conditions, including warts and psoriasis.
●Side effects of cancer chemotherapy or radiation treatment, including nausea and vomiting.
What typically happens during a hypnotic session?
There are four stages of hypnosis: induction, deepener, suggestions and emergence.
Induction
During this stage, you begin to relax, focus your attention and ignore distractions. Your hypnotherapist will guide you through this stage with specific techniques such as controlled breathing (breathing in over a count of seven, then breathing out over a count of 11), or progressive muscle relaxation (tensing muscles as you breathe in and relaxing muscles as you breathe out, then repeating in a certain order of muscle groups throughout your body) or focusing on a visual image.
Deepener
This stage continues the first stage, taking your relaxation and focus to a deeper level. This step often involves counting down or using similar descending imagery such as walking downstairs or slowly sinking deeper and deeper into a comfortable bed. These first two stages are aimed at easing your openness to suggestions.
Suggestions
This is the stage for actual change in experience, behavior or perception. Your hypnotherapist will use imagery and carefully chosen language. The suggestions are usually symptom focused (to resolve a symptom) or exploratory (to explore experiences associated with the start of symptoms). Suggested changes may be in perception, sensation, emotion, memory, thought or behavior.
•Example:
To quit smoking, you’ll learn to identify your triggers to want to smoke, learn positive ways to change, understand resources to effect change, disrupt your pattern, attach a better response, notice the difference and install the changed behavior. You may be encouraged to see your “old” self with black lungs in a mirror behind you and see your “new” healthy self with clean lungs in a mirror in front. You’ll then be guided to choose which self you like and to walk toward that self.
Emergence
During this stage, you come out of hypnosis. Your hypnotist may use reverse deepeners, such as giving you the suggestions that you’re climbing upstairs or counting up.