Great News! It's Really All in Your Head.
A year ago, I had some problems with my hip and decided to experiment with wearing these really funky looking (and expensive!) shoes called Z-coils. Perhaps you have seen them? They look like normal shoes until you get to the heel. There, you find a space-age looking spring-coil thingy which acts like a shock absorber for the feet. They weren't very pretty, really, but almost immediately upon slipping those bad boys on my feet, my hip pain seemed to disappear! So, as ugly and expensive as they were, I bought a pair.
My neighbor is an Orthopedic Surgeon, and when he noticed me wearing them, he dismissed them right away, stating that the relief I was getting was only likely the "placebo effect" at work. I smiled when he told me this because as a hypnotherapist, I happen to have a high regard for what the brain can cause the body to experience as a result of suggestion. I have been trained in and have seen the powerful results of the human mind's own ability to create desirable results without the aid of medication or other external forces.
Harvard University professor Ellen Langer is known for her research on the mind and how it impacts our lives. One of her recent studies looked at the power of suggestion to alter physical reality, and I found it fascinating! She studied a group of overweight hotel maids who, despite their very physically demanding jobs, did not seem to have bodies to match their daily activity, nor did they perceive that they were getting any significant fitness during their daily routine. She broke the maids up into two groups, and the first group was given the accurate, detailed information about precisely how much exercise and how many calories they actually burned each day on the job. The second group was not told anything. A month later, the two groups were measured and the findings surprised the researchers. In the first group, there was a significant decrease in blood pressure, weight, and waist-to-hip ratio — and a 10 percent drop in blood pressure.
I was not surprised by this study, by the way. I know, I know... you might be thinking that maybe the maids in the first group suddenly became more motivated to live healthier lives once they realized they were already getting exercise. But the researchers were assured the first group did not change their lifestyle. (You can read an article about the study at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17792517 if you'd like to learn more about it)
But you know what my response is to that? So what!
I don't really think it's relevant that the healthy changes may have come about as a result of the maids possibly unconsciously increasing their physical activity or eating habits. What I think is crucial here are simply the results themselves. It's pretty amazing to think that what it took for these women to begin having healthier bodies was just a little bit of information! Whether or not there had been a change in their behavior, the mental suggestion that they were already getting exercise caused a shift in their physical bodies. The suggestion either motivated them to start behaving in healthier ways, or it caused a psychosomatic response which acted as though they had changed their physical behavior. Either one is fine with me! Just look at the power of the mind at work!
The mind's power to change a person's perception, thereby changing their body and life itself is hardly understood today, since human beings use so little of it -- only up to ten percent, I believe, is what science tells us we use these days. And, the mystery gets even more curious when you consider that no study of the brain can occur without having to use a brain to interpret its findings! This can get pretty mind-boggling! (If you like this kind of paradoxical musing, you might really love watching the movie "What the bleep do we know?", which tackles the really fascinating world of quantum mechanics)
In my experience, the power of suggestion deserves a huge amount of respect. I have used hypnotic suggestions to help previously traumatized clients alter their entire life's script -- to stop living life as a victim and finally take ownership of life as an adventure. I have seen people overcome tremendous physical pain through the power of the hypnotic suggestion. I, myself, quit the insidious habit of life-long finger nail biting and even worse -- 7 years of cigarette smoking -- with the aid of hypnosis. It surprises me that Medical science has spent such relatively little time investigating the power of the placebo effect as a cure, considering the results we know are out there.
The reason the Z-Coils worked just didn't matter to me, it just mattered that they worked! It's pretty cool to think that someday with enough practice, I could skip buying the expensive, ugly shoes altogether and just eliminate my pain with my own thinking!
My neighbor is an Orthopedic Surgeon, and when he noticed me wearing them, he dismissed them right away, stating that the relief I was getting was only likely the "placebo effect" at work. I smiled when he told me this because as a hypnotherapist, I happen to have a high regard for what the brain can cause the body to experience as a result of suggestion. I have been trained in and have seen the powerful results of the human mind's own ability to create desirable results without the aid of medication or other external forces.
Harvard University professor Ellen Langer is known for her research on the mind and how it impacts our lives. One of her recent studies looked at the power of suggestion to alter physical reality, and I found it fascinating! She studied a group of overweight hotel maids who, despite their very physically demanding jobs, did not seem to have bodies to match their daily activity, nor did they perceive that they were getting any significant fitness during their daily routine. She broke the maids up into two groups, and the first group was given the accurate, detailed information about precisely how much exercise and how many calories they actually burned each day on the job. The second group was not told anything. A month later, the two groups were measured and the findings surprised the researchers. In the first group, there was a significant decrease in blood pressure, weight, and waist-to-hip ratio — and a 10 percent drop in blood pressure.
I was not surprised by this study, by the way. I know, I know... you might be thinking that maybe the maids in the first group suddenly became more motivated to live healthier lives once they realized they were already getting exercise. But the researchers were assured the first group did not change their lifestyle. (You can read an article about the study at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17792517 if you'd like to learn more about it)
But you know what my response is to that? So what!
I don't really think it's relevant that the healthy changes may have come about as a result of the maids possibly unconsciously increasing their physical activity or eating habits. What I think is crucial here are simply the results themselves. It's pretty amazing to think that what it took for these women to begin having healthier bodies was just a little bit of information! Whether or not there had been a change in their behavior, the mental suggestion that they were already getting exercise caused a shift in their physical bodies. The suggestion either motivated them to start behaving in healthier ways, or it caused a psychosomatic response which acted as though they had changed their physical behavior. Either one is fine with me! Just look at the power of the mind at work!
The mind's power to change a person's perception, thereby changing their body and life itself is hardly understood today, since human beings use so little of it -- only up to ten percent, I believe, is what science tells us we use these days. And, the mystery gets even more curious when you consider that no study of the brain can occur without having to use a brain to interpret its findings! This can get pretty mind-boggling! (If you like this kind of paradoxical musing, you might really love watching the movie "What the bleep do we know?", which tackles the really fascinating world of quantum mechanics)
In my experience, the power of suggestion deserves a huge amount of respect. I have used hypnotic suggestions to help previously traumatized clients alter their entire life's script -- to stop living life as a victim and finally take ownership of life as an adventure. I have seen people overcome tremendous physical pain through the power of the hypnotic suggestion. I, myself, quit the insidious habit of life-long finger nail biting and even worse -- 7 years of cigarette smoking -- with the aid of hypnosis. It surprises me that Medical science has spent such relatively little time investigating the power of the placebo effect as a cure, considering the results we know are out there.
The reason the Z-Coils worked just didn't matter to me, it just mattered that they worked! It's pretty cool to think that someday with enough practice, I could skip buying the expensive, ugly shoes altogether and just eliminate my pain with my own thinking!
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