September 20, 2024 – There is an unexpected treatment for Hot flashes and other menopausal symptoms which can be becoming increasingly common: clinical hypnosis.
Hypnosis is a state of highly focused attention that works by dissociating, or blocking, conscious awareness of belongings you would normally concentrate on, says Dr. David Spiegel, a psychiatrist at Stanford Medical School.
“It increases your cognitive flexibility – a way to approach an old problem from a new angle and just let go of your old ways of thinking,” he said.
Normally women across the age of fifty menopauseThis is the tip of her menstrual cycle. Estrogen levels drop and Hot flashes can occur 12 to fifteen times a day, said Gary Elkins, PhD, professor of psychology and neuroscience at Baylor University.
Both clinical hypnosis and cognitive behavioral therapya typical type of talk therapy, have proven to be effective as non-hormonal treatments for warm flashes, especially in women who're unable to Hormones for health reasons, for instance if you may have had an estrogen-sensitive cancer previously (similar to Breast cancer), after in accordance with a study published in 2023 by the Menopause Society.
A latest study presented last week on the Menopause Society's 2024 annual meeting in Chicago analyzed 23 studies from 1996 to 2022 and compared how well clinical hypnosis and cognitive behavioral therapy worked as treatments for warm flashes and other menopausal symptoms. Researchers found that clinical hypnosis was higher at making hot flashes less frequent and fewer intense, and even reduced symptoms by 60%. Results from cognitive behavioral therapy, however, showed little reduction in hot flashes, even though it did help reduce day by day stress related to hot flashes.
Hypnosis can address the “perfect storm” of mental and physical problems that accompany the symptoms of menopause, explained Spiegel, who developed a well-liked self-hypnosis app called reverse“You have a reduction in your estrogen And progesteronebut it is also a reminder that you are entering a different phase of life where you are no longer fertile and are getting older,” he said. “[With hypnosis]you can separate pain and your consciousness from things that would normally affect your consciousness and make you unhappy.”
A hypnosis session can help you distinguish psychological discomfort from physical discomfort, Spiegel said. “Typically, people in hypnosis dealing with menopause imagine they're swimming in a lake and feeling cool, tingly and numb,” he said. “They can literally change how hot they feel. They can change the hot flash and imagine being cool and comfortable. If they're worried about something, they'll imagine it on an imaginary screen. Just imagine it, but don't feel it.”
Hypnosis to fall asleep
Hot flashes that occur at night are called night sweats and can interfere with your sleep. Hypnotherapy can help reduce both hot flashes and night sweats to the point where sleep is uninterrupted, Elkins said. “While sleep improves with hypnotherapy, it's also about general relaxation,” said Elkins, who is director of the Mind-Body Medicine Research Laboratory at Baylor University. “When women practice self-hypnosis at night, they enter a calmer and more relaxed state, which can also promote good sleep or improve sleep duration and quality.”
Our subconscious influences our Sleep patterns primarily through experiences rather than words or thoughts, according to Emilie Leyes, a certified hypnotherapist in Philadelphia. This explains why simply saying the words “I am relaxed” is often less effective when you're stressed than taking a few deep breaths or getting a warm hug from a family member or friend, said Leyes, who hosts a brain-training mindset-changing podcast called “How to Like Your Life.”
“Similarly, hypnosis, which accesses the subconscious directly, allows us to provide our minds with new, powerful experiences to reduce our stress, improve our mood and increase our access to positive emotions,” she said. “Repeatedly exposing ourselves to these positive experiences in our minds can increase our ability to feel good and impact how we feel in our everyday lives.”
Your first hypnosis session
A hypnosis session always begins with deep relaxation, which can help your mind and body adjust to the feeling of calm, Leyes said. “By providing the brain and body with experiences of safety, relaxation and inner peace, we can more easily let go of our stressful thoughts of the day and fall asleep more easily at night.”
They often begin by sitting or lying in a comfortable position, and then the hypnotic induction begins with a concentration of attention, Elkins said. The person concentrates with their eyelids closed and is then given suggestions to deepen their relaxed state. “Usually that's a safe, pleasant place, like walking through the mountains or near a beach,” he said. “And suggestions are made that target the mechanism underlying the symptoms. [such as hot flashes].”
Spiegel typically begins with a neutral test that measures how hypnotizable an individual is on a scale of zero to 10. For example, the client is instructed to assume their hand floating within the air. When they pull the hand down and it floats back up, the client finds they will “actually separate the psychological from the physiological aspects of their experience — their left hand feels different than their right hand,” Spiegel said. “I use that as an example to tell them, 'Look at how you can change the way your body feels. Now let's use that to help you with your anxiety and menopausal symptoms.'”