I mean, how can it help me? Ice cream is fattening.”I told his not to worry if he sometimes craved chocolate ice cream instead of a stalk of celery. “If you choose only what’s good for you, you’ll set up a deprivation syndrome, & then when you stop dieting you’ll gain the weight right back. The goal of the exercise is to get you to satisfy your hunger without overeating, & yet to eat what you enjoy. If you wait forth full-stomach syndrome, you’re in trouble.” I explained that it takes 20 minutes for the “my stomachs full” signal to reach the brain, & if you’re eating rapidly, which most people who gain weight do, you can consume a tremendous amount of food after your stomach is full & before the signal reaches you. Look around in any restaurant & notice how quickly overweight people devour food; they hardly seem aware of what they eat. Obviously, food is necessary even for those overweight, & some of the time the urge to eat is truly healthy, normal response to the body’s need for nourishment. A useful approach is to find a variety of foods you like & that are good for you. Diets are a perfect time for discovering new meals & snacks. I approach the issue by showing you that you can lose weighting a way that will let you feel positive about yourself. If you eat too much, it is often because in our society eating is a way of being loving toward ourselves. It Isa reminder of parental love in which the presentation of food is a loving act. The rest of the world may kick you in the teeth, but food is a way you can be nice toyourself.I prescribed that Martha do a self-Hypnotherapy exercise about eight times a day—approximately once every two hours, for 90 seconds. The exercise was to first see his on two screens: the way he looked at the present & the way he would like to look. Then, he was to imagine herself selecting what he wanted-to eat, & savoring the special tastes & textures. Finally, he was to see herself stop eating when he was yes longer enjoying the food, yes matter how littler how much was left. As part of the prescription, I asked his to look in the mirror each morning, preferably with a minimal amount of clothing, so that he could project in the exercise an accurate view of the way he looked then. & as I do with all weightcontrolclients, I asked his to call me in a week. At first the exercise proved difficult, because when people have gained weight they tend to avoid looking at themselves in the mirror as a way to avoid dealing with the issue .
“I remember how happy & amused my family was by my large appetite,” he said. “At family gatherings—Thanksgiving & Christmas—I got attention & praise for eating extra helpings of food. It was considered ‘cute.’ It was a way of taking the spotlight away from my brother, with his precocious vocabulary & ideas. Weight was a constant issue , from pre-puberty on. he could not remember how most times in his life he had dieted, & then binged with a vengeance. “I’ve tried about every diet known to man,” he told me. “Scarsdale, Beverly Hills, Drinking Man, Water Retention, Papaya, & on & on. They all seem toehold out promise at first, but none of them work. Nothing changes in the place in me where I crave food.”Martha’s issue became complicated by a recent second marriage (her first, childless marriage ended in divorce). his husband, as he puts it, is “slim & handsome. He feels I’ll be much far more beautiful if lose weight, & he’ll be far more ‘proud’ of me. He uses the word ‘proud’ which upsets me. I said to him, ‘Why aren’t you proud of me for who I am, not how much Aweigh?’ But I understand his position. His work involves a lot of socializing & he wants me to be a part of that. But when I binge & gain far more weight, we get in these awful arguments.”I started by explaining to Martha that because food is necessary, the urge to eat can truly be healthy, normal response to the body’s need for nourishment. Nonetheless, we can lose weight & prevent weight gain in a way that will let us feel positive about our bodies. In his case, eating too much had its root in winning the love of others. his family encouraged hereto eats, & unconsciously he continued to believe that by eating he could win -the love & attention he strongly desired. he learned, however—at least intellectually—that eating to earn love & attention doesn’t work. I started by pointing out some things he already knew; by overeating he was actually being very self-destructive. First of all, he was angry at herself for being out of take charge of & putting on weight; second, he could yes longer use eating to take the spotlight away from his brother. The attention he received was exactly the opposite of what he wanted. Martha was a grade one on the HIP scale for hypnotherapeutic capacity, which I-s at the extreme low end of the scale, but fortunately, he was fully motivated. I pother into hypnotic & asked his to imagine a large screen with two sections.
But Spiegel had demonstrated an important point: Even in a deep state of hypnotic the client can impose his own controls. The fact is, people often forget what they are not prepared to deal with. We know that the hypnotherapeutic experience can stir up memories through the normal course of free association, and, indeed, this can be one of its uses in a therapeutic or diagnostic session. Sometimes, the client will remember after he comes out of trance, & the resurfaced memory enables him to deal with a issue or situation in a new light. Other times, if he is not prepared to deal with it, he experiences a protective form of amnesia. Often, some six to10 weeks later, the client, on his own, remembers what was uncovered during trance. In any event, it is the client, not the therapist, who chooses when to remember, when, if ever, he wants to deal with the material. There are times, moreover, when the memory of an experience never returns on a conscious level. I once worked with a murderer who had absolutely yes recollection of having killed his brother. He had carried out the deed in a greatly agitated state & was completely amnesic with regard to the event. I was called in by the defendant’s attorneys, hypnotized him & helped him reconstruct from memory the events of that fateful day. Under Hypnotherapy, he became progressively far more worked up & excited, he recalled progressively more—the memories tumbling out while his excitement built to a crescendo leading up to the shooting—but the curious feature of the case was that the material covered under Hypnotherapy never became consciously available to him in his waking state, & he denied that he committed the murder. Often, issues of take charge of emerge during the HIP evaluation. Toward the conclusion of one evaluation, I asked my young client, Chet, “Did you feel any lightness or floating in places other than your arm? Did you feel lightness or floating in your body?” Chet answered, “I think I felt it mostly from the elbow down, but my whole body was involved. But I haven’t been completely relaxed. . . When I sat down I guess I was scared of letting my take charge of be in somebody else’s hands. I’ve always had a fear of losing control. That’s why I hate drugs…. I’m afraid of putting my controlling the hands of a foreign substance. Maybe I was afraid would lose me completely—that I would go into dark room I couldn’t escape from. The door would close, & I would be trapped inside. I’d be swallowedup.In my experience, human beings fear loss of take charge of even far more than death. Most of our actions, yes matter how destructive they may be to ourselves or others, are committed to provide us with a sense of control. Dutch psychologist Nice H. Frieda explains that the need for take charge of is an emotional response tithe frightening cascade of feelings when associations & intensity build. Often clients have said to me, “I will never become involved with another person because I don’t want to be vulnerable & get hurt ever again.” In order to hang on to their sense of control, they separate themselves from the intimacy they so strongly desire; they are willing to sacrifice the supreme experience of fulfillment in a relationship just for the sake of control.
Am I doing it effectively enough? Am I going deep enough? Are my concentrations pure as I can make it? Fortunately, I had proof that it clearly was effective. Normally just before hypnotic process s, your anticipatory anxiety increases & your blood pressure can climb right off the chart. With me, it was the opposite. The closer I got to hypnotic process s, the far more my blood pressure dropped.
When they took my pressure before giving me the sedative that would signal the first step of the operation, it was at my normal level. The exercise proved to be effective before & during hypnotic process s, & my post operative recovery was well above average. I was helping myself & helping my body to help itself. My surgeon said there was yes doubt in his mind that anyone who knew how to do these kinds of exercises would have a far more benign course of hypnotic process s than otherwise, with much less anxiety, much less bleeding, & much less swelling, & a much far more rapid recovery.
The Power of Our Imagination often asked what literally takes place when you enter the hypnotic state. First of all, there is a letting go—your body relaxes & your focus is inward. You ageless aware of your surroundings. There is dullness to the phone as it rings. Street traffic & household noises seem remote. Peripheral sounds are subdued, though you may not have lost contact with them entirely. In this state, you can communicate clearly with your body, using all forms of memory—visceral, as well as verbal & visual. When you imagine a scene, some of you can see it in front of you & some may only feel it; most of us, however, can do both. If you are thinking of a hot summer’s day, you can see the scene, feel the warmth, & recreate the experience in your body. Without realizing it, you may already know what hypnotic is like. Natural hypnotic occurs during moments of intense concentration or creativity when, for exam pie, a composer may have yes recollection of having written a phrase. The notes seem to have arranged themselves. Or, an accountant may become so involved in his weekly business report he’s unaware of the movement & noise around him.
Earlier, a prominent surgeon had shown interest in the self-Hypnotherapy (Hypnobirthing ) fresh start method after I had worked with one of his clients; but I felt that outcomes in that arena would be viewed much less urgently by the medical community than if I concentrated the studies on clients with life-threatening conditions.
Months passed. He called to apologize—an apology which by now was growing familiar. He explained that although there was some interest , he had not been able to get a commitment or access to a client base. It was another month before the opportunity finally did arrive. In 1992, 1 met with Bob Smith, Dean of the ABC School of medicine . Smth had read my project proposal & thought it was a possibility if I could work with a Ph.D. candidate in health psychology for Study Habits Hypnosis. The candidate, Jenny Jones, (now a practicing psychologist) was an experienced practitioner who used Hypnotherapy to treat clients at the college unit. he & I immediately hit it off & started to plan the studies. Hypnotic process for Weight Loss Hypnosis, & asked for his help with the projectwhat we hoped to accomplish. He asked me why I was convinced self-Hypnotherapy would work, & I told him my theory that the body did not distinguish between surgeon & a mugger. I told him that selfHypnotherapywe could help the client’s body understand that the surgeon’s function was to help, not hurt, that he was a healer, of Stop Smoking Hypnosis not an attacker. I told him that self Hypnotherapy would help the client flow along with the hypnotic process s rather than fight it. Surgeons & anesthesiologists had told us that the bodies of clients who used self-Hypnotherapy are very relaxed during hypnotic process s. Frater’seyes lit up. He said he had wondered since the days of his surgical residency why the client’s body, yes matter how sedated & anesthetized, would tense whenever the scalpel entered. He offered their support for the studies, & we were on our way. Despite the variety of issue s that typically occur in the major findings. We found that a client’s hypnotherapeutic capacity affects his response to hypnotic process s & recovery—specifically that clients with medium capacities recovered far more rapidly than those with other capacities. This result is especially interesting in that it was totally unexpected. Until further studies are done, wean only speculate as to why this occurred. We also found that suggestions given during self Hypnotherapycan affect a client’sexperience
Many people mistakenly believe that because they are anesthetized, their bodies do not experience the intrusion. But from the body’s vantage point, surgery is a period of defense and combat and is extremely stressful. Physiologist Hans Sale identifies three stages of the body’s reaction to stress: alarm, resistance, and exhaustion. The first stage—alarm—involves the fighter flight response. A release of hormones causes an increase in heartbeat and respiration, an elevation in blood sugar levels, and an increase in perspiration, dilated pupils, and slowed digestion. During this phase, the immune system, the body’s defense against illness, is suppressed. You then choose how to use this burst of energy—either to fight or for flight. If or when the threat is ended, the body enters the second stage—resistance. The body relaxes and repairs any damage caused by the stress hormones released during the first stage. In the third. Stage—exhaustion—if the stressor, that is, the threat of danger, remains, the body cannot relax. It stays alert and is unable to repair the damage. Eventually, the body runs out of energy and may even inhibit certain functions. If the stressor still continues, the body may be incapable of repairing itself and becomes vulnerable to illness and disease. Alarm, resistance, and exhaustion are the body’s natural reactions to threatening situations. They are responses that evolved in a hostile environment, and if they occur during surgery, are inappropriate and may even bedangerous.Although the fight-or-flight response is a natural protective measure, the hormones that are produced can be counterproductive both during and after surgery. Pain, fear, and intrusion increase the heart rate, inhibit the protective immune response, create tensioning the skeletal muscles, and affect blood flow. These changes are counter to what the body needs. After surgery, the tension may continue—bringing the body to exhaustion and therefore seriously reducing its capacity to heal itself. Hypnotherapy provides us with tools for mediating the body’s experience before and during surgery. Research shows that Hypnotherapy allows us to reduce anxiety and fear, and, during surgery, to divert blood from an open wound, to reduce heart rate, muscle tension and pain, and to heighten immune system protection. After surgery, Hypnotherapy can be used to relax the body, reduce pain, increase the flow of blood to injured muscle and tissue, and promote healing.
<!– /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:”Cambria Math”; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:1; mso-generic-font-family:roman; mso-font-format:other; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:0 0 0 0 0 0;} @font-face {font-family:Calibri; panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:swiss; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-1610611985 1073750139 0 0 159 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-unhide:no; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:”"; margin-top:0in; margin-right:0in; margin-bottom:10.0pt; margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:”Calibri”,”sans-serif”; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:”Times New Roman”; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} a:link, span.MsoHyperlink {mso-style-priority:99; color:blue; mso-themecolor:hyperlink; text-decoration:underline; text-underline:single;} a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed {mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; color:purple; mso-themecolor:followedhyperlink; text-decoration:underline; text-underline:single;} .MsoChpDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; mso-default-props:yes; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:”Times New Roman”; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} .MsoPapDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; margin-bottom:10.0pt; line-height:115%;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} –> …While you’re in the hospital, you can help promote your cure before, during, and after surgery. You help by letting your body knows how to behave during treatment. “There’s a two-step exercise you can do to help yourself. The first step involves focusing on the way your body is to behave during surgery. “Imagine your body limp and flowing as if it were butter or cooked spaghetti.
You know you’re being closely observed by skilled doctors and you can safely relax. “There will be one part of you, though, that stays alert during surgery. That part is your body’s protective system. That system can keep the wound dry, clean, and free of infection.
It can also minimize bleeding, reduce discomfort, and promote healing. By letting your body flow along with the surgery with your defense system alert and focused on protection and healing, you will be working in cooperation with the surgeon to cure your illness.“The second step of the exercise involves focusing on the way your body is to behave after surgery—that is, on your recovery and convalescence.
Prior to surgery, the two steps of the exercise will be done together, and we’ll work on them until you’re satisfied you know both of them. Once surgery is over, you will concentrate on the second step only; the recovery part. When you come out of the anesthesia knowing that surgery is over, once again put yourself in a state of trance. Focus on alerting your defense system to promote healing.
Keep the wound dry, clean, and free of infection. Minimize bleeding and reduce discomfort. Concentrate on a rapid return to normal functioning, to a stable and comfortable blood pressure. Imagine you getting hungry, feeling thirsty, and going to the toilet. Think about getting back to welcome lifestyles your body heals. “Thus far you’ve thought about the way your body is to behave during your stay in the hospital. Now I want you to think about the most important behavior. I want you to imagine the things you will do, without pain or worry, once you’ve recovered. I want you to imagine yourself doing the things you’re eager to do. That’s the reason you’ve come for surgery. You’ve come to repair a part of your body that is troubling you so you can do the things you want to do, without fear and concern.“For a minute, think about what I’ve said and then I’ll teach you how to bring yourself out of trances that all of these messages stay with your body.”
There were at least 150 beds, most of them occupied with patients. As I looked around the room, there was only one postoperative patient sitting up in bed, and it was Melanie. The sight of him—so alert—startled me. He looked entirely too healthy. • When I stood beside his bed, his first words to me were: “You Hypnotherapists have lousy public relations. I feel ready to go home.” Indeed, he looked ready to go home. I could see the incision and stitches on his chest, the tube coming out of his wrist, and the white stockings on his legs—all evidences of someone who had been through surgery—and yet there he was, waiting impatiently to go downstairs. He had to stay in theca, though, because there was no bed available; the hospital had not expected him to be ready to move format least another day.
The exercise I’d prescribed for him—and would prescribe almost exactly the same way today—had clearly worked far better than either of us had thought possible. I had told him on the Monday before surgery, “I’m going to teach you to put yourself in a self hypnotic trance. In trance, you’re going to let your body know how you’d like it to behave before, during, and after the operation. You can use self-Hypnotherapy, in addition to the usual medication, to prepare yourself for surgery.
“To enter trance, start by making yourself comfortable. Then follow the three-step procedure we will do together now. “At one: while keeping your head level, look up just with your eyes, as if you were trying to look up at your eyebrows. “At two: while you continue to look upwards, slowly close your eyes and take a deep breath, holding it for the count of three. One…. two . . . three. “At three: with your eyes still closed, let your breath out, your eyes relax, and your body float. “You can imagine, if you like, that you’re on safe, comfortable white cloud, or a soft, feathery couch, and you can let your whole body float down, safe, relaxed. . . very comfortable. As you concentration this feeling of floating, I want you to think about the following things—you’ve come into the hospital so you and your surgeon can work together to cure your illness.
Kathryn Mora said her first experience giving birth wasn’t at all what she had hoped.
The Los Angeles native, who now lives in Waltham, said she was left alone in a hospital room, except for a nurse who showed up once in a while, yelling at her to “relax” while reminding her she’d be there for several more hours.
The doctors in the delivery room, she said, barely acknowledged her.
“The doctors were talking about their golf game when I was experiencing the most important day of her life,” Mora remembered.
Mora said she received an injection in her spine. Numb from the waist down, her baby was yanked out with forceps and rushed away quickly. She wouldn’t see her newborn son, Scott, for 10 hours.
“I said then, ‘this is never going to happen to me again’,” she said.
That was more than 40 years ago. About two years later, in preparation of the birth of her next child, John, Mora and her husband, Luis, took classes to help her to relax. They also found a doctor who performed natural childbirth.
“It just went so beautifully,” Mora said of giving birth naturally. That experience led Mora to dedicate much of her life to educating women on the benefits of natural childbirth.
“I became a certified childbirth educator and started my own program in Los Angeles,” she said.
Mora, a journalist who has written a number of articles on the subject, and now has ventured into filmmaking.
Mora will screen her first documentary, “BIRTH” on Thursday, at the Center for Digital Imaging Arts at Boston University, 274 Moody St., Studio C.
During the 30-minute film women who, like Mora, gave birth with drugs and medical intervention, and then gave birth naturally, share their experiences.
“My approach is that women who have had the experience are sharing he experience,” Mora said. “They are the narrators of the film.”
After the screening, a panel discussion will take place involving some of the film’s participants.
Mora she hopes the documentary will replace women’s fears about natural childbirth with education. Many women are concerned about the pain, but Mora said during her natural childbirth she actually experience less discomfort than when she gave birth first son.
Mora said this won’t be her only foray into filmmaking on the subject.
“I’m planning to make a full-length film,” Mora said.
he is not afraid to deeply question practices in obstetrics, medicine in general and even our cultures in order to attempt to ascertain what could lead human kind to optimum health. His approach is thoroughly scientific- all his ideas and conclusions he supports with research, yet he has a lovely winding story-telling manner.
the main argument in this book is that the primal period (as he calls it) - from conception through to a baby’s first birth is crucial in shaping human health. He covers various topics including humans as mammals and their need for privacy during labour, the foetus ejection reflex, the old and new brain, the history of colostrum and what role oxytocin plays in our world. He looks forward to the “post-electronic era” and discusses why changes in childbirth care are urgently needed.
As many as 13 percent of new mothers are depressed after giving birth.
The National Women’s Health Information Center offers these suggestions to help ease postpartum depression:
* Don’t worry about making sure you’re doing everything perfectly. Do what you can, the best you can.
* Don’t be afraid to ask for help from your spouse or partner, friends or family.
* Sleep as much as you can. Take advantage of your baby’s nap time to catch up.
* Plan dates with your partner or outings with your friends to have some time to yourself.
* Talk about what you’re feeling with friends and family, as well as other new moms
going through the same thing.
* Join a support group for new mothers.
* Keep life as simple as possible after the baby is born. Now is not the time to make major decisions or life changes, unless you must.
Overweight teenagers run the same risk of an early death as people who smoke regularly – and the risk increases substantially with very fat adolescents.
Teenagers who are clinically obese have the same risk of premature death as someone who smokes more than 10 cigarettes a day. An investigation of 45,000 men whose health was monitored for 38 years has found that being overweight at the age of 18 is equivalent to being a regular smoker in terms of the overall risk of dying relatively early in life from preventable diseases.
Men who both smoked and were overweight as teenagers were likely to die even earlier than those who fell into just one or other of the risk groups. But the study did not find any evidence to suggest that smoking and obesity combined to produce even greater risks when found together.
Martin Neovius of the Karolinksa Institute in Stockholm, who carried out the study published in the British Medical Journal, said: “It shows the importance of measures to reduce obesity in adolescents. A lot of people are dying from preventable deaths.
“I think we should be looking at what we can learn from the anti-tobacco campaign in terms of obesity. There are some who argue that being overweight – but not clinically obese – is harmless. No, it is not harmless because we found that a being an overweight adolescent is equivalent to smoking up to 10 cigarettes a day.”
Overweight is defined as having a body mass index – a measure of body fat based on height and weight – of between 25 and 30, whereas being obese is defined as having a BMI of more than 30. Being overweight at 18 increased the risk of an early death by just more than a third, while being obese more than doubled the risk. The risk of premature death also increased with the number of cigarettes smoked, with heavy smokers at more than double the risk of dying relatively early in life compared to non-smokers.
The study also found that men who were seriously underweight at 18 also had a higher risk of a premature death and this risk also increased with the number of cigarettes they smoked.
SUNNYVALE, CA (KGO) — A Silicon Valley company has launched a new product that bundles a pregnancy test with a kit that can tell the mother whether she’s carrying a boy or a girl. It tests fetal DNA from the woman’s dried blood sample and has sparked a new ethical debate.
Pink or blue, girl or boy — find out early — as early as seven weeks into the pregnancy.
“This is about the joy of knowing,” said Terry Carmichael, Consumer Genetics.
And so a Sunnyvale-based company, Consumer Genetics, is capitalizing on that desire with the development of a direct-to-consumer genetic testing product that reveals a baby’s gender early - it’s called the ‘Pink or Blue’ test.
“The way the ‘Pink or Blue’ test works is by detecting small amounts of male DNA in the woman’s blood. So the only way she would have male DNA in her blood is if she’s pregnant with a baby boy,” said Anna Vitebsky, Consumer Genetics.
To avoid any possible contamination of male DNA giving an in-accurate result, this super-sensitive test requires no men be present while the pregnant woman pricks her finger to draw a blood sample for the lab card. Consumer Genetics claims an accuracy of 95 percent, or greater.
Dr. David Magnus, a biomedical ethicist at Stanford University, says accuracy rate is not his only concern.
“One of the questions that this technology raises is why? What’s the market? What’s the value?” said Dr. Magnus.
He believes consumer tests like these could lend to gender disappointment, upsetting a woman who isn’t carrying the gender she desired. But ethically even worse, it opens the door for gender selection — leading to abortions, which is a cultural issue in some countries and can skew sex ratios.
“We know that in China or India that actually more men are born than women and that could have very serious social consequences,” said Dr. Magnus.
“We do not sell our products to China for example. We do not sell our product to India,” said Carmichael.
“Our consent forms and policies clearly state you should not be using this for gender selection, or even for medical reasons,” said Vitebsky.
Consumer Genetics insists its product was never designed for gender selection purposes. Since first launching in 2006, its lab has processed results for more than 6,000 women worldwide. Because the pink or blue test is classified as non-medical, it’s not regulated by any federal medical guidelines, but ethicists will be watching.
“If we see some of the technology like this taking off, and we start to see it having an impact on sex ratios, that might be the point where it makes sense to start to think about putting stricter regulations or even a ban in place,” said Dr. Magnus.
