Not all hypnotherapy is the same

Date: January 16, 2010
Author: Penny Pettman
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An excellent technique delivers far better results

Many people assume hypnotherapy is a uniform treatment. However, different hypnotherapists use different techniques and some techniques are better than others.

Hypnotherapists often hear people saying ‘I’ve tried hypnotherapy before. It didn’t work.’  However, what people often don’t realise is that just because hypnotherapy didn’t work for them with a specific therapist, it doesn’t mean that hypnotherapy doesn’t work.  It’s similar to saying “I went to school but didn’t pass any exams, and therefore school doesn’t work”. It clearly depends on many factors, including the quality of the teaching at the school and your commitment to learning.

The skill of the therapist and, more importantly, the specific techniques they are trained in affect success rates. A good hypnotherapist with an excellent technique will deliver far better results than those using more basic methods.

Some hypnotherapy approaches and techniques are better than others

Finding out which are best is not easy because every hypnotherapist believes their approach is best. This can be difficult because many hypnotherapists assume their client is cured, without checking a few months after the hypnotherapy.

The trouble with many of the quick fix cures, such as the fast phobia cure, is that they are just that. They can appear to work after one session, but often that change is short term or doesn’t work at all, and that, of course, is not a solution.

In addition, some hypnotherapists weaken their therapy with other therapies such as CBT (behavioural therapy) and NLP (neuro linguistic programming). This is similar to using two or three different recipes for a cake at the same time – it might taste good, but it might not and you won’t know until it’s come out of the oven. Specialist advanced hypnotherapy is like following the best and tastiest, tried and tested recipe. You leave nothing to chance, knowing that it will taste good each and every time you make it.

Clients want permanent changes and solutions to their problem. To get a higher long term success rate, hypnotherapy with specialise is required.

Suggestion hypnosis

Suggestion based hypnotherapy is the most commonly available on the market. ’Suggestions’ or ideas around new attitudes and behaviours are given during hypnosis. For uncomplicated problems, the treatment can work well. However, the downside with suggestion hypnotherapy is that it can appear to work after a session, but because it doesn’t address the real cause of the issue, it can manifest in other ways or return later.

Research has shown that suggestion only works for around a third of issues.

One of the largest scientific studies on hypnotherapy success was reported in the New Scientist in October 1992¹. Comparing success rates for stop smoking therapies, 72,000 people across 600 studies were evaluated, and hypnosis was proven to be the most successful stop smoking treatment on the market. Even the most basic suggestion hypnotherapy tapes worked far more effectively than any other treatment, including willpower, nicotine patches and counselling. At worst, suggestion hypnosis was shown, to have a 30 per cent success rate, but it could double to 60 per cent with a good, trusted therapist and good suggestion.

These success rates significantly outperform any other treatment for stop smoking on the marketing, including nicotine patches and Champix/Chantix. However, more specialist advanced techniques have been shown to be even more successful.

Hypno-analysis

Hypno-analysis, also known as ‘free association’, is another technique which currently appears to be very popular. This approach can delve deeper into the inner mind and involves asking the subconscious mind to bring forward information relating to the problem.

However, problems can arise with as this undirected approach. This is because it can also bring up more issues in addition to the one the client came in with. Not only can this leave the client more problems than the original one, it can establish an unhealthy dependence on the therapist.

Advanced hypnotherapy can a be permanent solution

When used properly, advanced hypnotherapy, can be permanent solution because it takes a holistic approach to addressing the problem. An advanced hypnotherapist will have undertaken specialist training and is rare. The advanced hypnotherapist is skilled at gaining direct access to the subconscious mind and finding the root of the problem. The problem can be addressed once the source of it has been found.

Just like an expert computer hacker, the advanced hypnotherapy specialist eliminates the ‘mind viruses’ causing the issues. When the ‘mind viruses’ are deleted and the attitudes and behaviour pattern reprogrammed, the problem can be fixed.

Hypnotherapy’s success has been proven in thousands of academic research studies. One notable study was by Von Dedenroth (1968), who found 94 per cent of over 1,000 smokers that stopped smoking with hypnotherapy reported being non-smokers at least 18 months later².

Advanced hypnotherapy that includes age regression can work within just 3-7 sessions, compared with suggestion or hypno-analysis that can take up to 20 sessions and still not be fixed. Advanced structured hypnotherapy involves following set of specific protocols that address the problem from all sides. The approach works with a client’s unique mind programmes. It works with the parts of the mind keeping the problem in place and age regression to bring forward information to help understand, solve and deal with the problem. Once the source of the problem has been dealt with, suggestion is used to lay down the foundations of a new set of behaviours and attitudes.

Age regression is essential to ensuring that the root of the problem is reached and fixed permanently. Advanced hypnotherapy is a specialist skill, but one that delivers long term results for most people, most of the time.

References

¹New Scientist (Robert Matthews, Issue 1845, October 1992). Collected from statistics from more than 600 studies, covering almost 72,000 people in America, Scandinavia and elsewhere in Europe and including 48 studies of hypnosis covering 6000 smokers

²Von Dedenroth, T. (1968) American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis

Hypnotherapy Review- A case for hypnotherapy for health

Date: January 16, 2010
Author: Penny Pettman
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Hypnotherapy, Hypnosis and Conversation Hypnosis are all examples of trance sessions. To achieve the results you and your clients aiming to reach, these trance sessions will should and will take on whatever form necessary.

A basic structure for hypnotherapy is the best guide you can have, giving a simple guideline on hypnosis and hypnotherapy. As a basic rule, you should let things happen in a natural way if things vary a bit but still produce the trance and result which you have set out to obtain.

This basic structure for hypnotherapy is all based on eight concepts which you will read about as we continue.  The eight concepts are therapeutic preparation, interviews, identify work, induce trance, change work patterns, test and future pacing, ending trance and setting tasks and dismissal.

 

Hypnotherapy Step # 1 – Therapeutic preparation

The first thing the hypnotist is required to do is prepare himself for the sessions and work to be done. It includes a variety of tasks he needs to practice, keep fresh and prepare for in, before and after each of the therapeutic sessions.

 

Hypnotherapy Step# 2 – Interviews

Interviewing your clients is the second step in the basic structure which you need to do. First you build rapport, comfort, and trust with your clients by meeting and greeting them. This meeting gives you a chance to converse out of trance and will initiate a general relationship built on warmth and ccmfort, inspiring confidence your ability to help one another. Thereafter, you will conduct a formal type of interview with your clients with an objective of gathering information, outline the problem, assess the resources you have to help and challenge the patterns that are causing limits in resolving the problem.

 

Hypnotherapy Step # 3 – Identify the work

This step comes after the process of interviewing the clients above. It involves identifying the areas in which you will be doing your work.

You will use the information that you were given in the interview process to identify the areas in which you can provide assistance with given the amount of time you have to work within.  Part of this will be to make a judgment on what you believe your client can accomplish and work though in the given period of time you have.

 

Hypnotherapy Step # 4 – Induce Trance

In step four you will start with trance inductions.  This is where your hypnotherapy or hypnosis will take place; you can do this either informally or formally. 

 

Hypnotherapy Step # 5 – Changing Work Patterns

Step five is to involve change work patterns; these are methods such as changing frames, stories and other interventions.  These are only a few options you have.  You should constantly keep your mind open to new developments in this area as well as find the change work patterns that will work for you; these may be from other people or invented yourself. 

 

Hypnotherapy Step # 6 – Test and future pacing

Step six in basic structure is to test and future pace.  First testing is always going to be an important part of your hypnosis structure.  It is important to test the progress you are making so you know what is working and what has potential of failure or falling apart.  If your therapy is going to fall apart you will be better off discover this while in session than to realize it happened when you were not around to patch things up.  Test thoroughly and often so you are aware of where you stand with your clients.

Future pacing is a rehearsal of future situations that the client’s problem would have appeared in, in the past.  In this you will want the situation to naturally trigger the solutions you are helping your client to find.  The language you use here will also help your client to move toward change.

 

Hypnotherapy Step # 7 – Ending trance

Now that you have worked your way through the first six steps in the basic structure of hypnotherapy you are ready to move on to step seven which is to end the trance.  As you start to end your trance keep in mind that this is the most suggestible part of trance and you should use it to that advantage.  Make positive suggestions and self esteem building tools here as you bring your client out of trance. 

After you end the trance you will also want to avoid suggesting any problems occurred as well as distract their attention with a random set of comments.  This will likely cause some amnesia to set in to they will only remember the end conversation of your session.

 

Hypnotherapy Step # 8 – Dismissing the client

The final step in this structure is to task and dismiss the client.  The objective here is to assign tasks to the client that will aid in the processes you have used in the hypnosis.  After that your session is ended and the person is dismissed, only do this once you are sure the trance has been broken for reasons of safety and proper function in the world outside of your office.  And that is your simple basic structure for hypnotherapy.

For more information please visit http://www.conversational-hypnosis.com

General Anxiety Disordered

Date: January 16, 2010
Author: Penny Pettman
Categories: Advice
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General anxiety disorder or GAD is a condition where the sufferer has excessive anxiety on most days. Traditional treatment is initially the prescription of buspirone or another anti depressant. Long term general anxiety disorder sufferers are often given cognitive therapy, which until recently was regarded as the number one method of dealing with the condition.

General anxiety disorder affects about 2% of the population at some time or other, being more prevalent in women than men the onset most often being before sufferers hit the age of 30 and is characterised by anxiety that is widespread rather than targeted as in a phobia.

People with general anxiety disorder experience a lot of anxiety, feeling fearful, tense or worried most if not every day and is most often a condition which lasts for years and becomes a way of life. Other symptoms of general anxiety disorder are a feeling of vulnerability causing the sufferer to feel on edge, people often describing it as feeling wired up. This heightened state of tension, leads to excessive tiredness, with concentration lapses commonplace, however this is often coupled with difficulty sleeping and insomnia, because the condition keeps your mind racing making it difficult to relax.

Whilst some people are more anxious than others, stress of one type or another is often instrumental in general anxiety disorder and often times acts as a catalyst in triggering the condition. Most often though, its past events, that play the major part in laying the conditions foundations, abuse, loss of a loved one through separation or death, broken family life in childhood or any other stressful event or series of events being typical examples.

Modern therapies such as Thought Field Therapy are now highly regarded as treatments for this condition, with companies such as BeOnForm specialising in treating general anxiety disorder, panic attacks and agoraphobia.

http://www.beonform.com/

Beat The Stress Clock!

Date: January 16, 2010
Author: Penny Pettman
Categories: Advice
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Not all stress is distress. A certain amount of stress or pressure is necessary to maintain a healthy balance physically and mentally. There are actually several degrees of stress. Probably one of the most important aspects of dealing with the negative stress in your life is through positive stress affirmations.
Positive affirmations can be a part of your first response to stress triggers.
It would be wonderful if we could a place that is calming and peaceful so you can relax and recite positive affirmations without interruption. The problem is, stress generally doesn’t choose the moments in our lives when we have the luxury of stepping away and collecting ourselves; therefore your affirmations have to be rooted and instinctive.
The lowest degree of stress is distress, which can lead to frustration, boredom or dissatisfaction – even severe health effects such as complete exhaustion, heart attacks, and stroke. This stress chips away at us, which can slowly disintegrate our body and mind. And it can even create many negative affirmations ingrained in our minds. This, of course, needs to be addressed and we need to refocus our mind. Examples of Positive Stress Affirmations
Here are two examples of positive stress affirmations for the distress situations that arise:
“There are so many things to explore and do in life.” or “I am content to be in my circumstances.”
The most destructive stress is the extreme stress, which leads to irrational problem solving and very often anger. This stress can cause you to make poor judgment calls that destroy your credibility and decision making processes. Coping with Extreme Stress through Affirmations
Some positive stress affirmations that need to become ingrained to counteract extreme stress could be the following: “I will never make a major decision when I am angry or totally stressed.” “I will seek a trusted friend for wise counsel before taking action when I am stressed out.”
There is such a thing as “healthy” stress. It’s called eustress, or positive stress. This stress leads to positive growth, satisfaction, newfound knowledge, rational problem solving and creativity. Using this particular stress to energize your positive stress affirmations for the destructive distress and extreme stress would be productive.
We need to reevaluate how we manage the stress in our life and recognize the situations that are unique to us that put us into stress mode. For one person the craziness of an insanely busy workday could stretch them to the limit; while another person would thrive on this high energy. Find the eustress in your life that you can tap into and use the creative energy to calm you when you are under the distress or destructive stress influence.
Some free positive affirmations to help you achieve your goal for inner harmony in a stressful world are as follows:
• I can balance my time in order to keep me from being bored.
• I choose not to make life-changing decisions when I am stressed.
• I take a step back from conversations when I am too stressed to be rational.
• I evaluate what I find stressful and choose to move past it.
• I am a calm problem solver.
• I value the counsel of others when I can’t see the forest for the trees.

Stress and Anxiety – Use Hypnotherapy to Overcome Them and Find Peace

Date: January 16, 2010
Author: Penny Pettman
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Now more than ever, scientific surveys are attesting the primary role played by stress in triggering or aggravating different physical and emotional afflictions. In the June 6, 1983 issue of Time Magazine, the cover story labeled stress “The Epidemic of the Eighties.” It also said that stress is our leading health problem. Indeed one has to recognize that our world has become a lot more complicated and stressful in the last two decades since that article was written.

Numerous surveys indicate that almost everybody is under the impression of being subject to a lot of stress. Authorities in the field estimate that between 75 and 90 percent of all visits to primary care physicians somehow have to do with stress.

Most people report their stress is primarily due to their job. And stress levels have also grown in children and the elderly population because of several reasons including: Peer pressures that often push people to everything from smoking to alcoholism and drug abuse; the wearing away of religion and family values; increased crime rates; threats to personal safety; and last but not least social isolation and loneliness.

Stress can cause and aggravate conditions such as diabetes, ulcers, low back and neck pain, high blood pressure, strokes and heart attacks. This is due to the ever growing sympathetic nervous system activity along with a high level of cortisol, adrenaline, and other hormones. Chronic stress is often associated with lower immune system resistance. Stress can contribute to anxiety, depression, and its various effects on the body’s organs.

The following definition for “stress” can be found in the American Heritage Dictionary:

“To subject to physical or mental pressure, tension, or strain”

The following is the definition of “tension” from the same dictionary:

“Mental, emotional, or nervous strain”

The following definition is given for “anxiety”:

“A state of uneasiness and apprehension, as about future uncertainties”

And the following is the definition of “depression”:

“The condition of feeling sad or despondent”

The following is the definition of “clinical depression”:

“A psychiatric disorder characterized by an inability to concentrate, insomnia, loss of appetite, anhedonia, feelings of extreme sadness, guilt, helplessness and hopelessness, and thoughts of death.”

One thing is for sure, our mind is the first source of our feelings of stress, anxiety and depression. Put differently, what we think about, and our attitudes and points of view about our experiences create our feelings. That way, if we can learn how to change our thoughts, attitudes, and points of view, we can get rid of our feelings of stress, anxiety, and depression and change them for a more positive state of being.

Since the beginning of time, people have tried to find methods that would allow them to eliminate stress. With the pharmaceutical industry there seems to be a drug for everything. And to that end the industry has created a large line of sedatives from Valium to Xanax. If you choose to utilize drugs for relief, please be sure to pay attention to the fine print and learn about the side effects, which commonly include addiction and dependency. Unfortunately, these types of drugs aim at treating the symptoms, but not the cause. So as soon as one stops ingesting them, the symptoms can come back.

A finer method to get rid of tension, stress, anxiety, and depression is to work on the root cause, which as I said previously, is generally our thought processes. There is the good news. Hypnosis is all about relaxation. The AMA accepted hypnosis in 1958 as an effective way to cure stress or stress related symptoms. Moreover unlike anxiolytics, there are totally no negative side effects.

When you are in hypnosis, you are in the Alpha level of consciousness. It’s the daydream like temporary psychological state that we experience as we’re just about to fall asleep at night. And we experience it once again when we awaken again. There are several different ways that will help us guide ourselves into this state of tranquility, from progressive relaxation to visual imagery to listening to hypnosis CD’s.

Once we access a hypnotic state, we can communicate with our unconscious mind, which is the seat of our feelings. And it becomes easier to acknowledge new points of view and ideas that will help us to dissipate anxiety, or even avoid it completely.

NLP, which is a recent sort of hypnotherapy, offers numerous excellent methods for getting rid of stress. Perhaps the technique that works best is called the “swish” pattern – or the “flash” pattern. When you use this method, your unconscious will automatically use negative, stress producing mental images, as triggers for tranquilizing mental images. Otherwise stated, your stressors will automatically cause relaxation!

TO SUM THINGS UP

Tension, stress, anxiety, and depression can be caused by our thoughts. So by changing our attitude and the way we feel about our situation and what we’ve experienced, we can dissipate these feelings at the source. Hypnosis and NLP are natural tools that we can use to help us change our attitude and point of view to swiftly dissipate the root cause of our negative feelings.

The Causes of Fear – Overcoming Fear – Part 3

Date: January 16, 2010
Author: Penny Pettman
Categories: Advice
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The prime and basic cause of all fear is our ignorance of our true nature. If we experienced or were convinced of our invulnerable eternal soul-nature, we would never feel any fear whatsoever. Because we do not, or cannot, believe this truth, we feel vulnerable, separate, isolated and susceptible to extinction or insignificance.

Because of this, we identify with the body and the complex of personality traits, which we call “I”. All fears, no matter how specific they may appear to be, can be traced back to the basic fear of rejection of pain to or extinction of the “I”, and the loss of any of its security attachments.

Some subordinate factors also contribute to fear:

1. A feeling of separateness increases our fear. When we feel close to people and nature we cannot easily fear them. Fear results from a feeling of alienation, which manifests a general feeling of suspicion of all and everything.

2. Unfamiliarity with people and things also causes suspicion and fear. When we come in contact with someone who dresses or behaves differently from what we are accustomed, our security base is undermined and we often react with caution and perhaps defensive or offensive behavior.

3. Attachment to people and objects related to our security cause to fear and play power games in order to protect our possessions, relationships or self-image when we suspect we are in danger of losing them.

4. Imagination can create images of doom and suffering far beyond any physical reality or likelihood. Imagination in itself is not negative. It is misused by the fear complex of: alienation, unfamiliarity, vulnerability, mistrust and attachment.

5. Emotionally charged memory of previous negative experiences, where we have either witnessed or suffered harm, loss or death provokes fear. Our subconscious mind stores memories of such unpleasant experiences from the past.

We also carry within us instinctual fear complexes resulting from our evolution through the animal kingdom. Thus, we project onto the present and future what we have experienced in the past, generating a distorted perception of reality.

Also our memory is not quantitative but qualitative. It does not assign the same power to each memory. For example, we may have driven a car 3000 times without any problem, and then have one accident and fear driving after that. Thus we are allowing one experience weight more than 3000.

In the same way, we might have had hundreds of loving contacts with a person and then let one negative one cause us not to talk to this person and perceive him or her as evil.

This illustrates that each thought has a certain energy field associated with it, which creates our emotional reactions when we come into contact with that thought. This is the basis of the newly discovered Energy Based Psychology systems of Thought Field Therapy (Dr. Roger Callahan) and Emotional Freedom Techniques (Gary Craig) which offer easy and quick freedom from fear and other negative emotions. We will discuss these in later sections of this series.

The Purpose of Fear

Fear has its purpose in the animal kingdom, where the animal’s low state of consciousness leaves little recourse but to fight or flee.

As humans with higher consciousness, however, we have alternative methods for dealing with potential dangers. Clearer examination of the many situations which we feared as dangerous will reveal that they simply were no so.

How many times have we been stricken with fear upon experiencing a sudden sound or sight, only to eventually realize we were completely wrong in our interpretation?

How many times have we worried intensely about a future event, imagining the worst, only to have everything work out fine? And even if we could not, at first, accept how things worked out, everything was dissolved and forgotten in the ceaselessly flowing river of time.

Very few of our fears are based on our present reality, but rather are founded on a remembered but nonexistent past or an imagined future.

Our fears seldom concern an immediate danger, such as a tiger attacking us or a bomb falling on our heads.

Even in the case that we are actually in danger at the present moment, fear will only cause us to become stiff in body and unclear in mind. We could deal with danger much more efficiently if we perceived and acted with clarity, self-confidence and courage.

Motivational Courses Using Hypnotherapy NLP And Life Coaching Part 2/3

Date: January 15, 2010
Author: Penny Pettman
Categories: Uncategorized
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Now all of those are great reasons to go to the gym, but did they get you there? No. If the pleasure of going was a good enough reason, you would have done it already! So your commitment to this motivation you want, will be tested by using pain. During the motivational courses I have provided in St Albans, I have found that people are put off by this relatively simple concept which is really just about getting leverage. Leverage is a bit of an American term, but it gives us an idea of how we can apply movement to something that seems to be stuck- and remember that in order to be motivated, you must be moving.
If you think of a great big boulder made of stone that you wanted to move, you could try pulling and pushing it and getting exhausted, but it probably wouldn’t budge easily. However, if you use a lever, you can apply half the amount of pressure, use half the energy and the boulder will move. Our pain reasons (negative/ stick) are going to work like a lever, so here is a list of those applied to the example of going to the gym:
1) There is a history of diabetes in my family. If I do not go to the gym I will be unfit and more likely to be ill like my father is.
2) I am currently single. If my body doesn’t get fit there is a strong possibility I will stay that way. Then I will never have children.
3) If I do not exercise my heart, I will be more likely to have a heart attack.
4) If I get sick, which is more likely when I am unfit, it will take me longer to recover because my body will struggle. I will be aging faster than my peers who will be enjoying their lives.
Just take a look at the two lists of reasons. One is fluffy and one hits you in the gut. One list moves you, it takes you by surprise. Only one of those lists physically creates a shifting internal feeling when you read it. Now imagine that they were your reasons, applied to your motivational problem. Which list is going to get you doing something, pain of getting away from what you don’t want, or the pleasure of moving towards what you do want?
In my private practice, I offer 3 different alternatives to help with motivation. This has been beneficial to the St Albans Motivation Courses, because it means that everybody is three times more likely to find a motivation solution that works for them.
I start by providing a free consultation which takes about 40 minutes. There is no obligation to attend motivational sessions after you have attended the consultation, you can just come along to find out a bit more information about how I work, and I can find out more information about your particular problem.
Now read Motivational Courses using Hypnotherapy, NLP and Life Coaching 3/3

The Best Life Coaching Strategies – Revealed

Date: January 15, 2010
Author: Penny Pettman
Categories: Uncategorized
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Life coaching can be helpful for anyone. Whether you are in the pits and need to reshape your life or if you are already successful and want to take your life to even better heights life coaching can be the answer.
Most people shy away from life coaching because they have a hard time admitting they need help. Everyone always likes to think that they have everything all figured out. Let’s face it – everyone needs help. The sooner you can commit to improving yourself the sooner your life will take form.
Do You Know The Power of The Law of Attraction?
One of the most important life coaching strategies of all involves the law of attraction. Many of you have already heard of this law before, but few actually understand what it involves. The law of attraction refers to the idea that life is how you imagine it, and so if you find yourself constantly thinking about and living in negative imagination every day, then you be drawing negative people and things to you.
However if you were to suddenly step into the present, come to terms with what is happening in your life right now, and forget about dwelling on the past or the future you could change your life. If you were to make a conscious choice to simply be clear and present to that which is occurring in your life right now, then you could be attracting positive people and things into your life.
It is believed within this, and most other life coaching strategies as well in fact, that every event, situation and relationship is here for us to evolve. And that when we take the time to put our attention on the opportunity within our current experiences, we are then able to create positive intentions for our future.
In other words, rather than thinking back to past relationships or events or thinking what may be in the future, think of and focus on what you have now and how you can learn from your situation. Every situation can have a positive outcome or lesson. See it and use it.
The Benefits of Life Coaching
Life coaching strategies help you to do a number of different things. Namely they can create joyful experiences in your life each and every day, develop action strategies to meet and exceed your life fulfillment goals, clear your current blocks and get a deeper connection with yourself as well as others. Life coaching strategies also eliminate any self-defeating behaviors and perspectives that you may currently have.
These strategies are not necessarily easy to employ full-time in your life right away. But with some awareness and effort it will become easier. If you need to, hire a life coach. They can help you stay on track. Life is one incredible journey, don’t waste it focusing on negative things.

Medical Resource A List of Unusual Alternative Medicine

Date: January 15, 2010
Author: Penny Pettman
Categories: Advice
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A list of some of the alternative medicine practices you’re likely to encounter in the United States. Some of these are considered border-line acceptable even in the professional medical field, and many understand that this is unfortunate. Mostly these are just scams, quackery, and nonsense, which unfortunately gullible people believe in if they are desperate and grasping at false hope. Keep your eyes peeled for any of these, and be prepared to stamp out the harmful ones.

Hallelujah Diet
“Reverend” George M. Malkmus claims to have eliminated his colon cancer and other serious health problems more than twenty-five years ago by “following biblical principles for a natural diet and healthy lifestyle.” He and his wife Rhonda Jean operate ‘Hallelujah Acres’, where they hold seminars, sell products, and advocate a diet that consists of raw fruits and vegetables.

Malkmus and his followers claim that his methods have helped people with obesity, cancer, arthritis, and more than a hundred other health problems. He is a very eloquent speaker who is capable of inspiring people who trust in what he says. It has been speculated that he is in fact running a cult, with an unknown number of followers at the ‘Hallelujah Acres’ site.

Intra-Cellular Hyperthermia
Nicholas Bachynsky, a medical doctor whose license was revoked in the early 1990s, is largely responsible for the persistence of intracellular hyperthermia as a treatment. In April of 2004, he was imprisoned in a Floria jail to await trial on fraud charges related to sale of phony stock in a business founded on the alleged treatment.

The claim is that it is effective against cancer and Lyme disease by way of the intravenous administration of 2-4- dinitrophenol (DNP), which the U.S. Food and Drug Administration banned more than sixty years ago.

Herbal Medicine
Americans are now spending billions of dollars per year for herbal capsules and tablets, bulk herbs, and herbal teas. Although the teas are consumed for their flavor, most of these products are probably used for supposed medicinal qualities. Sales by multilevel distributors and pharmacies amount to hundreds of millions more for products that are obviously intended for harmful self-medication.

Herbs are also marketed by naturopaths, acupuncturists, iridologists, chiropractors, and unlicensed herbalists, many of whom prescribe them for the entire gamut of health problems of every description. Many such practitioners are not qualified to make appropriate medical diagnoses or to determine how the products they prescribe compare to proven drugs, and are not licensed to do anything at all, for that matter.

Mesotherapy
Touted as a nonsurgical alternative to liposuction, mesotherapy involves the injecting of medications and plant extracts into the layers of fat and connective tissue under the skin.

The injected ingredients may include agents that are used to open blood vessels, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medications, enzymes, nutrients, antibiotics, herbal cures, and hormones. Mesotherapy is said to be used in conjunction with dietary modification, hormone replacement therapy, exercise and nutritional supplements. No drug is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for use in mesotherapy, and none will.

Bio Energetic Synchronization Technique
Bio Energetic Synchronization Technique (B.E.S.T.), came out during the mid-1970s by chiropractor MiltonTed Morter, Jr., of Rogers, Arkansas. It is claimed to be “a holistic program that coordinates and balances the workings of all the systems of the body.” Morter defines B.E.S.T. as “a nonforceful chiropractic technique for the 21st century that removed interference from the nervous system by the use of the hands.” Morter claims that such interferences occur when subtle pulses in different parts of the body are not synchronized.

Neuralyn
Between April 1997 and June 2000, Beverly and Thomas Vigil of Meridian, Idaho, touted a product called Neuralyn on the Internet and elsewhere as a highly effective treatment for spinal cord injuries and other ailments. The couple claimed that Neuralyn was an all-natural substance made up of B vitamins, amino acids, and extracts of plants from the Yucatan Peninsula region. According to Thomas Vigil, the idea for Neuralyn came from a dream.

In fact, the Vigils teamed up with pharmacist David Taylor and concocted Neuralyn using a number of homeopathic ingredients as well as a couple of topical anesthetics. According to Assistant U.S. Attorney Wendy Olson, more than 100 people, most of them paraplegics or quadriplegics, paid up to $10,000 per person to come to clinics in Idaho, Utah and Colorado for Neuralyn treatment.

These people were told that Neuralyn treatments had been 85% to 95% successful, and that the product would enable spinal cord injury patients to move, stand on their own, or walk again by regrowing new nerve cells. The Vigils are now in custody facing charges.

Optometric Visual Training
This approach is based on an idea that learning can be improved by exercises that stimulate coordination of the eye muscles or improve hand-eye coordination. Its proponents assume that the basic problem that leads to reading disability is some deficit in the muscles of the visual system.

The American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Ophthalmology have spoken out against this approach and cautioned that no eye-muscle defects can produce the learning disabilities associated with dyslexia. Dyslexia is actually a reading disorder characterized by omissions, faulty word substitutions, and impaired comprehension. It isn’t due to mental retardation, lack of schooling, or brain damage.

Thought Field Therapy
Abbreviated as TFT, its founder, psychologist Roger J. Callahan, Ph.D., claims that TFT “provides a code to nature’s healing system and addresses their fundamental causes, balancing the body’s energy system and allowing you to eliminate negative emotions within minutes and promote the body’s own healing ability.”

The Callahan Techniques site also recommends dietary supplementation for the persons who “suffer from multiple environmental sensitivities and even allergies which aggravate psychological problems.” During the TFT sessions, the therapist uses sequences of finger taps on “acupressure points” of the hands, face, and upper body. The patient at the same time does repetitive activities, such as repeats statements, counts, rolls the eyes, or hums a tune while visualizing a distressing situation.

Scientific Definitions of Stress

Date: January 15, 2010
Author: Penny Pettman
Categories: Advice
Comments: Leave a reply

It is said that you can find every definition and explanation you seek in life. The problem comes when you have to distinguish them and choose the definition that is accurate if you believe accuracy exists in the first place. When it comes to the topic of stress, you will find very many views and perceptions and the main ones are scientific and conservative views. Firstly, scientific and conservative definitions of stress differ greatly and you will be convinced by the explanation that is going to make more sense to you. Background and orientation of various groups of people will affect their view on stress.From a lay mans view, stress is an occurrence that will make an individual loose themselves mentally, physically and psychologically. It is often seen as a culmination of a breakdown where all systems of a person become less motivated to go on. The modern or scientific explanation of stress recognizes stress as a motivating factor which is sometimes necessary to enable human beings to go the extra mile and in the process learn a few life lessons. Stress has been observed to produce some of the greatest achievements in society. This has been evident in people who have risen above the common and uncommon barriers to come up with great discoveries, inventions, ideas and to go through great hurdles under very stressful situations.It has been said that there is a type of stress that is good and there is stress that is harmful. Conservative definitions of stress totally reject the above statement. Their belief is that stress is not good period. Therefore, conservatives are always seeking ways to eradicate stress totally because it is not acceptable to have severe suffering from stress. The scientific definitions of stress will often seem to make a lot of sense and the following statement is a summary of the definition. Stress is what you will have when your resources are not greater than the demands for the same resources in your life.Many people can easily identify with the above definition because it describes the feeling of being pushed into a corner where there is no escape which is stress. Our minds constantly want to have the ability to conceive that everything is under control or that there is something that can be done about a specific situation. This is however contrary to life and as we progress to become more mature, we realize that we cannot always have everything under control. This feeling or knowledge will give rise to a certain kind of frustration which can be defined as stress.Although with many differences, scientific and conservative definitions of stress agree that certain levels of it will cause harm to the body. Although there is no tangible evidence of how exactly stress causes this, the effects and results of stress are only too evident. Remedies for stress today have not been able to totally eradicate it but there is management available that will see a person regain their sense of being. Make sure your are not caught up in the definition debate, in expense of what you can do to solve the problem in your life.