Is Self-Hypnosis The Answer To Treating Depression?

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), there are more than 300 million people globally who are suffering from depression. It is the leading cause of disability worldwide, and a contributor to the overall global burden of major disease.

The WHO also found that fewer than 25% of those with depression worldwide have access to effective treatments.

So whats the solution to this global endemic? There is often talk about redefining the delivery of good healthcare, and evolving the way medicine is practiced - from symptomatology-based medicine to aetiology-based. That is, medicine asks why rather than telling you what.

As someone who has suffered from anxiety throughout adulthood, finding out the whys rather than simply dealing with the symptoms meant I felt better equipped - along with the help of healthcare professionals - when it came to managing the condition. But I was always conscious that I could be doing more to help myself.

Along with lifestyle and diet changes, that help came in the form of hypnosis, and more specifically, self-hypnosis.

Hypnosis 101

What hypnosis is not: mind-control, peculiar mind-altering or brainwashing. You may have been privy to a sensationalized version of show hypnosis, where groups of people are seemingly put to sleep, manipulated and awakened at the click of a finger - to then display hilarious behaviours.

In reality weve all been hypnotized at some point. A good example of hypnosis is when were driving - often we dont even remember the journey to our destination, we just manage to get ourselves there in a state that can be likened to a trance.

To go into a little more detail, hypnosis can be best described as a state of highly focused attention, with heightened suggestibility, sometimes (but not always) accompanied by relaxation. When a person, such as a therapist, induces hypnosis in another, it is known as hetero hypnosis (hypnotherapy). When hypnosis is self-induced, it is referred to as autohypnosis, or often self-hypnosis. The term self-hypnosis is used to refer to the situation when a person is giving the suggestions to himself or herself.

How self-hypnosis works

In order to better understand self-hypnosis, its important to look how our minds are constructed. First of all, we have an outer layer which is the conscious mind. This is the part of the brain which rationalises everything we do or think about, and is also responsible for the excuses we make when we want to change something but we dont. For example, I want to quit smoking but I cant, or Ill stop next week because this week I have A, B or C.

Beneath the conscious layer lies the subconscious mind, a core part of the brain where all of our emotions and habits are coded without the aforementioned excuses. For example, imagine for a minute something you do, a habit which you know is bad for you. But you cant stop because bad habits are patterns that have already been coded, and are therefore is preventing you from quitting. This is because they are etched in your brain as a result of something that happened in your early years - traumatic or otherwise. Lastly, the brain has a completely unconscious part of the mind which that takes control of critical functions such as digestion and heartbeat. The suggestions we make to ourselves have to bypass the critical factor which protects the subconscious mind. The job of the critical factor is to reject all of the ideas that arent coherent with our subconsciousness. This is why we find it hard to change our patterns: the critical factor is blocking the suggestions. In hypnosis, suggestions go straight to your subconsciousness at will so you can change something much quicker.

How do we benefit?

From birth to around the age of six, we are essentially living in a hypnotic state, absorbing everything around us. We have been exposed to a certain level of programming, either by ourselves, or by our peers - even via advertising. This series of patterns that are created in our minds are repeated over and over, from adolescence to adulthood. And some of those patterns - those that may not serve us - can lead to chronic disease, depression, stress or addiction. In fact our perception of past situations alone could be keeping us in a state of chronic pain, or illness and addiction.

The mind and the body, disease and thought are all more interconnected than we realise: thoughts are congruent with bodily functions. Our bodies and minds are intrinsically connected, which also means that they have the innate ability to heal themselves with guidance. After all, a thought creates a feeling, and that feeling creates an action.

If we feel stressed or depressed, the physiological effect is inflammation. When we experience physical and psychological stressors, inflammation occurs in the body. When stressful events happen, we record them as it was, so it is, which creates a level of shock on the mind, sending distress signals down the nervous system. These alert the endocrine system to increase the level of cortisol and adrenaline in the body, which simultaneously suppresses immune function. Of course this response to stress on its own serves a purpose, for example when we need to protect ourselves from danger. But the problem is that when these situations are compounded over time, and when we dont let go of them, they are recorded, stored and coded in the subconscious mind.

This continual attachment to stressful situations is bad for us because it wreaks havoc in the nervous system, and causes an overproduction of stress hormones and lower levels of immune function. With depression specifically, there are 1 in 5 people who will get the condition at some point. Unlike other conditions, there is no scan or blood test able to determine a diagnosis: its simply a name we give to a collection of symptoms. Depression is a symptom which could represent inflammation in the body. But to be clear, this isnt the type of inflammation that arises as a result of an ankle sprain or insect bite. This is chronic inflammation when your body thinks its under constant attack.

Kings College London published a study that found that patients with depression did not respond to antidepressants if they had high levels of inflammation in the body. This makes complete sense if we consider that antidepressants only deal with the imbalance of chemicals in the brain, and do not address inflammation elsewhere in the body.

All healthcare professionals need to embrace these functional principles and learn to incorporate them into patient care, but as patients we also need to be open to the possibility of alternative, preventative measures such as self-hypnosis.

You cannot change what happened to you in the past, but self-hypnosis can help change the perception, meaning and weightiness attached to a certain memory. Hypnosis allows the subconscious mind to deal with circumstances it never processed properly in the past, and this in turn reduces the recorded stress we carry around with us. When the subconscious mind heals, it allows the nervous system to relax; when the nervous system relaxes the endocrine system does not need to be in a chronic state of fight-or-flight response, sending out inflammatory hormones like cortisol and adrenaline.

Self-hypnosis can also:

• Enhance focus and concentration;
• Help you deal with trauma;
• Heal physical ailments and reduce pain;
• Improve sleep quality;
• Help with self-esteem and confidence issues;
• Eradicate phobias and bad habits;
• Enhance sports, academic and work performance.

In particular, self-hypnosis is a useful bit of kit to have in your arsenal as it can be readily accessed and utilized in real time. For example, it can be used as a confidence booster before a job interview, or utilised at the point you start to feel the physical effects of depression or anxiety.

So how do we do self-hypnosis?

There is a certain amount of skill involved in self-hypnosis, and its a practice that you need to commit to in order to get as much benefit out of it as possible.

This is why its imperative that you follow a comprehensive step-by-step guide on self-hypnosis . If you can learn how to self-hypnotise and how to practice it regularly, youll find it is an extremely powerful tool. Previously learned associations to debilitating conditions, such as depression or stress, can be altered through gaining control over your thoughts. If you can reprogramme your mind, you can achieve better health and wellbeing.

The power of self-hypnosis can bring about profound changes, healing and positive growth in yourself - whatever it is you want to accomplish to achieve your fullest of potential.