Managing Blood Pressure with Hypnosis

Obviously, the first thing in relation to blood pressure is to check with your doctor. 

    Hypnosis can help with keeping blood pressure low in the following ways. There are quite a lot of people who feel stressed or anxious just as the doctor is taking their blood pressure, this is known as "white coat syndrome", or "white coat hypertension". Some of these people don't have high blood pressure during the course of the day, but if your heart starts pounding as your blood pressure is being taken, it will not be your at rest blood pressure!

    Simply learning self hypnosis can be useful in this situation, as you relax your body and mind, and thus your doctor gets the at rest blood pressure. Typically to get your blood pressure during the day, the doctor will ask you to wear a device that takes your blood pressure at various times during the day. There are also blood pressure reading devices that are simple to use that you put onto your wrist, and while these are not as accurate as the arm cuff devices the doctor uses, they are useful as biofeedback devices that let you know how you are doing with your blood pressure. The typical hypnotic "treatment" for blood pressure is simply to teach you self hypnosis, combined with a short meditation. In this state of mind, you have a certain amount of conscious mind influence over your autonomic nervous system. The autonomic nervous system is the part of you that functions automatically, outside of conscious control. It's a good thing we don't have to consciously regulate our heart beat, otherwise we'd have to say to ourselves, I'd better remember to keep my heart beating while I'm reading this book!

    The autonomic nervous system has two main "modes", the parasympathetic nervous system, and the sympathetic nervous system.
    The sympathetic nervous system is in action during times of high action, working, running, fighting, reproduction, exercising, worrying, and during stress and anxiety. Blood and oxygen are typically diverted to the arms and legs and other parts of your body for purposes of action.
    The parasympathetic nervous system is active during times of rest, eating, relaxing, daydreaming, sleeping (unless during a disturbing or stimulating dream!). It is the time when your body rests, recuperates, heals itself, boosts the immune system, and where digestion is at it's most effective. It is very important to get a good balance of rest and action. 

    Todays world is quite busy however, and if somebody is all action, and does not take the time to rest during the day, over time this can have a toll on the body, and high blood pressure can result. Simply using hypnosis to relax your mind and body can be very effective. The natural cycle of action and rest during the day is called the ultradian rhythm, and it consists of about 90 minutes of activity, followed by 20 minutes of recuperation. This would be the ideal, however very few people can follow this in today's world, even though this 20 minutes could be used to allow your  deeper mind to work on a problem. (Note that the ultradian rhythm is different to the circadian rhythm, which is the 24 hour cycle).

    There is the story about two people chopping wood. The first person worked constantly, the second person would work for a while, and then sit down, relax and take an occasional break. At the end of the day, the person who took the breaks had a bigger pile of chopped wood. The  first person said, "How is this possible, I worked hard all day, and you took loads of breaks!" The other person said, "When I took my breaks, I also sharpened my axe and drank some water!".

    So all this means that simply putting yourself into a relaxed hypnotic trance with a meditation with the intention of reducing your blood pressure uses your natural cycle to heal yourself in an ordinary way. There is nothing extraordinary about this, it just uses your bodies natural ability to heal itself. Your body just needs rest now and again, which means "turning on" your parasympathetic nervous system. This can be achieved easily with self hypnosis with a little practice. If a person is stressed, the fight/flight response is activated, and it usually takes about 20 minutes for the fight/flight to settle down allowing the body to relax. Hypnotic relaxation dramatically shortens this 20 minutes.

    As with every client, we go through an intake form. If there are a lot of emotional issues, like anger, fear, hurt and sadness, guilt, it would be very beneficial to clear those negative emotions from the body, to resolve those issues from the past, so the old emotions don't keep resurfacing when people press your buttons, you have new choices as to how to respond at the times you would have brought up one of the above emotions, bringing up old baggage of unresolved negative emotion, which can also contribute to blood pressure as well as other physical symptoms.

If you would like an explantory brochure, or a free consultation, please phone
Daniel Madden ADHP MICHP BE
Phone: 085 - 1318344

Email: dmadden@experiencetheworlddifferent.com