Asthma is a chronic respiratory disease affecting many Americans. The American Lung Association estimates that six million children under the age of eighteen suffer from asthma. Asthma has no known specific causes, but studies suggest some combination of heredity and environmental factors bring on the disease. Asthma has physiological causes, and a medical doctor should always be consulted prior to the involvement of a hypnotherapist. However, hypnotherapy has proven to be a valuable benefit to those suffering with asthma.
Asthma is a breathing disorder often characterized by shallow breathing, uncontrollable coughing, wheezing, shortness of breath, chest tightening, and sleep difficulties. The airways of the asthma sufferer are obstructed and can become inflamed. Whether brought about by physical triggers such as allergies, work environments, and exercise, or psychological triggers, such as stress and anxiety, hypnosis-based therapy can provide relief from asthma. For those psychological triggers, hypnotherapy can even help to prevent an asthmatic attack.
Those who suffer with asthma often demonstrate some level of high anxiety, high dependence on others, low confidence, or suppressed emotions. All of these behaviors are some form of Middle Mind, or subconscious, behaviors that hypnotherapy can address.
Certain events can instinctively generate serious fear, fright, and panic in all of us. Not being able to breathe would certainly be high on the list of natural fears. As a result, when an asthma attack occurs, it is natural to panic. Unfortunately, this overly emotional response makes everything worse. As attacks happen, the fear in the anticipation of the next attack actually contributes to more attacks. As attacks occur, the circumstances surrounding the attacks become embedded in the subconscious, so that when the asthma sufferer confronts similar circumstances, the attacks are triggered. This psychological conditioning, known to some as the law of unintended consequences, actually works against the asthma sufferer: the more the sufferer seeks to avoid a particular result (the asthma), the more frequently that unintended result occurs (the asthma).
Hypnotherapy can first address the asthma client’s overall behavioral makeup. If general anxiety, stress, depression, or lack of confidence exists and is contributing to the ailment, hypnotherapy can identify the issues and deal with them. If other emotions are being unnecessarily suppressed and that suppression leads to attacks, a plan for overcoming this trigger can be developed. Because so much of an asthma attack is triggered by stress, with another level of stress occurring during the attack, the client learns to relax before the attack occurs and then to avoid the panic and stress through relaxation during an attack. This relaxation will lessen the effects of an attack and end it quicker. Because hypnosis is the key to reaching some of the embedded drives and instincts that are contributing to the initiation of attacks and the severity of attacks, hypnotherapy will include periods of hypnosis in a typical session. The asthma client will learn particular relaxation techniques, often including self-hypnosis, that will become tools for coping more successfully with asthma.
Studies show that hypnotherapy is valuable in helping asthma sufferers overcome those debilitating effects of asthma. No child or adult need deal with overwhelming effects of asthma as often or as severely as they are presently. Get help now.