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Hypnotherapy for high blood pressure
We are an accredited Hypnotension™ practitioner. The Hypnotension™ programme combines cognitive, behavioural and hypnosis-based techniques with lifestyle changes to tackle the emotional and lifestyle factors which underpin many primary or essential hypertension cases.
NICE has recently (Sept 2011) completed a review of hypertension research and has concluded that lifestyle factors and stress play a part in primary hypertension.
The Hypnotension™ Programme
The Hypnotension™ programme is a unique programme that works with you to lower your blood pressure naturally.
As Certified Hypnotension Practitioner, we can tackle the most common emotional and lifestyle factors in an easy and fun way using evidence based techniques. Some of the key factors are explained below.
Smoking
If you have high blood pressure you already know that to continue smoking is like pointing a loaded gun at your head.
The reason hypnotherapy for high blood pressure works is because we use the power of your subconscious mind to change your thinking processes, making it very easy to stop. Normally people will use their will power to try to stop. This creates irritability, mood swings, bad temper, cravings and possible weight gain. Hypnotherapy was proven to be the best method of Stopping Smoking by Which magazine and New Scientist magazine. Their findings were as a result of an in-depth study of all methods of stopping smoking.
Stress
All stress is triggered by an event or episode. Our hypnotherapy for high blood pressure programme teaches you to learn to recognise your stress triggers, then you can learn to introduce new, alternative behaviours when you start to experience a stress trigger, thereby stopping the cycle of building triggers that contribute to high stress. Our hypnotherapy for high blood pressure programme not only helps you to recognise your stress triggers, but while in the hypnotic state you are better able to see alternative perspectives and behaviours in stressful situations. You can learn to reprogramme your thoughts and actions while in a trance state to help you develop new behaviour in the waking conscious state.
Obesity
Our hypnotherapy for high blood pressure programme can help to change your behaviour. If you are overweight because you eat the wrong things we can help you to change that behaviour far more easily than willpower alone. As levels of salt intake is a critical factor in high blood pressure, this is another behaviour with which hypnotherapy can help. Reducing weight helps towards reducing your blood pressure.
Most people fail at weight loss because the approach they use is just too simplistic. Dieting alone will end in failure for most people. How you eat and how it affects your body weight depends on many factors. Programmes that do not take these factors into consideration are going to have only limited success. Limited in either the amount of weight you lose or how long it stays off. Losing weight is a matter of lifestyle change.
- Smoking
- Family history
- Obesity (being very overweight)
- Drinking a lot of alcohol
- Lack of exercise
- Your diet (especially salt)
- Stress
On the above list our hypnotherapy for high blood pressure programme is very effective for all of them, apart from any genetic predisposition to hypertension. The unique Hypnotension™ programme is designed to help clients with high blood pressure (hypertension) to deal with any of the factors that cause and maintain high blood pressure.
Clients that are diagnosed with high blood pressure are told to stop smoking, lose weight, reduce alcohol and reduce salt consumption, to increase exercise and reduce the effects of the stress in their lives. For most people that is easier said than done. We help clients achieve these goals, if it’s appropriate. However, the Hypnotension™ Programme goes much further. It looks at lifestyle factors such as :-
- Childhood events
- Social beliefs and expectations
- Conditioning and traumatic events
- Releasing inappropriate beliefs
- Fears
- Family pressures
And in a tight and structured protocol it deals with each and every factor that is relevant to each client. The Hypnotension™ programme really is a healthy and natural way to return to a normal blood pressure level.
Exercise
Most people don’t look forward to exercising or enjoy exercising itself initially, because we see it as hard work. However, what we do all enjoy is the feeling after we have finished exercising. Sustained, regular and aerobic exercising will ultimately produce the endorphins that make us feel so good and give us that wonderful buzz. So using our hypnotherapy for high blood pressure programme we help you to experience those feelings to motivate you to get started and to look forward and enjoy exercise.
Drinking
Most people enjoy drinking alcohol as we are often amongst friends or having a meal in a pleasant environment. We usually associate drinking with good things and happy experiences. Sometimes though people begin to drink more than they should. Our hypnotherapy for high blood pressure programme can get you back in control.
Childhood events
It has long been recognised that childhood events can have a long lasting effect on our health. If, whilst a child, you were made to feel afraid or pressured, especially over a long period of time, it can lead to your sympathetic nervous system reacting to that situation by putting the body on a high alert status and raising the blood pressure is a bi-product of that reaction. We believe that in many people it can remain in high alert for life, keeping the blood pressure higher than it should be.
Often people have beliefs about their race or the “type” of person they are. In other words they may believe that ALL Asian men have high blood pressure or that as you get older high blood pressure is normal. These beliefs obviously have to be tackled at a subconscious level.
Conditioning and Traumatic events
During our life all of us are subject to conditioning from parents, siblings and peers. Sometimes this conditioning can effect our bodies physically through stress and can be instrumental in raising blood pressure. Likewise, significant trauma can have similar consequences. As part of the Hypnotension™ programme we will look for, and examine, any such conditioning or traumas.
Which blood pressure monitor should I use at home?
In the clinic we use the Omron M10-IT Blood Pressure Monitor. It gives reliable results with a clear and easy display and 1 button operation. It also can store the results for two people so it is an ideal machine for home use as well.
At the time of writing this it costs £112 in Boots but is just under £46 as Amazon because they are discounting it by 59%.
Some of the features are :-
- Fully automatic upper arm blood pressure monitor with Intellisense technology
- All-in-one dual-sized comfort cuff to accommodate both medium and large arms ranging between 22 – 42 cm
- Memory storage for two users (84 readings per user) with time and date stamp
- Auto mode: automatically takes three measurements
- Clinically validated