More good news on smoking cessation

Hypnotherapy as an aid to smoking cessation of hospitalized patients: preliminary results

AUTHOR(S): Hasan FM, Pischke, K, Saiyed S, Macys D and McCleary

NDATE: Oct 2007

DESIGN: Self-selected trial

SUBJECTS: 67 patients admitted with a cardiopulmonary diagnosis

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the efficacy of hypnosis in smoking cessation in hospitalised patients.

INTERVENTIONS: Subjects contemplating quitting were recruited into 4 groups: Control subjects who preferred to quit "cold turkey" (C), hypnotherapy alone (H), Nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) and both hypnotherapy and NRT (NRTH). Subjects were allowed to self select their group. All subjects received self-help brochures. Control subjects received brief counselling, but other groups received intensive counselling, free supply of NRT and/or a free hypnotherapy session within 7 days of discharge. These groups also had follow up telephone calls at 1, 2, 4, 8, 12 and 26 weeks after discharge. Point prevalence rates for smoking were compared among the four groups at 26 weeks.

RESULTS: At 26 weeks after discharge, 4/12 of control subjects (25.0%), 7/14 in H (50.0%), 3/19 in NRT (15.78%) and 9/18 in NRTH (50%.0) groups were non-smokers. Patients admitted with a cardiac diagnosis were more like to quit at 26 weeks (45.5%) than patients admitted with a pulmonary diagnosis (15.63%).

CONCLUSIONS: Hypnotherapy after hospital discharge can be an effective mode of smoking cessation, comparing favourably with NRT alone.

SOURCE: Chest 2007 132: 52

New website

I have created a new website concentrating on my main areas of work.

Please visit it here http://www.squidoo.com/hypnosis-london

One Session ?

Many people believe that it has to take a long time to solve a problem - not me !

Over the years I have found that real changes can happen in only a single session of hypnosis - witness the exraordinary success of single session hypnotherapy to stop smoking, for example.

The power of expectation has been written about by all walks of therapists and I know that if you want and truly expect to change and if the therapist shares this belief too the wonderful things can and will happen.

In 2008 I expect to see many more clients who are ready and primed for change - hypnosis is merely the catalyst helping to make that happen.

A London Hypnotherapist's review of 2007

Looking back over 2007 one thing I have noticed is how hypnosis for weight loss has been less in demand than ever before.

Stop smoking has been stable despite a fall in demand when the UK smoking ban came to offices, pubs etc . I assume many people have just stopped of their own accord simply because it is now so hard to find somewhere to smoke - it's even banned in the home sometimes !

One thing that has increased is the amount of people wanting to overcome fears and build confidence - I wonder if this trend will continue in 2008 ?

Research on hypnosis and weight loss

2 Years Later Hypnosis Subjects Continued To Lose Significant Weight

109 people completed a behavioral treatment for weight management either with or without the addition of hypnosis. At the end of the 9-week program, both interventions resulted in significant weight reduction. At 8-month and 2-year follow-ups, the hypnosis subjects were found to have continued to lose significant weight, while those in the behavioral-treatment-only group showed little further change.

Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology (1985)

More research on IBS

DESIGN: Systematic review of literature

OBJECTIVE: To review the literature evaluating hypnotherapy in the management of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).

INTERVENTIONS: Electronic databases were searched, bibliographic references scanned and main authors contacted, with no restrictions on language or publication year. Studies which were eligible for the review involved adults with IBS using single-component hypnotherapy.

RESULTS: 299 references were identified, 20 studies and two case series were eligible, including four randomised, two controlled and 12 uncontrolled studies, which demonstrated that hypnotherapy is effective in IBS management, but the numbers of subjects in each study were small. Only one trial scored more than four out of eight on internal validity.

CONCLUSIONS: The published evidence suggests that hypnotherapy is effective in the management of IBS, with 10 of 18 trials indicating a significant benefit. A good quality randomized placebo-controlled trial is required, suggesting that at present, treatment with hypnosis should be restricted to specialist centres caring for the more severe forms of the disorder

SOURCE: Alimentary Pharmacology Therapeutics. 2006 Sep 1;24(5):769-80

Hypnosis and post-operative pain

A new study has been released which has been studying women both before and after breast cancer surgery. The researchers were particularly trying to discover the effect of hypnosis on easing pain and what they found was that the women who received hypnosis prior to cancer surgery required less anesthesia while under going the operation.
The normal side affects of cancer surgery are fatigue, pain and nausea; and hypnosis helped to deal with these symptoms. 200 women took part in the study, and each woman received 15 minutes of hypnosis, either individually or in a group. In these 15 minute periods, the women were given suggestions on how to relax, shown pleasing imagery, instructed how to hypnotise themselves and given advice on how to reduce fatigue, nausea and pain.
From New York City's Mount Sinai School of Medicine, Guy Montgomery, associate professor in the department of oncological sciences who is also the report's lead author, said "This helps women at a time when they could use help, and it has no side effects. It really only has side benefits,"
Additional side benefits to having hypnosis prior to surgery was that the patients spent 11 minutes less undergoing surgery and also their costs were reduced by £370 as they spent less time in hospital and under doctors care.
"This is something that empowers patients," said Dr David Spiegel header led a similar study and explained. "If you're fighting, you think you're protecting yourself, but, actually, you're losing control, because you're getting into a struggle with your own body. You can teach people to float instead of fighting. You get the body comfortable and think more clearly. The weird thing is it actually works. If thoughts can make the body worse, it follows that thoughts could actually make the body feel better."

Hypnosis and IVF treatment - 2004 research

If Israeli professor Eliahu Levitas has his way, women undergoing IVF treatment will all have the benefit of a hypnotist at their bedside.
According to Levitas’s team from Soroka Hospital in Beersheva, hypnosis can double the success of IVF treatment. Levitas’s study of 185 women found that 28% of women in the group who were hypnotized became pregnant, compared with 14% of those who were not.
6.1 million American women and their partners experience infertility, according to the American Society of Reproductive Medicine. Of those about 5% choose in-vitro fertilization treatment.
IVF is a method of assisted reproduction in which the man’s sperm and the woman’s egg (oocyte) are combined in a laboratory dish, where fertilization occurs. The resulting embryo is then transferred to the uterus to develop naturally. Usually, two to four embryos are transferred with each cycle.
According to the latest statistics, the success rate for IVF is similar to the 20% chance that a healthy, reproductively normal couple has of achieving a pregnancy that results in a live born baby in any given month. IVF was successfully used for the first time in the United States in 1981. Since then, more than 114,000 babies in the US have been born as a result of the technique.
The Israeli study - the first of its kind - was presented last month by Levitas to the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology conference in Berlin. According to Levitas, the findings will be published shortly in an American medical journal.
The Israeli researchers were looking to see if hypnosis could make the embryo transfer stage of IVF more successful.
“We gave hypnosis to a group of our patients during the most stressful part of IVF treatment - the transferring of embryos into the uterus,” Levitas told ISRAEL21c. “It’s a crucial point of the treatment, and the point in which the embryos comes in contact with the womb of the woman. It all builds up to that special moment, which is not very painful but is very stressful.”
According to Levitas, that stress can cause complications during the transfer that can put the procedure at risk.
“Studies have been done before which claim that during this short period, there’s so much stress in the woman’s body that it may induce contractions, albeit tiny ones, which may interrupt or even expel the embryos from the uterus at the same moment we’re introducing them,” he said.
“Other techniques have been employed like relaxants and tranquilizers, but nothing has worked well. On the other hand, hypnosis has been known for many years for producing central relaxation, and has even been used before surgical interventions to calm patients,” said Levitas.
Women undergoing IVF were assessed to see if they were suitable to be hypnotized.
“Those women that were interested signed a consent form and underwent hypnosis by Soroka’s Dr. Aldo Parmet, a gyncelogist who’s licensed to perform hypnosis. All the patients were interviewed prior and Dr. Parmet established which patients where more likely to be hypnotized,” said Levitas.
Eighty-nine women were then given hypnosis while their embryos were implanted. Some underwent more than one cycle of IVF treatment. Ninety-six other women underwent embryo transfers without hypnosis. All received one cycle each.
The results showed that the hypnotized women resulted in double the amount of pregnancies of those that weren’t hypnotized.
“Performing embryo transfer under hypnosis may significantly contribute to an increased clinical pregnancy rate,” Levitas told the conference in Berlin.
Given logistical and financial constraints, Levitas sees no reason why hypnotism shouldn’t be an option for all woman undergoing IVF treatment, and he hopes the publication of the Soroka study will raise enough interest to spark continued investigations of the approach.
“The bottom line is I think it’s a good thing, it will work. Patients should be given the option if the facilities are available.”