Seeing is Believing!

Seeing is Believing!
Tiger Woods does it, Arnold Schwarzegger changed his body
shape doing it, patients in hospital are doing it. What is
it? It is creative visualisation, sometimes called guided
imagery.

Imagery is not only visual. It can come through other
senses. It can be a feeling, a knowing, a taste, a sound.
Most important of all, by practicing guided imagery you can
make big changes.

In a study conducted by Alternative therapies in Health
and Medicine, in 2006, it was found that levels of the
stress hormone cortisol, dropped significantly after
participants practiced guided imagery. Researchers in a
hospital in Cambridge, England also found that patients
who used creative visualisation tapes during surgery,
recovered faster and on average left hospital earlier than
other patients.

There have since been many other studies that show that
imagery can boost immune function, lower blood pressure,
speed up healing from cuts, fractures etc and reduce
allergies. And on the psychological level, creative
visualisation can lower depression, reduce perception of
pain, lower fatigue and generally create a sense of
wellbeing.

What is actually happening here is that our unconscious
accepts the pictures, sounds, feelings we experience as a
reality. It does not differentiate between imagination and
reality. Where we repeat a visualisation, we slowly etch it
into the unconscious part of our mind. Then once it is
there, our unconscious goes to work to make it happen for
us in reality.

This is not such a big surprise. Well it is part of life's
many mysteries, if we really think about it. like the way a
plant grows from a seed , it follows a given pattern.. You
plant a seed, you miraculously get to see a plant grow. You
visualise an event, a more helpful response to a difficult
situation, and you begin to see it manifest in your life.

One of my clients, Peter (not his real name) had always
been fit and well. Suddenly, out of the blue, he began to
get painful joints, he consulted his doctor, but he wasn't
too keen on taking medication if he could help it. After
getting his doctor's permission, he started to visualise.
When he came to see me we worked on changing the messages
he was sending his unconscious about the pain from his
arthritis. Slowly, he began to feel more in control of the
pain. He felt he had a tool that he could use to change his
perception of his pain. No doubt more research is going to
be conducted into the health and psychological benefits of
visualisation.

The Ancients were right to hold the imagination and guided
imagery in such a high regard, something modern scientists
are discovering everyday.

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Duncan Sequeira, is a hypnotherapist in London.
http://www.metrohypnotherapist.com