How To Sleep Through Pain

This episode looks at some Hypnotherapy techniques to help manage your pain and how to sleep through pain.

There are two elements to this episode and does involve you undertaking some preparation work and listening to the podcast over several days to help promote the benefits.

It looks at pain relief and improving the management of your feelings of pain and also promotes you sleeping better. Giving you more control over how you feel and how you can manage your feelings when your pain strikes.

https://www.horizonplymouth.co.uk/

Transcript

You are listening to The Therapy Guy talking

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Thanks for listening horizon counselling for all

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Find us at horizontal co UK hello

and welcome back to The Therapy Guy.

I hope you're keeping well and

staying safe during this time.

And today I would like to talk to you about pain.

So, pain is subjective.

We all have different pain thresholds.

We all experience and interpret pain in different ways.

For example, if you were to bang into something,

somebody might find it hurts a lot or they

might say it's an eight out of ten.

Another person may almost completely ignore it and it

is determined on how we're thinking and how we're

feeling and obviously our experiences in life.

So what I want to talk about today really

is how hypnotherapy techniques have some relaxation techniques may

be able to help you with the pain.

They'll be able to help you manage and

understand how you can deal with the pain,

maybe sleep better, especially if you're experiencing some

of this pain during the night.

With this, it's going to take

a little bit of preparation.

There are some things I would like you to do prior

to listening to the rest of this podcast, prior to listening

to the rest of the script, really, because it's important that

we get a sense of how our pain affects us, when

and what we can actually do about it.

If I go through the things that I

would like to do first, I would like

you to maybe scale your pain on average.

So if one is no pain whatsoever and ten is the

worst pain you ever felt in your life, then I would

like you just to gauge where your pain is on average,

or if you think about the worst time that you have

it, or the time you experience it at its worst.

Think about that number.

Now, it doesn't really matter what the number is, whether

it's a four, six or nine, what we're going to

start concentrating on is allowing you to practise this skill,

to listen to the words that I'm saying.

And we're going to encourage you to basically, gradually,

over a period of time, is reduced that pain.

So if we start at a seven, we're going to

be looking at increasing it down to a six, down

to five, all those sort of things, et cetera, et

cetera, so that you take control of how you're paying,

is affecting you, you are back in charge and this

is something that you're going to have to practise.

Of course, managing pain and everything

like that, it comes with practise.

We have to listen to your medical practitioner, to

whatever medical advice you get take the appropriate medication

if you so wish, and make sure that we're

doing everything that we should be doing to manage

any acute pains and everything.

The sort of pain I'm talking about can be

muscular pain, can be injuries, things like that, things

that we can get a sense of and things

that we can start to change in that way.

So what I'd like you to do initially is I would

like you to maybe just run your hands or your arms

either in some cold water or place a wet towel or

a cloth or something on an area of your skin.

Now let's not make it too cold.

We don't want anything to happen to your skin.

But I just want you to get a

sense of this coldness and this sensation of

the cold, of how it affects your skin.

If you can go and also arrange that, go

and spend some time doing that and maybe coming

back, listen to the podcast again or pause it

and then come back to what we're doing here

today because it's a really important part.

And I'd like you to take maybe

5, 10 minutes to notice the different sensations.

Notice the different reactions that your body

has to that coldness on your skin.

How it feels to maybe hold your hands for a period

of time in a bowl or a bucket of cold water.

Or how it feels to have that wet or damp cold towel

on your skin in the area that's giving you some pain.

This sort of thing isn't new, really.

It comes from obviously you see the sports

personalities, they have cold showers or cold ice

baths after any sort of activities to help

them with injuries and everything else.

And there's lots of research around how alternating

between heat and cold water can help with

our blood flow and help with our skin

conditions and that sort of thing.

So once you've done that sort of treatment, once

you've experienced, I would really like you to fully

immerse yourself in that experience and notice the sensations.

Maybe notice your hands or your skin starting

to go numb, starting to feel that coldness

seeping through into your hands or into your

skin, really understand what it's like.

Almost like you're playing out in the snow or you're

holding some ice from the freezer or anything else.

But we're just doing this with some

cold water over a period of time.

So I'm going to allow you to go and do that.

And then in a moment we'll come back when you're ready

and we can carry on with the second part of this.

I'll see you in a little while.

Hi.

I hope that went well. Yes.

I hope you managed to experience the feeling, the sensation

of having this coldness in whatever area that you used

it, how you noticed the change in how your skin

felt or your hands felt, how your fingers might be

going numb or this particular area where you had that

cloth, that cold, wet cloth, changed how your skin was

reacting, really focused everything upon yourself.

And now what I'd like you

to do is find somewhere comfortable.

Whether that's sitting down in an armchair.

Laying on bed.

It's just going to be spending a period of

time listening to the sound of my voice.

Allowing yourself just to relax and spend some

time focusing on different sensations in your body.

Focusing on different words that I'm saying.

And allowing us to start helping you

to manage your pain and how you

perceive it within your brain differently.

So once you've made yourself comfortable, I would just like

you just to make sure that you get in that

right spot, you become as comfortable as you can be.

You change position if you want to adjust the

pillows or adjust your position in the seat.

Wherever it is that you're relaxing at this morning

time, you can rest your hands somewhere, enduring this.

You're always going to be in control of you, you're

always going to be aware of what's going on.

This is just allowing yourself to listen to the sound

of my voice, allowing that time just to let go

of other things that have been bothering you, have been

on your mind, and totally focusing on how you're thinking

and feeling and how your body is changing with the

pain that you're experiencing, or how the tension is draining

away from your body.

Because at this time, nothing matters.

This is time just for you.

This is going to allow us, and allow you

just to unwind completely, letting go of all those

things that have been on your mind lately.

I'm not asking you to stop any

thoughts that come into your mind.

We can just let them drift in and

out just as easily as you breathe out.

Now, I'd like you just to take a few deep,

easy breaths, slowly filling your lungs with that fresh air.

And as you exhale, I just want you to recognise

how your body can start to let go of that

tension that you may be feeling in different areas.

Every outbreak will just allow you

just to relax more and more.

And we're going to focus on the outbreak, because

every breath out is you letting go of everything.

You're all going to need it's.

You just slowing things down.

We're just going to breathe normally, naturally.

And as you progress, your breathing will slow

down normally, naturally, allowing yourself to become more

comfortable, more relaxed, allowing you to take more

control over how you think and feel.

I'm going to move down through your whole body.

We're going to allow you just to notice the different

sensations that happens as we let go of that tension.

So if we start at the top of your head, wherever

it's resting at the moment, just notice the position it's in.

Notice how relaxed maybe your face is sometimes.

Hold this tension in our jaw on that outbreath.

I want you to see if you can just relax that jewel.

You can just let it go, let go

of attention that's here, allowing your tongue to

sit gently on the bottom of your mouth.

And you can just begin to drift into

listening to the sound of my voice.

Nothing else matters, nothing else bothers you.

This is you taking control of you through breath,

slowly and naturally, allowing a relaxation just to spread

down through your neck and into your shoulders.

Again, we can hold a lot of tension

in our shoulders, in our neck area.

I wonder if you can take that deep, easy breath and

on that breath out, you just let go of that tension.

You can feel it draining

away from yourself, everything.

Evening as you work away down through our arms, just resting

wherever they are, cross your body on the bed or on

the chair, you can feel your hands becoming heavier.

You may get some tingling sensations and

everything is okay, but you're aware of

that growing relaxation spreading throughout your body.

And this is almost like a mental massage.

Everything easing.

Once again, we move down through your back.

These large muscles there, they're starting to relax, starting

to ease as we move all the way down

your spine just sink into that breathing, slowing down

all those muscles and attention, just loosening and relaxing

as it drifts away from you.

You let this wave of relaxation just spread

all the way down through your legs.

So your legs feel heavier as every muscles

just become loose all the way down to

the tips of your toes just resting there.

Everything becoming easier.

And the outside world can just

fade away into the background.

And the only sound that I'm attitude would be the sound

of my voice, which will allow you just to go deeper

and deeper and allow you to drift off into whatever state

of relaxation is right for you at this moment in time.

And you may find that your mind begins to wander.

Doesn't matter where it goes.

My voice is going to travel

with you, going to follow you.

So you'll continue just to respond

to the words that I'm saying.

You'll continue to hear everything

that you need to hear.

But all of that unnecessary tension

is draining away with every outbreath.

Every outbreath you take just allows you

to take more and more control, allows

you to switch off and become deeper

and deeper, relaxed, more comfortable, sinking down.

Everything calm as you just continue to drift.

You just don't have to do anything, just

paying attention to that breathing, allowing yourself to

know that you're in control of every outbreath

and every outbreath just allows that relaxation to

increase that's right, easily and naturally.

You don't have to do anything at all.

You've got nowhere to go, nothing to do.

Now, as you drift off into that

trance, noticing any pleasant sensations, any experiences

that you have within your body.

Everything is as it should be.

All you need to do is allow certain things

to happen in response to these words and be

able to feel how good they feel.

Do you really feel this kind of relaxation spreading

through all of your muscles, becoming softer, letting go

now, as you notice any sounds you hear the

words I say, anything and everything allows your good

feelings to increase, allows you to drift off free,

to drift wherever it is you want to go.

As you relax even more deeply, hearing the sound

of my voice travelling with you, pleasant thoughts and

images just filling your mind, loan yourself to see

which part of you feels most comfortable, understanding that

every part of you feels well, feels relaxed.

Do you enjoy just letting go of all

of those controls, of all of that tension?

As you begin to wonder what will shift and

change first for yourself, as you can easily use

your powers of imagination, all that inner focus, to

ensure that you will achieve everything you desire from

listening to the sound of my voice today without

even knowing how you did it, consciously wondering now

how much further into Trent than you really go.

As you enjoy feeling more and more comfortable,

as you go deeper inside, you could notice

words and noticing those words, the deeper you

go, the more wonderful you feel.

The more wonderful you feel, the deeper you can

go, easily and naturally, just by breathing, just by

allowing every outbreath to just relax you completely.

As we continue, you can hear the sound of my

voice and other times it may seem quiet or distant.

Other times it doesn't matter if you can hear my voice

at all because you can allow that deeper part of you

to hear all you need to hear here and now because

you know that you're the one who's in control.

We make all the changes that you want, really

enjoying this experience, this feeling of complete relaxation.

And there may be times when you're not aware of your

body and you won't be aware of your body at all.

As you continue to go deeper and deeper relaxed,

allowing yourself to drift off, allowing the suggestions I

give to become your instant and complete reality.

You see things I say you can see, feel when I say

you can feel and believe when I say you will believe.

These suggestions that I give from

this point will be overcome.

Your instant and complete reality.

You'll be able to see what I say, you

can see, feel what I say, you can feel

and believe what I say you will believe, because

you have that strong, determined imagination.

As we continue breathing slowly and deeply, easing everything

drifting off, you can imagine yourself just letting go,

allowing everything just to drain away easier.

As comfortable as you can be right now, as

you gently just relax, in a moment I'm going

to ask you to imagine certain things.

It doesn't matter if you can't imagine everything, doesn't matter

if you don't hear every word that I say.

You'll hear everything you need to, here, here and

now, as you're the one who's in control, as

you just drift and your mind and your breathing

just drift with you slowly, easily, as you relax.

Now, you might remember back to a

time where you accidentally hurt yourself.

We didn't realise it until later on.

Perhaps you got a cut, a scrape or a bruise.

But until you actually saw the injury way after it

happened, it was almost as if it never happened at

all, because you were able to control or even turn

off your reaction to the sensations in your body.

We are all able to do this.

And because your mind is an amazing, powerful thing, you

can accept now that your mind is able to control

these sensations and to turn them down or to turn

them off completely, you're able to control your mind.

Just like when you recall a memory, just

like when you decide to focus on your

breathing, as you have so easily today.

And you know now that at any time you wish you were

able to create a sense of numbness, a sense of no feeling

in any part of your body that you so wish.

I'd like you to concentrate now.

Concentrate and focus on that sensation from earlier.

Concentrate and focus on those sensations of

having that skin in that cold water.

Imagine the sensations that you had.

Recall and remember how the feelings of becoming

numb, the feelings of cold, start to spread

through our body, allowing us to lose sensation,

allowing us to lose those feelings.

And I'd like to imagine now that all

of that sensation, all of that feeling, is

beginning to spread around your area of pain.

It's almost as if you are turning a dial down

from ten to all the way down to zero.

And each number that the dial turns, the

feeding and sensation just grows and the feeding

will just fade away easily as you continue

to focus your attention on that place.

Now focus your attention on where the pain used to be.

I want you to imagine what it'd be like if you place

this area into that bucket of ice or into that ice bath.

Imagine now you don't even need to move.

Just imagine that there is lots of water and lots

of ice all around the area of your pain.

I'd like you to slowly imagine that you're slowly

lowering yourself into that area, slowly lowering wherever it

is you used to feel that pain into that

large water with all of that ice.

And the ice water is so cold and

this ice water is so ice cold, that

there is no pain, just cold, just numbness.

It actually feels nice to continue to lower

your body, to feel your skin becoming colder

and colder with every breath that you exhale.

Imagine as this cold of this ice water being

sucked directly into every pore, all that area surrounding

where you used to feel the pain.

As you slowly lower and lower, it becomes even more

numb as you go completely into iced water now you

can feel the sensations just drifting away, that area so

numb, so completely submerged in freezing ice water.

Do you imagine how that water is becoming even

colder, allowing the skin to become even more comfortably

numb, allowing all of that feeling to completely fade

away, allowing any sensation to simply pass unnoticed.

Almost as if that area is completely separate

from your body, almost as if you and

your skin is entirely separate altogether.

The colour of your skin turning slightly paler

as it becomes colder and colder, more and

more comfortably numb with every breath you exhale,

as your skin is just completely inactive.

It's almost as if that part of your body was asleep.

You can feel no sensation now.

There's no feeling as you focus

your attention on the skin.

You can give the instruction now for you

for it to become completely honestly numb, more

numb than ever before as you focus on

that area, numbing comfortably, easily.

Tell it now to become numb,

completely asleep, no feeling whatsoever.

You can't feel it at all, not a

single feeling anywhere in that point of view,

no feeling in that cold numb area.

You can't fit it at all because it's just so numb.

As you continue to focus on this part of

yourself that has become numb, so completely numb, all

of that sensation has disappeared, all the feeling gone.

Numb, so relaxed and numb now.

Every breath out just allows your body to relax.

You can continue to breathe.

And with each breath that you exhale, that part

of you is becoming even numer, so numb that

it feels like that part of you is floating

away, disconnecting from you completely, allowing you just to

ease and to relax and to drift off.

Just enjoying that comfortable feeling, that

pleasure of taking control and allowing

things to drift easily and naturally.

And you might be able to drift off

into a more comfortable, easily sleep breathing so

gently, allowing these feelings to continue through so

you can rest now, your eyes feeling so

heavy, every part of you feeling so relaxed.

Knowing the control that you have, the power that you

have over your own mind in your body now, the

power that you have to control your pain.

Allowing yourself to return and listen to this

whenever you want, allowing yourself just to breathe

easily, naturally, allowing every outbreath just to drift

off as you go deeper.

Now, just listening to the sound of my voice,

you can be aware of that comfortable, heavy feeling

of legs, of arms, your entire body that seems

to float in time and space.

Allowing yourself to know that you've taken control

of you in a calm and confident way.

And I wonder now if you can allow

those feelings to continue, those relaxed, comfortable sensations

of mind and body as you drift and

dream and my voice just drifts with you.

Comforting to know that you can give yourself permission to

feel safe, to enjoy the things that are important to

you, to rest, to sleep, knowing you have all that

you need just to continue to drift, to take control,

to let go of all of those feelings of pain

as everything continues to stay none, just while you relax,

breathing so easily in each day.

You can become so deeply interested in whatever it

is that you're doing, whatever it is that's going

on around you, that your mind can become completely

distracted away from yourself and your pain.

No longer thinking about yourself so much,

no longer dwelling upon the negative aspects

and difficulties in your life.

Now you're much less preoccupied with

yourself, with your own feelings.

Now that content, confident, comfortable you that you want to

be, the you that remains calm and in control, able

to breathe out so easily, able to let go so

easily as you take more and more control over how

you think can feel about your pain.

Turning that dial down, allowing that area

to just drift off easily, naturally, seeing

things in our true perspective.

No longer amplifying or difficulties as you

have this new, wonderful level self control.

And each time you allow yourself to drift

off and experience this trance, the easier it

will become, the better it'll make you feel.

The faster you can drift off and drift down

into that transfer process, the better experience you have

just by breathing, just by allowing yourself to go

deeper, faster, so deep, so relaxed.

And whenever you relax, whenever you breathe all

the way out, you can just let go.

You can allow that tension to drain away as

you just continue to drift, continue to breathe and

enjoy this sensation, these feelings you have over you.

You just continue to rest and relax now, drifting and dreaming

wherever it is you want to go, ready to wake up

whenever it is that you need to be awake.

Knowing that you're going to wake.

Feeling refreshed in alive, breathing so

easily, knowing how rested you feel.

Breathing in slowly and gently as you take more and

more control and allow those feelings to drift away.

Enjoying this new feeling of that pain.

Drifting, no longer feeling no longer sense

in those sensations as you enjoy just

resting, your eyes, feeling heavy, your body

feeling relaxed, knowing that you're safe.

Whenever it is you need to wake up, you will do so.

Drifting, breathing slow, fully and steadily.

Take care.