Reducing Pain Perception

Spanish Surgeon Dr. Angel Escudero (http://dr.escudero.com/) has a theory that pain can be reduced just by salivating!

The body communicates stress in various ways; one is by creating a dry mouth when under stress. We know that stress amplifies pain perception and that reducing stress in this situation, reduces pain perception.

Dr. Escudero has concluded that if we keep our mouths salivating, we can reduce pain, because the brain gets feedback that this specific stress mechanism has been eliminated. Hence no further need for pain signals.

Dr. Angel Escudero calls this method "NO‐ESI‐THERAPY" and it works, thousands of operations have been conducted under this method.

As I see it, the method uses two main mechanisms; Focus of attention (away from pain) and Salivating (stress reduction signal).

The patient focuses on salivating, which signals to the brain that pain signals (originally instigated due to stress) are no longer required.

The patient speaks out loud, commenting that the painful body part is becoming numb and making comments directed towards comfort and numbness rather than focusing on reducing the pain. Trying to reduce pain merely focuses on the painful aspect, which of course increases it.

This theory is interesting from both a clinical and sports perspective because increasing saliva is a rapid and ‘mobile’ solution that anyone can adopt.

Perhaps this is one aspect that Type 2 diabetics need to be aware of? Many type 2 diabetics are over weight and in pain, if they unconsciously find pain relief when eating (salivating) the pain/over eating cycle is never going to subside.

The ramifications of this could be dramatic for sports people too. Could the endurance athlete concentrate on producing saliva in order to reduce the pain of a long distance race?

The fact that Boxers are known to endure huge amounts of pain without complaint could be partially due to salivation? Perhaps gumshields used in competitive boxing could give the human body the impression that the boxer has food in the mouth and instigate saliva mechanisms – reducing pain perception?

Steve Mycoe

Sports and Pain Control Hypnosis Specialist.

www.SportsHypnosis.co.uk

Motivation - life’s driving force.

Many people believe they can generate motivation through setting inspiring goals . This is true for some but they often fail to realise the reasons behind the inspiring image, consequently it is more difficult to generate motivation on a constant basis, a skill we could all benefit from. Motivation is about knowing why you want a goal or activity, not what you want. Sure, knowing what you want is important because it gives you something to focus upon. The point is, if you want a particular goal, setting reasons why you want it is far more powerful than just visualising the outcome. It creates far more emotion to realise your underlying driving force.

Recently a client approached me regarding a sporting goal he wanted to motivate himself to achieve. After some time discussing his life and sporting ambitions I discovered that a couple of his friends were having a wedding anniversary. This seemed to be a good target to set some sporting goals for him to achieve. I made a wall chart and got specific weight and bodily conditions that he desired to attain within that time frame, and of course the reasons why he wanted to achieve them. This concept I find to be one of the best ways to motivate oneself. It encourages you to push yourself towards a goal, towards a specific condition. Together we conjured up enough associations of ‘pain' in not achieving that goal so that he always felt like training at the times when there might be other tempting distractions that might disrupt his routine. When a distraction arose he consciously chose to think of painful consequences of not achieving his goal, this motivated him to act.

Inspiring motivation is a fantastic bedfellow to weight control, especially in the sporting arena. The majority of sports people find the motivation of sports excellence great enough to break any patterns of weakness in their diet programmes, thus their bodily functions are being manipulated by their thoughts, visions, and images, in other words their minds. It still amazes me at how difficult people say it is for them to lose weight, the fact that they are born that way, they have poor genetics, they have special slow metabolisms etc… In reality they can lose weight, no matter how hard they convince themselves that it is impossible and the odds are stacked against them, no-one is saying it will be easy but it is possible. You probably know someone who makes such excuses, sometimes they seem plausible, however in most cases it is mis-leading nutritional information or lack of motivation that is the problem. The Mind is the most powerful and influential aspect of our world, ‘there is nothing with out first the mind'. This is especially true in weight control, I get phenomenal results from weight control hypnosis. I believe weight control is almost entirely based in the mind, second only to our energy in - energy out behaviour patterns (although these are also controlled by our minds).

You may be thinking now that this all seems a bit like a vicious circle, and you'd be right. It is indeed quite difficult for some individuals to create action from their knowledge. In other words having the will power to resist that high calorific chocolate bar.

Watch this person as they are delivered a scenario in which they find an immense amount of motivation in themselves to get up and do something a little more pro-active about the situation.

Focus
One aspect of Motivation to train is the focus you put upon the gym session. If you focus on the pain of training, the inconvienance of getting up out of the arm chair and making the journey to the gym, or the poor weather out side that you'll need to contend with then training becomes less appealing.

The answer is to focus on future results. Bodybuilders for example don't 'enjoy' lifting a dumbbell in the same repetitive motion for hours on end- nobody could possibly enjoy such a mind numbing exercise however, when they focus on the muscle growing, that growing feeling and the future results that they know they will attain then that produces the motivation to push themselves beyond what a 'normal' person is willing to do.

-Steve Mycoe - Author and Sports hypnotherapist, 2001

Five ways to become an Expert!

1 - Write a book.
Although thousands of books are published every year with the vast majority selling less than 5000 copies, writing a book is very profitable. But many fail to realize that gaining an income from book sales directly is only a secondary gain.

Being an author gives you and your services CREDIBILITY. Which in turn 'sells' your product or services for you. A book should be used as a 'marketing platform' for other products.

Not only should you have a website to market your book, you should use it to sell other related product and services. An additional bonus is that once your book is published other high traffic websites will market your book for you such as Amazon. If you make sure you have your personal website address on the front cover of your book, you will gain huge amounts of traffic from these high volume sellers.

2 - Seek a single 'miracle' cure.
It doesn't have to be a miracle to get publicity! When you find yourself having done some exceptional work with one of your clients tell everyone (assuming the client agrees). Put it on your website, send out a press release, send flyers to other potential customers. Nothing sells your services as effortlessly than a proven case study! Customers will seek you out!

3 - Use Number two above to seek media publicity.
Start with the local rag. Once you get your article published, actively ask the reporter to sell the article on to the National papers.

Local reporters get a fee for passing on contact details form articles so make sure your reporter knows you are keen for this to happen. In addition local reporters love to 'get noticed' by the nationals!

4 - Brand yourself.
Narrow your branding so that you are a specialist in your area. Many business people worry that they will lose other business if they focus on a small market area. Not so. If you are a therapist who specialises in weight loss when you do a good job the word will go around and referrals from all areas with request your assistance.

5 - Use Networking sites intelligently.
Link with people who have credibility in and out of your business area. If you are 'friends' with well known successful business people that is a good enough endorsement for potential clients. You are judged by the company you keep.

Steve has added his Twitter to SportsHypnosis.co.uk

Been avoiding it for too long now added Twitter real time results to my main website. Mainly due to Googles new way of indexing real time twitter results in it's organic results.

The Reticular Activating System is the key to effective New Year Resolution’s and lasting change.

Every year over seven million people make a New Year resolution with only twenty per cent of participants actually following through! *1

It’s all too easy to make a resolution in the heat of the moment during New Year celebrations, especially when fuelled by alcohol! Words are easy to say, following through with action is often more problematic. Come January and the return of routine of work and life it is easy to allow Homeostasis to set back in and we forget all about those good intentions.

Steve Mycoe, an Author, Sports Hypnotist and Success Coach, says he has the answer to long term change. ‘There are specific biological mechanisms underlying behavioural change that are responsible for peoples’ failure to act on their good intentions’ he says. ‘Often failure happens not only on one occasion but year after year with the same old resolution dusted off and never actually satisfied.’
From his work with athletes Steve has developed a technique that will ignite our good intentions and help motivate us to achieve our goals throughout 2010. The technique is a form of mental imagery (‘Deep Goal Visualisation’!) that creates real physical changes in the brain and instigates behavioural change.
The use of this technique is the difference between those who are successful in achieving what they want from life and those who just seem to go around in circles.

There are two main mechanisms in the brain that create change and motivate us; The Reticular Activating System (RAS) and the Motor Cortex.

Reticular Activating System.
The Reticular Activating System (RAS) is the part of the brain stem that acts as an ‘Automatic Goal Seeking device’! If we program it correctly it guides us towards the people and circumstances that will allow us to achieve our ambitions.

The RAS is akin to a junction box that filters external environmental factors that influence our internal thoughts, feelings and actions. It is responsible for the lifestyles that we have and our desires for the future. If we don’t deliberately program this system to focus on the goals that we crave our achievements maybe haphazard and we might never attain them.

And secondly we must activate the Motor Cortexes of the brain in order to build new neurons that will give us the mental and physical abilities to carry out our intentions.

The Motor Cortex.
The Motor Cortex is the part of the brain that controls muscular activity. Before you can catch a high speed cricket ball for example, the neurons in your motor cortex have to activate and send a command to the muscle to move. The more often you do this the better you become at catching. If you want to become an excellent cricketer you need to practice catching perfectly, without faults. This isn’t always possible in real life. This is where Deep Goal Visualization comes in.
When visualizing at a deep level the brain has the ability to temporarily ‘divert the signal’ away from the muscles and ‘loop’ the circuit around the brain. We can then activate the mind to perform perfectly in a given situation without actually physically doing it, but the brain does not know the difference between actually doing it and visualizing – the same brain areas are activated.
Once we have built the ‘physical’ neuro pathways in the brain to perform perfectly, then we can go out and do it for ‘real’ having already set up the mental framework to support our physical beings. What many people fail to realize is that Visualisation is real, thoughts are real. Thoughts are electrical impulses that build real physical neuro pathways. These can either assist us in our lives or hinder us depending on if you choose to harness their power.

Deep Goal Visualisation
The reason ‘Deep Goal Visualisation’ is so powerful is because it activates both the RAS and the Motor Cortexes. Below are the effective strategies of Deep Goal Visualisation and the secret to long term change in the New Year.
• Close your eyes and relax your muscles one at a time. By using progressive relaxation, that is sitting quietly and gradually relaxing each muscle group from your head to your toes will alter your level of awareness and allow you access to the unconscious mind where your behaviours are based. This is a technique that most ‘high street’ hypnotherapists will use to begin putting you in a trance.
• Visualise Deeply. Create vivid mental imagery, include sounds, smells and colour in your visualisations. The more real you make a given scenario the better. Vivid imagery is proven to activate motor areas of your cortex, to make actual physical changes in your body – not just imagined but real physical neuro-connections.
• Make it emotional. Emotion, good or bad, creates faster change. Associate strong emotion with achieving your goal whatever it is. If you want to get the job of your dreams imagine the elation you’d feel upon receiving that job acceptance letter in the post, or the bigger pay cheque at the end of your first month. Practice creating emotion when visualising.
• Practice Visualisation on a regular basis. Many of us have weak visual muscles that need exercising. We’re a nation who has gotten used to using other peoples imaginations, TV programmes, computer games, books etc. Without really tapping into our own. The more you use visualisation the better you’ll become and the more change you’ll be able to generate.

Public Declaration
Research has also suggested that making a public declaration about your resolutions motivates people and helps prevent them from going back on their goals, especially if they find a ‘resolution buddy’. Someone one who will join them in their goal or just hold them to account on a regular basis.

Steve has created a public declaration forum on his website so that we can remind ourselves of our goals during 2010. Potential Resolution Buddies can add comments if they wish to support you!

There will also be a Free ‘Deep Goal Visualisation’ MP3 download for those who would like a little more help with creating a strong vision of their desired future.

Visit; www.SuccessCoach.co.uk


*1- How to keep your New Years resolution - December 29, 2009 by prof Richard Wiseman The University of Hertfordshire,
http://richardwiseman.wordpress.com/