Hypnosis does not seem to be the most suitable topic for serious scientific research, but recently it has been increasingly addressed. As it turns out, hypnosis can be used as anesthesia. It is used to restore memory after injury. In addition, hypnosis reduces anxiety and even treats inflammation. How exactly it works, the Danish "Wiedenskab" finds out.
Research has shown that hypnosis can be used as anesthesia and can improve memory in people with brain damage. In addition, it reduces anxiety and treats inflammation.
Hypnosis is a state of deep concentration and concentration. You isolate yourself from other influences on the senses and are less critical of what the hypnotist says.
Bobby Zachariae, a professor at the Institute of Psychology at Aarhus University, spoke about this when the Wiedenskub staff called him to find out what science really knows about hypnosis.
“Apparently, this is a natural state that usually lasts a short time, when, for example, you are immersed in a good book, do a difficult physical exercise or watch a fun movie. A person forgets about time and place and concentrates completely on one thing,”he explains.
Bobby Zacaria has been researching hypnosis since the late 1980s. For example, he is studying the effect of hypnosis on pain.
This is how hypnosis works
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Hypnosis begins with what is called immersion or induction. Many believe that this is what hypnosis is all about.
Usually a person sits on a chair or lies down, and the hypnotist says that he will count from 100 to 0 and that the hypnotized person, in the process of counting, should feel how his inner calmness and concentration grow.
The hypnotist says that a person should drop all thoughts and concentrate only on his words. There is no need to question them, you just need to believe without critical assessment.
Induction plunges a person into a hypnotic state in which the susceptibility to the influence of the hypnotist increases. But the very processing of a person, consisting of a number of hypnotic suggestions (psychological influences), occurs after immersion.
This can happen, for example, during advertisements or the repetition of political messages, when the person being influenced may not be aware of it.
The influence is not exerted by hypnosis itself, but by the actions during it.
During hypnosis, they usually want to psychologically influence the hypnotized person.
This is done with the help of hypnotic suggestions, where repeating the desired message plays an important role.
When researching the phenomenon of hypnosis, all suggestions must be written down in a manual so that someone else can repeat the experiment later, being sure that all the people being hypnotized are treated the same way.
“It is not hypnosis itself that acts, but the treatment of a person under hypnosis. When you are hypnotized, your receptivity is higher - obviously because you are more focused and easier to agree with what the hypnotist is saying,”says Bobby Zacaria.
Psychotherapy under hypnosis, directed against certain forms of fear, for example, against cancerophobia, fear of surgery, or post-traumatic stress disorder, has shown good results.
“With the power of thought, we are able to do more than we think ourselves,” says Bobby Zacaria.
Some of the results can be achieved without hypnosis, according to Bobby Zacaria, but hypnosis enhances them.
Hypnosis?
"What the hell! Hypnosis?! Do I really read the magazine "Science" or is it some kind of "Hocus-Pocus"? " - you must be thinking now (videnskab is translated from Danish as "science" - ed.).
But while all of this sounds a little obscure, in fact, a number of studies and meta-analyzes show that hypnosis can actually help in many conditions.
From anxiety and pain to memory problems and inflammation.
Research does not give a definite answer as to how this happens, but, obviously, hypnosis makes us more susceptible to external influences, and our thought power is actually capable of more than we ourselves think.
Perhaps hypnosis allows us to convince our brain to consciously control a number of psychological and physiological processes associated, for example, with fear, memory, or inflammation.
Imagination versus reality
Try to imagine that you jump up and run for a cup of coffee in the kitchen.
Although you continue to sit still, the processes in your brain are the same as if you actually went out for coffee.
The brain's electrical activity has moved to areas that are involved in planning and performing an action, without the brain sending the final signal.
This has been repeatedly proven experimentally, says Jonas Lindeløv, associate professor at the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at Aarhus University.
“You put people in an MRI scanner and see which areas of the brain are activated when a person imagines something,” he told Wiedenskub.
One thought about some action activates many processes that prepare movement.
Imagine that when you get up to get coffee, you hit your thigh hard against the corner of the table. Imagine the pain radiating down and up the leg.
Your brain is already forming the sensation of pain that you would experience if you were actually receiving signals from your bruised leg.
Studies show that by suggesting to a person that he is experiencing pain, hypnosis can be achieved by and large exactly the same reaction in the brain as if the person was actually subjected to painful physical stimulation.
Pain signals are triggered in a person's brain from the mere knowledge that something is causing pain.
Hypnosis restores memory to people with brain damage
Memory problems are common in people with brain damage from, for example, a traffic accident or stroke.
Previously, there were no effective ways to treat such memory problems. But last year (2017), a Danish study showed that the memory of people with brain damage can be restored through hypnosis.
“The idea of trying hypnosis was completely new and it was a big surprise for us to get such a good result. In this area, many have tried different methods that did not work, so why did ours suddenly work? - asks Yunas Lindelev.
He conducted a study published in the scientific journal Brain, a leading neuroscience journal.
49 patients with brain injuries were hypnotized and, on average, improved by several neuropsychological tests, their working memory was about the same as, or even better than, the average healthy person.
The improvements persisted throughout the 12 weeks that the researchers observed the participants in the experiment.
“I am still very skeptical, including because no one expected such a result,” says Yunas Lindelev, who is now conducting a larger study covering more patients who have experienced memory problems after a traumatic brain injury or concussion.
There will be some more research
Patients with brain injuries, suffering from memory problems, were put into a state of hypnosis and returned to the past under hypnosis - to the state before the injury.
They had to remember how their memory worked then, and then they knew that it was still the way it was.
“We did what is called age regression, returning a person to the time before the brain injury. Basically, it was necessary for people to receive information that their brain works the same way as then,”says Yunas Lindelev.
After three hours of hypnosis, their memory improved significantly.
“But after the injury, the brain also lacked tissue, so for the most part we do not understand why it works,” Yunas Lindelev states.
To truly believe in the results of his own research, he wants to double-check them on a larger group of patients.
Why does hypnosis work?
There are currently no studies that explain how hypnosis affects the memory of patients with brain injuries.
Yunas Lindelev has several hypotheses that he is going to test in the near future during a new study:
- hypnosis reduces fear and this affects memory;
- hypnosis opens access to some memory mechanisms, which continued to work all the time, but were blocked for some time.
Immediately after a traumatic brain injury, the brain goes through a period of chemical and structural imbalance, such as edema.
“During this period, a person cannot do much because of this imbalance. The brain is trying to adapt, and the person performs many actions designed to compensate for the imbalance,”explains Yunas Lindelev.
Subconsciously, completely unaware of this, as a result of such a rebalancing, a person can begin to use only those resources that are currently available.
If you like, you can compare this process to applying a cast to a broken leg.
As long as a person has a cast and uses crutches, the muscles of his healthy leg become stronger, while the broken leg is completely weakened.
At first, many cannot even step on this foot later, it is so weak. But a person knows well that the leg is in order, because he sees and feels it. Therefore, he begins to use it again.
However, this is only a hypothesis that has not yet been supported by research.
Hypnosis reduces pain and fear
Several studies have shown that hypnosis can do the opposite - reduce pain by convincing the brain that it is not.
“We ran an experiment in which we hypnotized participants by asking them to feel their hand as if it was under anesthesia. We then inflicted pain on them, and using the EEG, it was determined that the hand "under anesthesia" actually experienced less pain, "says Bobby Zacarié.
In 2013, a research review - the so-called meta-analysis - was released on the use of hypnosis during surgery.
Meta-analysis has shown that hypnosis reduces the time required for surgery, reduces fear, pain, and the amount of medication used, and speeds recovery.
Bobby Zacaria also participated in a 2016 study that showed that hypnosis affects so-called catastrophic thinking in relation to pain, and pain decreases when the catastrophic thinking directed at it diminishes.
Catastrophic thinking is a disturbing way of thinking in which a person always expects the worst case scenario. People with a catastrophic mindset are much more concerned with pain. They describe pain as more intense than other people perceive and think more about it.
“Psychological processes affect how the body reacts. With the help of hypnosis, we can influence these processes and thus our feelings,”says Bobby Zacarié.
Research on hypnosis is mixed
Despite the good results of hypnotic treatment of patients with brain injuries, despite the fact that many studies indicate the effectiveness of hypnosis for managing fear, pain and immune responses, scientists urge that no definite conclusions about hypnosis be made yet.
“There are quite a few studies that show that hypnosis does have a special effect, but there is no consensus in the scientific literature. In addition, I am concerned about the potential bias of publications in this area,”says Yunas Lindelev.
This phenomenon is called “publication bias” and refers to the desire of scientists and scientific publications to publish predominantly positive research results, and therefore it can be difficult to publish articles with negative research results.
This applies to all types of research, not just hypnosis research.
So we don't really know if there is a lot of research on hypnosis that shows it doesn't work. They probably just haven't been published.
Exercise bike hypnosis
In a famous 1975 study, scientists from Stanford University prove that a person pedaling an exercise bike can be hypnotized just as successfully as someone who sits relaxed in a chair.
The subjects were told that the longer they pedaled, the deeper they would sink in a state of complete rest and concentration. As a result, they succumbed to hypnosis as well as those who were hypnotized in the traditional way.
In 2003, a similar study was conducted by Swedish scientists and received the same result.
Memory problems after traumatic brain injury
People who have suffered a head injury often suffer from so-called working memory problems.
Regardless of where their brain is damaged, people usually find it difficult to remember several things at the same time.
If they are briefly distracted, such as when they are writing a letter, they forget what they were doing.
Most people are susceptible to hypnosis
In general, people can be divided into three groups according to how susceptible they are to hypnosis.
The easily suggested ones are very susceptible and easily hypnotized.
The poorly suggested are very difficult to hypnotize and convince to stop reality checking.
The moderately suggestible can be hypnotized, but not as profound as the easily suggested. The vast majority of people belong to this group.
Some of the studies were conducted on easily suggestible people, and, according to Yunas Lindelev, this may be the reason for erroneous conclusions, because the results of such studies will not be relevant to the average person.
The suggestibility of a group of people can be determined using various tests. For example, on the scale "Harvard Group Scale" (Harvard Group Scale), developed by American scientists.
Hypnosis can affect the immune response
Bobby Zakaria is also interested in the ability to manipulate physiological processes through hypnosis. For example, an allergic reaction.
“If irritation or inflammation appears somewhere on the skin, then this process is controlled through a kind of feedback loop between our sensory nervous system and the brain. In this way, the brain can support or enhance the immune response in this place,”says Bobby Zacarié.
She and her colleagues have conducted a study that shows that it is possible to reduce a person's allergic reaction, under hypnosis, telling him not to react to the allergen substance.
“We also used a scheme where the subject was given a pea of histamine, which was supposed to cause an inflammatory response. If under hypnosis a person was told that his skin was under anesthesia, then after taking histamine his reaction in that place was less than in another area of the skin that was not considered anesthetized,”said Bobby Zakaria.
Marie Barse