Hypnosis may help children’s stomach problems

Hypnosis may bring lasting relief to some kids with irritable bowel syndrome or chronic stomach pain, a small study suggests. Researchers found that  those who had 6 hypnosis sessions, plus at home “self-hypnosis”, were still doing well five years later. More than 2/3rds were free or mostly free of abdominal pain.

Many people may think of hypnosis as someone waving a watch in front of your eyes, then making you do strange things/ but in medicine, hypnosis is used to help people create relaxing images in their minds to ease pain & anxiety. ‘Gut-directed’  hypnosis therapy may, for instance, suggest images for normalizing bowel function- like picturing a smoothly flowing river.