 About Guided Imagery...
Guided imagery is the conscious use of the imagination to create positive images or healing visualisations in order to bring about healthful changes in both the body and the mind. You can learn to communicate more effectively with your unconscious mind, requesting that your body function in an optimal and healthy way.
Guided imagery can be used for:-
- Stress reduction
- Giving up smoking
- Weight reduction
- Immune stimulation
- Improvement in sports performance
- Pain management
- Depression
- Anxiety
- Panic attacks
- Nausea and vomiting (e.g. associated with Chemotherapy)
- Surgery recovery
- Public performance
Stimulating the brain with positive imagery can have a direct effect on the nervous and endocrine systems and can ultimately affect the immune system as well. If you picture yourself luxuriating at the beach on a tropical island, your muscles will actually relax and your skin will "feel" the warmth of the sun's rays. Likewise, if you imagine yourself recuperating quickly and effortlessly from surgery, you are more likely to heal faster and with less pain.
The brain's visual cortex, which processes images, has a powerful connection with the autonomic nervous system, which controls involuntary activities such as pulse, breathing, and physical responses to stress. Soothing, uplifting images can actually slow your pulse and breathing and lower your blood pressure, as well as help trigger the release of hormones such as endorphins, which make you feel good and nurture your body's restorative powers.
A 1996 study at the Cleveland Clinic showed that patients who used guided imagery prior to colorectal surgery had less anxiety before and less pain after the surgery than did the control group. The members of the guided imagery group used 37% less pain medication, regained their bowel function sooner, and were released from the hospital an average of a day and a half earlier. Blue Shield of California has even begun to distribute guided imagery recordings to its members scheduled for major surgery in the hope that the practice will decrease surgical complications and the pain and anxiety associated with surgery.
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