The ability to sense pain is a biological response of the utmost importance. Imagine, for example, if you put your hand on a hot stove; if it weren't for your pain receptors you would not know to take your hand away to avoid being badly burnt. But what happens when the pain doesn't go away? Chronic pain is defined as experiencing pain on most days for at least a three month period. This sort of pain can be caused by things such as injuries, migraines, arthritis, cancer, fibromyalgia and other diseases.
The amount of pain that is experienced by different individuals will depend on a few things: Your emotions, your previous experiences of pain, your characteristics and your perception of what the pain signifies. For example, just say you wake up in the morning with a pounding headache. One person might say to themselves, "It's just a headache, it will pass." Whereas another may say, "Oh no, I have a headache, my day is ruined!". Their personal experiences and attitudes to the pain will then affect how they deal with it throughout the day. Person One will most likely just get on with things, putting the pain of the headache to the back of their mind and experiencing little interference in their day, whereas Person Two is more likely to obsess over the headache and potentially worsen it with stress and anxiety.
Hypnotherapy can provide the client with suggestions during the course of the treatment that will allow them to practice certain words or statements when they need to manage their own pain. It can also bring to the mind the ability to reduce or significantly decrease pain by allowing the sub-conscious to take on specific positive suggestions. These positive suggestions will induce thoughts and feelings within the body that allow desensitization to the affected area. This will relieve the discomfort and, in many instances, allow the pain to become insignificant. This is commonly known as glove anesthesia.
An example of how hypnotherapy can be used for pain management is as follows: A client who presented with a migraine could be told under hypnosis to imagine they are standing on a snowy mountain top, that there is a cool breeze blowing across their face and this breeze is cooling the areas of swelling. They may also be advised to imagine their hands are warmly tucked into a jacket, which in turn would dilate the blood vessels and relieve the pain of the migraine.
There is no need to suffer pain unnecessarily when you can sub-consciously develop tools to relieve yourself from it.