Use Guided Imagery To Visualize a Stress Free Life

January 04, 2018

Today, science confirms that mind-body therapies enhance health on many levels.

Guided imagery is a mind-body therapy that has its roots in the ancient Greek belief that the subconscious mind impacts the body.

Today, most experts, especially in the natural health world, accept that the mind and body are interconnected, not separate. How we think and feel influences our bodies and our health.

Guided imagery uses positive images, thoughts, and suggestions to relax the mind, and create a framework for renewed health.

What Can You Expect From A Guided Imagery Session?

Guided imagery can be used at any time to positively influence your life situation. It’s excellent tool for anyone to better communicate with the body.

Through spoken suggestion, guided imagery promotes a calm body state similar to hypnosis.

Peaceful thoughts during a session can help your brain release more of its natural mood elevating chemicals like serotonin or dopamine.

Through Guided Imagery, stress can be significantly reduced, opening up new possibilities for healing.

In a session, you will be led through a series of relaxation exercises to help you let go of stress and open your mind.

When you are calm and centered, your practitioner (or audio program) will share visualizations that engage all of the body’s senses.

This is called “sensory recruitment” and is a powerful tool to affect the areas of the brain that control each sense.

A program may ask you to imagine that you are in a lush forest, smelling the rich scent of pine from nearby trees. It may ask you to visualize yourself in the water or relaxing at the beach.

Most programs use additional tools like sounds from nature such as birds singing, water flowing, waves crashing, or music to set the mood.

As your session progresses, you will be guided through more positive affirmations and visualizations.

If you’re addressing a specific issue, your Guided Imagery session will focus on that issue, and how to use your own thoughts and feelings to address it in a healthy way.

For many people, Guided Imagery offers a new way to take an active role in their health, manage stress, or accelerate recovery from a health concern.

The Benefits of Guided Imagery

Today, Guided Imagery is used for everything from anxiety to addictions, sleep, pain reduction, healing after surgery, infertility, headaches, weight loss, recovery from cancer and more.

Here are just a few examples of Guided Imagery at work…

• Guided Imagery has been found to decrease anxiety and blood pressure in people who are recovering from stroke.
• A Blue Shield study shows listening to a Guided Imagery program before a hysterectomy saves an average of $2000 in treatment costs due to a decreased need for pain medicine.
• Purdue University research shows Guided Imagery improves mobility and pain in women with osteoarthritis.
• Research out of South Korea reveals breast cancer patients who use Guided Imagery experience less nausea, vomiting, anxiety, and depression.
• Joanna Verkuilen, creator of Circle+Bloom Mind Body Programs, shares guided visualization exercises can boost your immunity. Danish researchers have found increased natural killer cell activity among college students who simply imagined their immune systems were becoming very effective.
• Guided Imagery, along with hypnosis, can relieve anxiety caused by post traumatic stress. Soldiers and survivors of abuse successfully use Guided Imagery to lessen the trauma of their experiences, and reclaim their lives.

Visualize Yourself Happy and Healthy

If you’re struggling to overcome a health issue or reduce stress, it may be time to explore a Mind-Body therapy like Guided Imagery.

Changes in diet and exercise may not be enough by themselves to turn around some types of problems.

You can use Guided Imagery techniques to positively engage your mind in your healing process.

If you change your mindset along with your lifestyle, you may find a whole new, happier, healthier life awaits you.

 

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