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Altered States: Hypnosis Goes Mainstream — Major Hospitals Use Trances For Frac-tures, Cancer,
Burns; Speeding Surgery Recoveries "HYPNOSIS, often misunderstood and almost always con-troversial, is increasingly being employed in mainstream medicine. Numerous scientific studies have emerged in recent years showing that the hypnotized mind can exert a real and powerful effect on the body. The new findings are leading major hospitals to try hypnosis to help relieve pain and speed recovery in a variety of illnesses. "At the University of North Carolina, hypnosis is trans-forming the treatment of irritable bowel syndrome, an of-ten-intractable gastro-intestinal disorder, by helping pa-tients to use their mind to quiet an unruly gut. Doctors at the University of Washington's regional burn center in Se-attle regularly use it to help patients alleviate excruciating pain. Several hospitals affiliated with Harvard Medical School are employing hypnosis to speed up post-surgical recovery time. "In one of the most persuasive studies yet, a Harvard re-searcher reports that hypnosis quickened the typical heal-ing time of bone fractures by several weeks. "Hypnosis may sound like magic, but we are now producing evidence showing it can be significantly therapeutic," says David Spiegel, a Stanford University psychologist."
Just Say Om: Meditation Works — Scientists study it. Doctors recommend it. Millions
of Americans practice it every day. Why? Because meditation works. " … Not only do studies show that meditation is boosting their immune system, but brain scans suggest that it may be rewiring their brains to reduce stress. … Ten million American adults now say they practice some form of medi-tation regularly, twice as many as a decade ago. Medita-tion classes today are being filled by mainstream Ameri-cans … upwardly mobile professionals convinced that their lives are more stressful than those of the cow-milking, butter-churning generations that preceded them. Medita-tion is the smart person's bubble bath. "And they no longer have to go off to some bearded guru in the woods to do it. In fact, it's becoming increasingly hard to avoid meditation. It's offered in schools, hospitals, law firms, government buildings, corporate offices and prisons. There are specially marked meditation rooms in airports alongside the prayer chapels and Internet kiosks. Meditation was the subject of a course at West Point, the spring 2002 issue of the Harvard Law Review and a few too many locker-room speeches by Lakers coach Phil Jack-son. ... And, as with any great American trend that finds its way onto the cover of TIME, many of these meditators are famous. To name just a few: Goldie Hawn, Shania Twain, Heather Graham, Richard Gere and Al Gore, if he still counts as famous." |