Hypnotherapy Uses > Blood Pressure

Perhaps no condition needs the ability to relax more than high blood pressure. Orthodox medical opinion states that the cause is unknown but admits that it occurs in those who tend to worry, to be over-anxious, to take things too seriously and who are of an excitable disposition. Those who suffer from this complaint are usually people whose way of living involves continued mental or emotional stress or strain.

Further, it is generally agreed that the immediate cause of the condition is an increased resistance to the passage of blood through the smaller arteries. This increased resistance is due to a narrowing of the diameter of the blood vessels in response to nervous impulses, and the arteries are said to be in a state of hypertonus. The cause of hypertonus is said to be unknown; but if you have seen how worry and anxiety can create nervous tension, which discharges itself as nervous impulses and so disturbs the balance of the autonomic nervous system, you will have no difficulty in realizing just how these strong emotions can affect the vascular system of the body.

If the pipes of the body, as we may consider the arteries, are narrowed, it is obvious that the blood pressure must go up. That this is no far-fetched theory is agreed by orthodox medical opinion, which admits that in hyperpiesia the blood pressure becomes normal under ether anaesthesia and is greatly diminished during sleep.

All that happens in these conditions is that the body and mind are put at complete rest. As a result the nervous impulses cease and the blood vessels relax with a resultant fall in blood pressure. Unfortunately, hyperpiesia or high blood pressure usually has an insidious onset, so that the condition may be fairly well established before it is discovered. This may come about during the course of a medical examination for an entirely different purpose. The commonest early symptoms are a feeling of fullness and perhaps throbbing in the head. Afterwards there may be attacks of giddiness or Tinnitus Aurium (noises in the ears). Other well-known symptoms include flushing, insomnia, palpitation, mental fatigue, headache (especially in the morning), impaired memory, mental irritation and diminished emotional control.

Orthodox medical opinion stresses the importance of rest and relaxation. One eminent authority advises the patient to have ten hours in bed each night and have at least one quiet day a week. Long annual holidays and several shorter ones with limitation of physical and mental effort are stated to be essential.

The patient is urged to 'give up worry', 'avoid anxiety', and 'take things easy'. Unfortunately, he is not told how to do it; and the patient who fears he may have a 'stroke' at any time finds it difficult to 'give up worry' by ordinary means.

Even long annual holidays, supposing the patient can afford them, are unlikely to do much good if the patient's mind is in a state of worry over his condition. It is strange indeed that hypnotism, which is the ideal method of inducing complete relaxation of mind and body, has been neglected by the medical profession in the treatment of this distressing complaint.