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Hypnosis is the most effective way of giving up smoking, according to the largest ever scientific comparison of ways of breaking the habit. Willpower, it turns out, counts for very little. Smokers are coming under increasing pressure to quit. Earlier this month the Institute of Actuaries published the results of a study it commissioned which showed that the mortality rate for smokers is twice as high as for non-smokers, and that, on average, a smoker dies six years earlier than a nonsmoker. Surveys suggest that three in four smokers would like to give up, according to the Read more…

More patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) reported relief of pain and discomfort after hypnotherapy than after education and supportive care, interim results from a randomized controlled trial conducted at 13 centres indicate. Most evidence supporting hypnotherapy for IBS in the literature involves highly specialized therapists at secondary and tertiary care centres delivering 10 sessions or more of therapy, said investigator Catharina Flik, MD, from University Medical Center Utrecht in the Netherlands. “I’m interested in demonstrating its effectiveness in a broader perspective — primary care, for example,” she said here at Read more…

It sounds like the work of sorcerers and scam artists, but hypnosis can play a very real role in protecting and promoting health. This isn’t the “You are getting very sleepy…” hypnosis you’re used to seeing in pop culture references, but a clinical procedure used in conjunction with other therapies and treatments, according to the American Psychological Association. Hypnosis for health benefits “should be conducted only by properly trained and credentialed health care professionals (e.g. psychologists) who also have been trained in the use of hypnosis and who are working within Read more…