NourishDoc: Well, we are focusing on our favorite segment of women 40 and above, and today, we are talking about hormone balance. I know that, you know, the hormones go like rock and roll. But how can hypnotherapy and other holistic therapies help you manage it? Hypnotherapy is such a fascinating topic. We have a hypnotherapist with us, Gemma. Gemma is also a wellness coach, along with a hypnotherapist. Welcome.
Hypnotherapist Gemma: Thank you so much. Thank you for inviting me.
Efficacy Of Hypnotherapy During Menopause
NourishDoc: All right, let’s start with we focus on women 40 and above, you know, when they are entering perimenopause may be the mid-forties, and then 50s is, of course, menopause, that’s a normal age, so talk to us the efficacy of hypnotherapy and other things that can help women during that phase of transition.
Hypnotherapist Gemma: Absolutely. It’s great that it’s becoming more of a hot topic now, and people are becoming more and more aware because it is something I’m approaching this age as well. I’m interested personally as well as in helping women. So hypnotherapy can help the type of hypnotherapy I do is solution-focused hypnotherapy, a special type of hypnotherapy that is amazing; it’s the only type of hypnotherapy based on research in neuroscience. It focuses on the future and helps you focus on the positive things in your life by programming your subconscious.
Now, when it does that, it helps you by lowering your anxiety, which is amazing, but specifically for hormones because cortisol, your stress hormone, is the key driver behind hormonal imbalance. There are two main key drivers; I call them the big mumma hormones because they are the ones that are the most disruptive. The two most disruptive ones are cortisol, your stress hormone, and insulin, which all affect your blood sugar.
Hypnotherapy Benefits For Hormone Imbalance
So hypnotherapy is amazing because it helps balance that one driver likes that, one of the biggest, your survival hormones, your cortisol, which can cause so much havoc around the body. So doing hypnotherapy is pleasurable as well, like, because it’s a type that focuses on the future you’re not like other therapies which focus on the past; you have to revisit all your past traumas. This one focuses on the future. It’s really enjoyable, and you get to relax during the session.
Who doesn’t like at the age when we’re going into our 40s, we’ve got parents to look after; we’ve got our children that we’ve got sometimes grandchildren, we’ve got so much going on. So, having that time for relaxation to bring down that stress hormone can be crucial. However, I also, with my programs, couple that with nutrition because then you have the most powerful combination. After all, you’ve got those two big hormones, insulin. You’ve got cortisol under wraps, so hypnotherapy can be amazing and make fantastic results.
When you’ve got both the nutrition and you’ve also got the hypnotherapy, so you’ve got your mind and your body working together, you can, like I’ve had women whom I have supported, and they’ve got rid of all of their hot flashes. They’ve got they’ve been able to lose weight easily, they’ve been to have loads more energy and achieve their goals, and for the people who the women that usually come to me who are in that age bracket, the most important thing for them is to be around for their children, to have the energy to play with, and to also, they’re still going for it in their careers, to be there and be consistent and still, like, they’ve still got ambitious goals to achieve, and so doing it from those two prong attacks can help.
How Does Hypnotherapy Help With Hot Flashes?
NourishDoc: Okay, so hypnotherapy helps some of your clients with hot flashes. Do you want to explain the mechanics of the heart can help? Because heart flashes can sometimes be very embarrassing for women, especially at the workplace, you know, when they’re having a meeting. You know, suddenly starts getting hot flashes or dripping, so how does Hypnotherapy help with the hot flashes? This is what I am interested in.
Hypnotherapist Gemma: So, it’s a variety of ways. I mean, there are certain in the world where women do not get menopausal symptoms like in the Mayan culture; there was a study to show they don’t get any hot flashes. They don’t get any of these menopausal symptoms. They’re in like the difference is a lifestyle, so by there are many reasons why we get hot flashes, hot flashes often, we’ve got estrogen that’s going high then really low then really high then really low.
So estrogen is quite, you know, quite an interesting hormone as we go through the change and we go through menopause to keep under wraps. Now, if we have stress in our bodies, like we’ve got stress on the liver, which detoxes and breaks down the liver because estrogen because what we want estrogen to do is if we’ve got too much of it, we want it flushed out of our bodies, don’t we? And if we haven’t got the mechanisms, if things aren’t working well, in our bodies to flush out excess hormones because it’s not the hormones that are the problem; it’s our organs like our liver, our gut, etc., that are not enabling us to flush our excess hormones, or we’re getting too much cortisol which and then we get inflammation. It’s the inflammation and the liver not being able to break down the estrogen to flush it out of our bodies that are the problem.
So to get rid of these symptoms like hot flushes, we need to look at the root cause. Quite often, some of the women I’ve helped have gotten rid of hot flushes by just getting rid of them, like getting on top of their anxiety. Part of that is their nutrition. I had one woman who was fueling herself through coffee, and that in itself was putting so much stress on so many different organs, her body and her as a whole, that she wasn’t able to; her body wasn’t working healthily, she had much inflammation, and just by cutting having a better diet and also, by doing the hypnotherapy, she got rid of them, but it’s different for different people.
So the mechanics of it is different per person because your root cause might be a that’s to do with your thyroid, or for another person, it could be something different. So it’s all about looking at your root causes of what’s causing your hormonal disruption, what’s causing your inflammation. As much as we’re all very similar as women, we’ve got similar mechanics, but we’re also very different. We have different gut microbiomes; we have different ways of being. We need to look at women as an individual.
However, the problem is that even though we make up half the population, we don’t even have a women’s department in a hospital, and how crazy is that? So, it can be quite complicated learning about all of them quite overwhelming, but once you start learning about hormones, you don’t want to stop; it’s so interesting, but essentially, like we want to have estrogen that’s in excess flushed out of our bodies in a way that it doesn’t recirculate in in the body and then cause loads of havoc.
What Are Hypnotherapy Sessions Like?
NourishDoc: Okay. So Hypnotherapy sessions, for example, let’s take an example of a woman who is going through perimenopause in her mid-40s; how many hypnotherapy sessions do they have to do? Is it a continuous process? Because menopause symptoms can last for years. So, describe the whole process of hypnosis and how many sessions, how much they have to do, go home, and do some safe exercises. So, let’s talk a little bit about that.
Hypnotherapist Gemma: Okay, so hypnotherapy sessions are a different person on average, 8 to 12 sessions for solution-focused hypnotherapy, and what they do is what you would do is you would have a track that we would record for you to listen to once you’ve gone to bed. So once you go to sleep you put you’re about to go to sleep you put the track on, and what that does is help you relax your mind before you go to sleep and help empty what we call your stress bucket.
In a session, we spend some time learning about the brain and how the brain influences the body because a lot of our stress, cortisol, chemical reactions, and hormones come from our brains. When we know how our brain works, we’re empowered to make better choices and think differently. Then we spend a bit of time using our superpower, which we may not even know is our imagination because the brain doesn’t know the difference between imagination and reality. We harness that power and talk to the subconscious by doing it, like guided meditation.
However, it’s hypnosis, but some people like it as a meditation. However, it isn’t; it’s specifically developed to reprogram your subconscious. The sessions are really enjoyable, and some people even though they have when they get over their hot flushes. They still want to come and keep coming because they love doing it, and it keeps people performing better. It’s a lovely space to relax and keep progressing, but eight to twelve sessions are different.
Role Of Meditation in Hypnotherapy
NourishDoc: Okay, and then basically, hypnotherapy, you said that, once someone is in hypnosis, they have to listen to some recording that will help them relax. So, it’s like a combination of guided meditation. However, you are in hypnosis as opposed to guided meditation. Do you want to compare the two and tell us the difference between guided meditation and hypnosis?
Hypnotherapist Gemma: So, hypnosis is just a state of relaxation, so they’re very similar. But with hypnotherapy, the hypno refers to the hypnosis, and the therapy refers to the first half of the sessions. So hypnotherapy is all of it together. It has been specifically designed to get you results quickly and effectively toward where you want to be. So you can achieve your goals because your subconscious drives 90% of your behaviors. If you have your subconscious on board, it’s easier to change any habits. Things like emotional eating or how we react in certain situations are so hard that we can feel powerless to anger bursts, etcetera.
But if we have the subconscious on board, which, as I said, dries most of our behaviors, then we can make changes more easily. People have said that they never thought they would always be anxious. They’re not anymore, so you get an amazing transformation. But a guided meditation doesn’t do all of those things. Guided meditation isn’t based on neuroscience, whereas this specific structure has been trialed and tested worldwide by a neuroscientist called Nelson, and that’s how the structure works. So that’s where it’s it’s different in the quality.
NourishDoc: I just wanted because all of us are so used to apps, and a lot of us don’t understand the hypnotherapy or hypnosis, and that’s what I want to bring it out, you know, make people understand; you know how it works, can be the efficacy of hypnotherapy for anxiety, for depression, for hormonal issues, for women going through perimenopause so that’s my intention of bringing science, the research part of hypnosis and also bringing like you. Anything else you like to add? This is a quick 10-minute session that we bring daily. Do you add your Insta handle or your clinic, whatever? You’re welcome to do that before I wrap up.
How Can You Balance Your Hormones Naturally?
Hypnotherapist Gemma: Absolutely. Suppose anyone’s been watching this and wants to know more about their hormones. In that case, I also give free access to one of my mini-courses; get your sparkle back so you can boost your mood, balance your hormones, and get more consistent energy without having to rely on antidepressants and hormonal pills and do it; you know, as naturally as you as possible. You can access that at www.GemmaClegg.com, and my Insta handle is Gemma Clegg Limited, so Gemma Clegg LTD. I would love to hear from you as well. If you want a copy of hypnosis, message me on Instagram as Gift, and tell me what you thought about the live today. I will give you recorded hypnosis as a gift to you.
NourishDoc: Well, we would love to have the recording as well because as we are building a platform, you know, and launching it in a couple of months, and we want to include hypnosis and hypnotherapy recordings with it to help women get through so that is something that we are also doing and look forward to partnering with hypnotherapy. With that, thank you so much. Have a great day, everyone.
