Monthly Archives: February 2014

Researchers from the Swiss Research Institute for Public Health and Addiction at the University of Zurich in Switzerland investigated the efficacy of a single-session of group hypnotherapy for smoking cessation, as compared to relaxation in a sample of 223 Swiss adult smokers.

This was a cluster-randomized, parallel-group, controlled trial. A single session of hypnosis or relaxation for smoking cessation was delivered to groups of smokers (median size = 11).
 
Participants were 223 smokers consuming at least 5 cigarettes per day, who were willing to quit and not using cessation aids (47.1% females, M = 37.5 years [SD = 11.8], 86.1% Swiss).
 
Nicotine withdrawal, smoking abstinence self-efficacy, and adverse reactions were assessed at a 2-week follow-up.

Question:

Hi Belleruth,
I would like to get a tape for a friend who has had a series of health issues after having a cardiac event, which in the end turned out to be nothing serious, although she was quite scared.

She was healthy and vibrant before the event. Now it seems like there are non-stop health issues (digestive issues, odd pains, hypervigilance, fear everything is cancer, etc.), some of which are likely psychosomatic in nature.

What tape would you suggest for her to recover her past health and well being?

Thank you!
Mark

When an 11-year-old boy sat at a bus stop without a jacket in Oslo, Norway, hidden cameras captured a series of very special moments.
 
The experiment was filmed by the Norwegian branch of the SOS Children's Villages International charity as part of a campaign to provide warm clothing for displaced children in Syria, according to The Nordic Page.
 
In the video, the majority of bystanders offer coats, scarves or gloves to the boy.

"People should care as much about children in Syria as they care about this boy," Synne Ronning, the information head of SOS Children's Villages Norway, told The Local. She also noted that the child was a volunteer who was never in any danger during the filming.

You can learn more about SOS Children's Villages International by clicking here.

This week’s Ask Belleruth, submitted for a friend whose health and well-being apparently fell apart after what turned out to be a cardiac scare, highlights some key points about traumatic stress that may be useful for some to know.  

Sometimes it explains some baffling goings-on for some people.  Because, even though this person wound up not having suffered a heart attack after all, she was horribly scared, and that’s what can create the conditions for posttraumatic stress – the scare and the response generated by our built-in survival mechanisms.  

The Hot Research for this week illuminates a simple point, seems to me – that for smoking cessation, a single group session of anything – whether it’s relaxation or hypnosis - isn’t going to get a whole lot of traction.

I simply cannot believe that we are well into the 2014 professional program – it’s almost March!  There have only been some minor changes to the overall terms of the program, including our ability to take the Discover Card, and the addition of some wonderful new products, available with our deepest discounts. I was happy to see so many of you take advantage of the 10% discount on all downloads last year, and with more titles than ever available in that format this year, I’m hoping the trend continues. For a copy of the current terms of the program, click here.

What is new, however, is something that we’ve thought about launching for a very long time. So many of you have asked for a guided imagery library, a sample collection or other recommendations for either a lending library in your practice, or just a great sampling of titles that would cover the many differences you see in the people you serve.  Well, we are pleased to tell you that they are finally available.

We are offering an 18-piece CD set at the incredible price of $220.  Further, we’re offering a smaller 12-piece CD set at the very low cost of $155.  After this incredible savings, you may then add a book option to receive Belleruth’s three best-sellers at a terrific 30% off. These sets will be available for purchase immediately and can be found here.

Hi,

I’m an LPC and LMFT and attended one of your workshops (Houston, 2004 maybe). I refer a lot of clients to your website to purchase CDs and love your work.

I have a new client who is on Lexapro, Resperdil, and Xanax for the most severe anxiety Ive seen in my 42 years counseling.
 
Jan. 2013 he suffered a spinal cord injury in a ski accident/long rehab/finally back to work as an attorney and walking w/crutches. Doing well.

Then several months later, he falls apart w/anxiety, physical pain in legs and legs shaking constantly/spastic - finally quits going to work and is now in a wheelchair.
 
Had another brain and spinal cord MRI and doctors find nothing wrong. Just sits & does NOTHING. No hope. Becoming irritated by everything.

I had them buy your Ease Pain CD and Healthful Sleep (as hes getting only a few hours of sleep). He listened to Ease Pain only a few times and says it irritates him and he refuses to listen.

Any suggestions?

Thank you.

Researchers from the School of Psychology, University of Sussex in Falmer, UK, explored in this feasibility study whether a brief, online, mindfulness-based intervention could increase mindfulness and reduce perceived stress and anxiety/depression symptoms within a student population.
 
One hundred and four students were randomly assigned to either immediately start a two-week, self- guided online, mindfulness-based intervention or to a wait-list control.

Measures of mindfulness, perceived stress and anxiety/depression were taken, before and after the intervention period.

Okay, so what could be worse than being a newscaster on Good Morning America and having a paralyzing panic attack, right there, before a national audience? This is the stuff of performance anxiety nightmares, right?

Dan Harris says it’s the best thing that could have happened to him.  Check it out.  (Good thing he had a knowledgeable doc who knew exactly what was going on…)

Read How an On-Air Panic Attack Improved My Life.

Each week we get queries from practitioners with a product they’d like to sell – an audio or video – wondering if we’d review it for possible inclusion in our catalog.  

We’re always on the lookout for stellar mind-body resources to add to our list.  We focus on guided imagery, hypnosis and meditation materials, but we also carry a limited amount of yoga, qigong, energy psychology, acupressure and acupoint tapping guided materials as well.

It’s got to be high quality content – psychologically and/or medically sophisticated, respectful, non-cheesy and based on sound principles. It has to be spoken in good English (or Spanish).  It also has to be well produced and well packaged.  

We send people back to the drawing board if they’ve got what we think is excellent content but poorly made, and ask them to do it again if they’re serious about us carrying it.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness,. . . it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.” Charles Dickens wrote those words in 1859, in the beginning chapter of the epoch novel A Tale of Two Cities, but the words could also be used today to describe the cascade of roller-coaster emotions we experience between the ages of 12 and 20.

People in each generation are certain theirs was the generation of young people who experienced the most stress. We have all heard the tales from our grandparents who had to walk a dozen miles in sub-zero temperatures to get to school. Of course as night followed day, they must have had to walk another dozen to get home-unless they walked to their jobs in the mines or fields or factories and then walked a dozen miles home. The truth is that they probably weren’t exaggerating, but we couldn’t commiserate because we could list so many reasons why our generation had it worse.

What we all experienced while coming of age might have been stressful, but lately we at Health Journeys are hearing from so many people who are looking for help for stressed-out teens that we did a little research and found that there seems to be a serious problem with excessive stress among today’s youth.