I tend to look upon pain management and healing as inseparable and see no reason why stop only on using self-hypnosis to manage pain, when you can successfully use it to bring about healing. After all, pain is a messenger letting you know that some part of your body requires special attention, and often it is not advisable just getting rid of this helpful signal without taking care of the underlying problem.

Traditional hypnosis has been originally used more for pain management than for healing. This is understandable since it was popularized by medical doctors who used it to help individuals undergo painless surgeries at a time before chemical anesthetics were discovered. After the discovery of chemical anesthetics, hypnosis for the most part fell out of use in favor of chemicals. There are times, though, when even chemicals are not helping, and when it is useful knowing hypnosis.

Most of us at some time or another experience some kind of pain and most of us have had experiences when we became distracted enough to forget about a pain - perhaps while having an interesting conversation, or when our minds are absorbed in some interesting real or imaginary event. Yet, the moment our awareness returns to the physical body, the pain often resumes. You can use distraction consciously and intentionally when experiencing any kind of pain, physical or emotional, preferably just in emergency situations.

I wanted to share with you a mind trick that works well and often instantly with headaches and migraines. To get rid of a headache, you can imagine that your hands are feeling very, very hot. You can add the imagery of your hands being immersed in hot water or being near fire, until they begin to feel very hot. This kind of imagery helps to draw the pressure (the blood) out of your head down into your arms and magically removes headaches.

Another trick for getting rid of pain involves the process called "glove anesthesia". To create glove anesthesia, you can imagine one or both of your hands immersed in a bucket of ice cold water until they begin to feel numb, as if they were anesthetized and you have no sensation in your hands. You can even test the extent of glove anesthesia by pinching your hand. Sometimes people would use a sterilized needle and prick a hand - in which case no blood would appear because the imagery of hands being immersed in ice cold water constricts the blood vessels. I suggest you just stick with a pinch.

Now, to get rid of the pain in some other part of your body, all you need to do is place your anesthetized hand there and imagine that this feeling of numbness is spreading or transferring from your hand into that part of your body until all pain is gone. Alternatively, you could create a feeling of numbness directly on any part of your body where you would like to get rid of pain, by imagining that part of your body being numb, anesthetized or using an imagery of an ice cube.

The next method of managing pain involves breathing through that part of your body where you are experiencing pain. Pain is often a result of an energy blockage which manifests as a tension in your body. When you breathe and imagine yourself breathing through the part of your body where you are experiencing pain, you help to relax that part of your body and release any tension. This, in itself, may lead to instant elimination of pain. It may be particularly helpful with stomach problems, as well as for women in childbirth.

Often the mere anticipation of pain can increase the sensation of pain. Instead of painting images in your mind of how painful something is going to be, you would be much better off filling your mind with pleasant images that will distract you from whatever it is you have to go through.

For example, if you dread going to a dentist because of possible pain or discomfort, you could practice creating the feeling of anesthesia in your mouth and bringing into your awareness vivid images and feelings of some heavenly vacation, so that when you find yourself sitting in a chair at the dentist's office, you can drift off far away from your body to that wonderful place where you'll be too busy having fun engaging in pleasant activities to be even aware of the dentist and the work he is doing with your teeth.

Knowing that pain is a signal from your body intended to let you know that you should be aware of a certain condition, you can still keep the signal but minimize the pain or even change the form of that signal. If your whole arm is hurting when you're about to do something and you really need to do it, you can "negotiate" with your subconscious and instead of having pain shooting through your entire arm, you can reduce it to be present only in your little finger. You can even negotiate to change the sensation from pain to warmth, or coolness, or any other kind of sensation.

Sometimes you can get rid of the pain simply by "getting the message" the pain is trying to communicate and choosing to do something about it. Many times, when you force yourself to do something, perhaps work related, when you would rather have a day off or be on vacation, your subconscious - to protect you from having to engage in activity which you would rather not do, may create some pain in your body.

Now you have, what I call, a "socially acceptable excuse" to abstain from unpleasant activity. It is highly unlikely that anyone will come and say "you have created that pain on purpose in order that you don't have to deal with this", so it may seem to be a neat way out of the undesirable situation, except when that pain becomes debilitating and prevents you from doing anything else. This may often happen when you want to come across as a nice, socially acceptable person, and because you don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, you don't speak up for your own needs. Because your subconscious mind wants to help you and to protect your interests in a way that seems to be acceptable to you, it creates a solution that will get you out of that unpleasant situation.

I have had a number of such situations in my own life. For example, at one time I had some pain in my hand that was growing day by day. It even got to the point that my hand began to feel numb and paralyzed. I have worked long hours and even though I very much enjoyed my work, I very much needed a vacation. Eventually I realized that my subconscious was doing its best to let me have that vacation one way or another, so I "negotiated a deal" with my hand - or rather with my subconscious. I promised that I will do my best to give my body a break and take a vacation as soon as possible, and the pain in my hand that was growing for about a month, instantly stopped. I acknowledged the message and there was no more need for pain.

So, if you are having some seemingly unexplainable pains and your doctor tells you that you are healthy, you may want to look into your heart and discover whether you are perhaps forcing yourself to do something you would rather not be doing and if you are, consider finding alternative options or creating appropriate changes in your lifestyle.