Altering body sensations

Are there techniques that you can learn that will alter bodily sensations, even unpleasant or painful ones? Yes, there are; and a word of caution, before you apply the techniques I list below. Be sure you have explored the source of these unpleasant or painful sensations, so that you aren’t ignoring important signals. But if you have discussed and explored the nature of these sensations with your licensed health care provider, and there is either no treatable cause, or you are awaiting diagnosis or treatment, then these techniques may prove to be a suitable resouce. Find the one or several you most resonate with, and practice it or them regularly for mastery. Let your health care provider know what you are doing and give them regular updates on what you are experiencing.

Dr. Norman Shealy is a neurosurgeon and founded the American Holistic Medical Association and the Shealy Institute. Through working with his patients, he developed a list of techniques that his patients found useful when dealing with chronic pain. Below, I’ve listed these techniques for altering body sensations. You can also find these techniques listed in Dr. Shealy’s book, The Self-Healing Workbook: Your Personal Plan for Stress Free Living (pg. 13-14; ISBN: 1-85230-429-4: Element Books, Boston, Massachusetts, 1993).
1) Talking to the body, such as, “My hand is warm.” If you do this long enough, your hand will warm up.
2) Image changes, such as imagining the sum beaming down upon your hand to assist in the process of warming it.
3) Feel the pulsations of your heartbeat in that area. You might find that this happens almost automatically it the body area is free of tension. Do not use this technique to feel pulsations inside your head because this has triggered some people to have a migraine type headache. In every other part of the body, pulsing is associated with the state of relaxation.
4) Compare tense and relaxed parts of the body. Try making a fist and then notice the feelings of tension and compare this with the relaxed parts and then let go. By physically contracting and then relaxing a part of the body, the feelings there will change.
5) Focus a feeling of love upon the body. If you can bring to mind an image, sound or taste that causes heightened feelings of gratitude, appreciation and/or love, then you can more easily send this feeling to any part of the body, which will allow it to feel nurtured.
6) Imaging breathing as collection and release of tension. Imagine as you inhale that you are collecting any tension that you feel in a part of your body. Imagine as you exhale that you release this tension. This technique can work very effectively to reduce tension in a given part of your body.
7) Breath through the skin. Pretending that you are breathing through the surface of the skin will change the feelings in that part of your body. Some people have actually had very painful parts of their body feel more numb-like after practicing this technique. It may be easiest to learn this technique by starting with a body part with no pain, and later transferring that skill to areas of pain.
8) Imagine circulation of electrical energy from you brain or neck down the back part of the body when inhaling, and up the front part of the body, as you exhale. This technique normalizes or balances the internal feelings in that part of the body. You can do this technique in the body as a whole, down the spine on the inhale, and up the front of the torso on the exhale. Play around with reversing directions, or having simultaneous though opposite directions with each breath cycle.
9) Expand the electromagnetic energy field around the body. Electricity creates magnetism. Try creating a 1 inch and then a 12 inch halo of electromagnetic energy around any part of the body, or the body as a whole. You may find that it brings that part of the body into balance and gives you control over bodily sensations.


Disclaimer:
The information here is not intended to provide medical advice. The information here is not a recommendation for a specific treatment plan, and should not be a substitute for the qualified opinion of a licensed health care provider. The information here is for educational purposes only. Neither the web provider, nor I, nor any author cited here, should be considered responsible for the misuse of any information presented herein.

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