May/June 2005 Alternative Health
Hypnosis: A New Paradigm of Healing for Diabetics

by C. Devin Hastings, C.I., C.Ht.

Diabetes is now classified as a worldwide epidemic. Blindness, kidney disease, impotence and many other illnesses are often the direct result of out-of-control or undiagnosed diabetes. Do any of the following statements apply to you or someone you know?

  • As a person with diabetes, do you ever feel stressed?
  • Are you the parent of a child with diabetes?
  • Do you wish that you, your child or spouse were more motivated to exercise?
  • Wouldn’t it be great if it were easier to make better food choices?
  • Is your diabetes causing embarrassing, personal problems?

Fortunately, there are several ways hypnosis can help. Since a hypnotist is by definition, a stress management consultant and a motivational coach, all of the challenges above can be powerfully addressed by using hypnosis but please note the following: a hypnotist is only part of your diabetes support team. Always be sure to have your doctor’s approval before beginning any hypnosis program that can have any influence on your medical condition.

The primary method by which hypnosis helps a person with diabetes is by reducing harmful stress. There are two fundamental ways in which stress negatively affects a person with diabetes:

(1) Stress robs a person of necessary personal power that is crucial in giving a person the emotional ability to make choices that benefit their health and well being.
(2) As a diabetic’s stress levels increase, so does their blood sugar. This is due to the ‘fight-or-flight’ response that people experience as a result of negative stress. When a person enters this state of mind, their body releases chemicals known as ‘insulin-antagonists’. These chemicals temporarily block the action of insulin while simultaneously causing the release of stored sugar in the liver and muscles.

Now let’s see how this applies to the five problems listed in the second paragraph.

Regarding statement one it is obvious to anyone with diabetes that having that disease is very stressful. This harmful state of emotional affairs then makes it more difficult for a diabetic to follow their doctor’s recommendations. Also, when a person is in emotional pain, they usually reach for whatever makes them immediately feel better. This can be any addiction, though it is usually food and typically too much and not the kind that is good for a person with diabetes.

Looking at statement two, it can be noted that stress packs a powerful double punch for parents of children with diabetes. This is because first, the parent is stressed out caring for an ill child and second, the child has overwhelming stress because they are not as equipped as an adult to deal with the enormous responsibility of successfully managing their disease. The parent must also then have to deal with their child’s stress. This double-whammy makes it very difficult to achieve the kind of precise care that is needed for good child diabetes management.

In statement three, the fundamental issue is exercise. Since 95% of all persons with diabetes have Type 2 and since 90% of all those persons are obese, the implications for enhanced exercise motivation are all too clear. For example, it is well documented that many Type 2 diabetics have had complete symptom remission after achieving a significant reduction in weight typically due to exercise and diet improvement. Additionally, exercise greatly contributes to one’s sense of well being and this therefore becomes a positive motivational cycle.

Statement four addresses a concern that many people have, not just those with diabetes. "I wish I could just eat better!" is a familiar refrain. Again, as a hypnotist helps a person to reduce their feelings of stress, they can then help that person to strengthen their inner commitment to making better food choices. Please note that even a small reduction in a diabetic’s long term blood sugar tremendously reduces their chances of having serious complications later on.

Statement five refers to conditions that are difficult for most people to talk about. For brevity’s sake this discussion is limited to one very common embarrassing problem: impotence. Nearly 60% of all males with diabetes experience impotence. There are two concerns here: (1) There is a good chance that these people and their partners are feeling a great deal of unnecessary and harmful stress. (2) A male diabetic may choose to take a medication for impotence when that medication is inappropriate and quite possibly harmful. This concern is also relevant to those millions of men with undiagnosed diabetes.

In conclusion, a hypnotist can be an important part of a diabetic’s health care team because a person can be responsibly coached by a properly trained hypnotist to more effectively deal with the above mentioned issues.

C. Devin Hastings is a Type 2 diabetic who had almost total vision loss due to diabetes twelve years ago. He now has 20/20 vision because he has applied the healing benefits of hypnosis as described above. He is conducting a two-day workshop on diabetes and hypnosis in Kirkland, Washington in June. For more information, please visit him at www.MBH4U.com or email him at: devin@MBH4U.com or call 612-730-2789.