What is Guided Imagery?

Guided imagery can help accelerate healing. Guided imagery is also known as visualizations, guided meditations, and self-hypnosis. It is an easy way to actively focus on healing.

Guided imagery can be used in many ways. It directs our focus and helps to communicate to our subconscious mind, the central controller of the body, the changes we desire.  This technique has been researched in psychoneuroimmunology , especially in the work of Candace Pert. Her research has shown how the neurology of the body actually experiences the same feelings and fires the same brain synapses during a visualization process that it would if experiencing a physical event.

Can cells change?

While much of our society and science still assumes that our bodies renew every seven years, research in quantum physics in the 1950’s demonstrated that our cells renew quickly.  98% of all the cells in our body are replaced yearly. The entire body is replaced every five years.  Soft muscle tissue, for example, is replaced 2-3 months, liver every six weeks, skin every 30 days and stomach linen every four days.  Knowing this, our mission is to spend the necessary time to influence the cells we are interested in changing for the duration of time needed for them to replace themselves.

Just like an athlete would do to increase his or her muscle mass, using visualizations to produce change requires practice and time.  One week of “trying” will not produce results just as one week at the gym will not either.

Visualizations can create demonstratable physical change in the body. The most surprising use of the power of guided imagery to create changes in the body occurred through several studies published in the 1970’s.  These studies ( Peter H.C. Mutke’s, M.D. (UCLA) research paper to the Department of Neuropsychiatry, 1971, Williams, J.E., Stimulation of breast growth by hypnosis. “Journal of Sex Research,” 1974, and Staib, A.R., and Logan, D.R., Hypnotic Stimulation of Breast Growth. “The American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis,” 1977) used self-hypnosis to stimulate breast growth in middle-aged women.  Growth averaged between 1 and 2 cup sizes.   These studies show that guided imagery can be a very powerful means to change our bodies.

Common Uses of Guided Visualization

Visualizations have been demonstrated to remove warts, to accelerate the healing of broken bones, and to regulate digestion and motility to name a few.