Wait, what’s IBS again

If you’re not familiar (lucky, lucky!), IBS is a chronic condition that affects the colon. Typical symptoms are cramps, gas, gas, and abdominal pain. Some people with irritable bowel syndrome experience constipation while others experience diarrhea and others experience a staggering between the two. Although it affects a significant portion of the population, there are a range of degrees of severity when it comes to IBS; some people have mild, occasional symptoms and others face more severe cases.

There is no cure for IBS, but the condition is manageable. Your doctor can prescribe medication to help manage symptoms, but dietary measures are the most common treatment. Often times, sufferers eliminate potential triggers such as dairy products, alcohol, caffeine, and fried foods.

A special diet known as the low-FODMAP diet is also often prescribed to those trying to treat IBS. FODMAP stands for fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides and polyols and refers to short-chain carbohydrates that cause stomach upset. Basically, these foods ferment in the intestines and cause gas. That happens to everyone, explains Alex Naoumidis, co-founder of Mindset Health / Nerva, a company that uses app-based hypnotherapy to help people manage chronic health problems, wrong. “Then the brain triggers, ‘Hey, we have to evacuate this. Let’s cause pain, let’s cause diarrhea, let’s cause constipation,'” he says.

With this in mind, it makes sense to eliminate FODMAP foods from your diet. But these include hard-to-avoid foods like garlic and onions, as well as otherwise healthy (and tasty) foods like apples, beans, Brussels sprouts, mushrooms, and yogurt. In other words, it is not an easy diet to follow and it involves avoiding many foods that are otherwise beneficial to your health.

Can Hypnotherapy Really Calm Your Colon?

While some IBS patients have visceral hypersensitivity – the above-mentioned super-sensitive nerves in their colon – there is likely nothing “wrong” with the colon of most IBS patients. “It’s actually a behavioral problem of the colon,” says Niket Sonpal, MD, an internist and gastroenterologist in New York City and a faculty member at Touro College of Medicine.

Because of the gut-brain connection, he explains, mental health problems – including depression, anxiety, and stress – can wreak havoc on your digestive system. In other words, you can certainly feed your colon foods that are less irritating, but it might need a therapist, so to speak. For this reason, experts like Dr. Sonpal strategies for reducing stress in IBS, be it yoga, therapy, running, etc. – whatever works for the patient. “All stressbusters are good stressbusters,” he says.

This is where hypnotherapy comes in. Several studies – including a 2016 randomized clinical trial conducted by the Monash University Department of Gastroenterology, where the low-FODMAP diet was born – have found the effectiveness of hypnotherapy for relieving IBS symptoms, including pain, constipation , Diarrhea and more. The Monash study suggests that the hypnotherapy intervention was as effective as a low-FODMAP diet, and that the two treatments taken together were no more effective than hypnotherapy alone. That is gigantic for IBS sufferers like me who are looking for alternatives to FODMAP.

But what exactly is IBS specific hypnotherapy and how can it be incorporated into a person’s lifestyle to manage symptoms?

There is an app that uses hypnotherapy to treat IBS

Naoumidis and his co-founder (and brother) Chris Naoumidis decided to introduce IBS-specific programming into their Mindset app, a hypnotherapy app that targets a wide range of health problems. It was so successful that they’ve since outsourced it to their own app, Nerva, in collaboration with Simone Peters, PhD, a belly-directed hypnotherapist who led Monash’s clinical trial. The app currently has 11,000 users, and in a retrospective study, the company says 89 percent of them showed improvement in symptoms.

Before signing up for the Nerva app, it will walk you through an assessment to make sure you are eligible for the program. If you are and decide to participate, begin with a six-week intensive program. “A day of the program can include: Psychoeducational articles about the gut-brain connection, for example, and then you listen to a session with guided imagery based on hypnosis, “says Naoumidis.

If you’ve never tried hypnotherapy before, Naoumidis explains that it’s an experience similar to guided meditation. “You are asked to sit in a comfortable place and close your eyes, and then the hypnotherapist brings you Your words put you in a state of focused attention and relaxation, “he says.

Since this particular hypnotherapy is aimed at irritable bowel syndrome, the visualizations are somehow gut specific (but not in a crude way!). “They by a pharmacy from the 18th

After the six-week intensive program, Nerva can be used to treat symptoms as needed. Naoumidis says some people use it once a week afterwards, while others rely on the program only during the flare-up.

The founder of Nerva wants to make it clear that Nerva is not a treatment for IBS; Rather, it is a self-management program that individuals can use to relieve their symptoms and improve their quality of life. He says a significant percentage of the app’s users came from recommendations from doctors and nutritionists.

The company now plans to conduct a randomized clinical trial comparing Nerva to a sham program (also known as inactive treatment to mimic therapy) in hopes of further validating its product.

You can try other stress reduction techniques

If you can’t access Nerva due to budget constraints (it costs $ 69.99 for three months, which sounds expensive for an app but, in fairness, is less expensive than a single on-site hypnotherapy session), Dr. Sonpal that any stress reduction technique can help alleviate IBS symptoms.

“We know that for the most part, irritable bowel syndrome is a mind-gut connection,” he says. “Anything that helps center a person’s mind and relieve stress and emotional stress – be it exercise, therapy, hypnotherapy, or acupuncture – is worth a try.”

He also notes that this approach can benefit not only IBS patients but anyone with a colon as everyone has stomach discomfort at some point due to stress or emotional turmoil. In other words, if your “stomach” is upset, it may make sense to treat it the same way you treat an upset mind – e.g. (You might skip stress eating because this particular coping strategy is unlikely to tame your stomach!)

Oh hello! You look like someone who loves free workouts, discounts on cult favorite wellness brands, and exclusive Well + Good content. Register with Well +, our online community of wellness insiders, and activate your rewards immediately.