Your Body Does Know What to Do With Food 

        Do you know that people, even as recently as a generation or two ago, did not have to work so hard to not be obese?  They ate pie after dinner, ate bread and butter along with their dinner.  They ate eggs and bacon for breakfast, sandwiches, and cookies with milk for lunch, and then had dinners where they did not worry about carbs or calories.  And obesity was rare.

    People today, according to some interesting research, eat fewer calories most days and do more exercise.   And yet more of us are struggling with being overweight.  Why?

            Our bodies know what to do with food.  If your body is struggling with weight gain, it's because it's getting sent signals that tell it that storing energy is a good idea.   We gain weight because our appetites have become dysregulated, our metabolisms have become dysregulated, or our brains have come to see food as a primary source of reward and motivation.  Many of us struggle with all three of these issues.

   When we regulate our appetites, our metabolisms, and our sense of food as a reward, our bodies can go back to naturally balancing our weight.   My book, The Short Guide to Ordered Eating, will teach you how to do exactly that.   

   https://a.co/d/2c6Uynl

https://a.co/d/8qinqS9

 Free Event at Hamilton-Wenham School of Dance

Hypnosis Presentation and Demonstration

        Have you ever wondered if hypnosis or hypnotherapy can help you?

Find out!   On Sunday, February 12that 4:00,  Tina Grasso, M.Ed, C.H. will demonstrate the effectiveness of hypnosis at the Hamilton-Wenham School of Dance.  

Find out if hypnosis can help you!

        Hypnosis has been used successfully for centuries to help with common problems.  

   Hypnosis can help to change habits, improve performance, alleviate chronic pain, and facilitate healing.  It is one of the most successful interventions for smoking cessation and weight management.   But its uses can go far beyond that.          Tina Grasso will explain what hypnosis is and how it works.  She’ll go over how it can be used, and answer any questions.  

        She will also give a free demonstration at the end of the presentation  for anyone who would like to participate.

    Please sign up for this free event by emailing tinamgrasso@gmail.com

 

Tina Grasso is a licensed school counselor and hypnotherapist.  She was trained and licensed by the National Guild of Hypnotists, and licensed by the Massachusetts Department of Education as a school counselor.

She has worked with children and families in educational settings for over 30 years.   

                                                       Ordered Eating: 

                               The Only Real Way to Balance Weight for Good

        We know plenty about disordered eating.  We know that eating too much, or only eating one type of food, or not eating enough to maintain health is disordered.  

    But what is ordered eating?   If we can eat in a way that disorders, or negatively impacts our health, can ordered eating do the opposite?

    Yes.  The body knows what to do with food.   The truth is that we store excess fat when we give our bodies a reason to do so when we send the signals that we might need that fat in the future.

       Fat, as far as our brains and bodies see it, is our most precious resource.   It can be burned for fuel to keep us warm.  Or used as energy to power our bodies. It can be turned into bone cells, nerve cells, and immune cells.  It can rush to a site of injury in order to crowd out infection and start the healing process.  In short, fat is our war chest.  And it's our savings account, the place where we store what we will need to rebuild after a trauma, starvation, famine, or other tragedy ends.

    When we send our brain signals that we may be facing famine, starvation, exile, or trauma, our brains start storing fat.  Those signals are deep stress, isolation, lack of nutrients, starvation, and exhaustion.

    When we address these signals, that is, when we are rested, nourished, connected, and not stressed, our bodies will burn fat more readily, and not be so eager to store fat.  Our appetites regulate, our metabolisms allow us to burn fat, and we only really think about food during meal times. 

  The truth is that deep stress, especially in the form of starvation, isolation, trauma, fear, or exhaustion has an effect on the three main forces that control our body weight: Our metabolisms, our appetite, and our sense of motivation and reward around food.

    Dieting, or, as our brains call it, starvation, changes how our bodies process food.  Our metabolisms adapt, so we need less and less food.  Our bodies learn to function on less, and learn to store more because it thinks we are suffering a famine.

    Exhaustion, over-exercise, lack of sleep, etc. cause our appetites to increase.  Our brains can release compounds, such as neuropeptide Y, that make us cold, tired, lazy, and very, very hungry.  When we have NPY floating around in our bloodstreams, our appetites become a force that no one can withstand. We become so hungry we have to eat, and our brains can often trick us into thinking we ate less than we actually did. 

  Social isolation, social stress, trauma, deprivation, and exhaustion can also make it so that food becomes our primary motivator.  Food becomes the thing we find most rewarding, and the reward around high-calorie foods becomes exaggerated for us when we have experienced deep stress.  We can lose our motivation towards things we once found enjoyable, and become very motivated to consume sugary or highly palatable foods. 

    These three forces work together.  Many of us who have struggled with our weight for years have issues with all three: our metabolisms are slow, our appetites are ramped up, and our sense of motivation and reward around food has become exaggerated.

 How do we turn this around?  We do it by addressing the stress, exhaustion, and other factors that signal to our brains that it might be a good idea to store fat.   When we address these issues, our eating becomes ordered: We go to the table hungry at meal times, eat nourishing foods, and leave the table feeling satisfied, without thinking about food much until the next meal approaches. 

My book, The Short Guide to Ordered Eating, teaches you, step by step, how to address eating habits from all three angles so that you can once and for all allow your body to balance your weight.

  For a free preview of the book, click here: 

https://a.co/d/eBbq1WG

       

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Tina Marie Grasso

  

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Chronic Pain: How Hypnosis can Help with one of Life's Most Difficult Challenges

How Can Hypnosis Help with Chronic Pain?  

                                 Pain is real.  It is hard to bear physically, and also emotionally.  Chronic pain is one of the most debilitating conditions, and it is vital to engage is good self care when we are in pain.
                                Pain is important.  It is a signal from our body that something is wrong, and is designed to get us to act in order to take care of ourselves.  We must respect and pay attention to pain.  Pain should always be checked out by a medical doctor who is capable of diagnosing what is causing the pain and prescribing a course of treatment.  

                                   The challenge of chronic pain, though, is frustrating for both doctors and patients.  Pain can be misleading. It can persist when there seems to be no reason for it do so so.  Pain can show up in one place from an injury from another place on the body altogether. 

                                   It is important to understand that all pain is in the brain, it is a complex and complicated experience that is mediated through various regions of our brain.  How much pain we feel is not directly related to how much we are injured or hurt. How quickly our pain subsides is not always directly related to how quickly we are getting better.   How can this be the case?

                               Though we seem to feel pain in various parts of our body, all pain is actually in our brain.  Our brain takes signals from the body, from our five senses, and processes those signals through the centers of the brain responsible for thoughts and feelings, and then produces pain signals as it deems appropriate.   
                                During World War I, doctors noticed that soldiers with horrifying injuries were coming off the battlefield with far less pain than the doctors expected.  They were in far less pain than civilians with similar injuries.  Why?  Because the very fact that they were off the battlefield, out of harm's way, and safe in a hospital made them feel better.  The fact that they were no longer in battle changed the way their brains were processing the pain signals coming from their bodies.  Our perceptions, our emotions, and our thoughts change how we experience pain.
                       Factors that determine how we experience pain:

  1. Pain is an emotional experience:  Often, when we are in pain, we also feel fear, grief, frustration, anger, anxiety, depression, loss of appetite, fatigue, insomnia, and perhaps many other emotions.   It's important to understand that these feelings can make how we perceive our pain worse, and, also, pain can make these emotions more intense.   Pain can bring forth emotions, emotions can summon pain.  How we think, how we feel emotionally, and how we feel physically are all intertwined. 

2. Our experience of pain is not dependent on the extent of injury, but more on how we think about it and our previous experiences.   Fear makes pain worse. If we fear the pain means more injury is taking place, we will feel more pain than if we know we are safe, well, and healing.  Trust in our doctors, being in a safe environment, being well educated about our condition, all have real impacts on how we perceive pain.

3. Perception is everything.  Documented cases of patients in emergency rooms in excruciating pain exist where, when they are examined, are found to be unharmed and uninjured.  They only thought they had been injured. The belief that they had been injured and were in danger led them to feel that they were in pain.  This is also the case with childbirth.  Women who trust their doctors or caregivers, understand the process, and feel relaxed and safe report far less pain than woman who are afraid, find themselves in the hands of people they don't know or trust, or who do not understand what is going on.  

     Chronic pain occurs when the brain continues to perceive the sensations coming from an area of the body as pain.  This can wear us down, limit our lives, and it's also a difficult situation to treat.  How can hypnosis help?

Hypnosis can change perception.  It can change how the brain is interpreting the sensations coming from the body.  It gives the brain a chance to reassess the situation, and can allow the brain to figure out that no further injury is occuring.

Hypnosis can change how we think about the sensations coming from the body.  Sensations from our nerves travel through our nervous system, and enter spinal column through the dorsal horn.  They then enter the brain through the brain stem, where basic instincts take over (like pulling your hand away quickly from a hot stove) and then the enter the limbic region of the brain.  The limbic region is where emotion is processed.

  Hypnosis can change how we feel about the sensations coming into the brain, and so change the amount of pain we perceive ourselves to be in.
Hypnosis can change the way bodily sensations are thought about.  Pain is bodily sensation interacting with cognition, or thinking.  Ife we change the way we think, we change the way we feel. 

 Hypnosis can also relieve tension and stress, both of which can intensify pain.  

Hypnosis can help reprogram negative ideas that are worsening discomfort.  Often, when we have been ill or injured, we feel loss, we feel anger.  We worry about a compromised future, we can predict dire things, and those negative thoughts increase our pain.  

Hypnosis can help us see the good around us and the good that awaits us in the future.

Hypnosis can help redirect our attention and our perceptions, so our pain isn't always in the forefront of our experience.  

Hypnosis can help build inner strength: through hypnosis, we can increase our sense of control over our lives, repair ego damage done by the trauma of pain and illness.  It changes how we think, how we feel, and how we look forward to the future.

Hypnosis can trigger healing.  Patients who use hypnosis recover more quickly, report less pain, and suffer fewer complications than those who do not.   Hypnosis allows the brain to release the body's natural healing powers, the same healing powers that are released during deep stages of sleep.  Hypnosis can allow the brain to redirect, rethink, review, and allow the body and mind to heal.

Using hypnosis to help with chronic pain and illness can be an important piece to a treatment plan.  Call, text, email, or facebook message me to find out more, or if you have any questions.  Find out if hypnosis is right for you.



                               

The Best Investment for Happiness and Health

The Best Investment for Happiness and Health

          Much money is spent on things we think are going to bring us happiness. From gym memberships to bigger houses, clothes, vacations, supplements, you name it.  Most of us spend a lot of money on things we hope will add to the quality of our lives.  One investment, though, seems to outperform all others. It's also basically free, and is guaranteed to not only add to our current happiness, but improve our health as well.

         Friendship and social connection are more important to our health than we can really know. Friends reduce stress, help us find solutions, see problems differently, and make the things we do each day more enjoyable.  Investing time and energy into relationships pays off over the course of our lives in ways we can barely count.  
        However, many of us are feeling more alienated from others than ever. These days, it's difficult for many of us to remain connected socially, and even more difficult to make new social connections.  

  

         Having friends is an important part of self care. According to research done at Harvard Medical School, social connections improve our overall health and also seem to keep our brains sharper as we age. Positive relationships where we feel supported, respected, and appreciated improve our health, both physical and mental.  They also improve our mood, our mindset, and our outlook for the future.  

     People who make a point to connect socially with others live longer lives and enjoy better health.  In a recent article in the New York Times, called "How to Maintain Friendships," Anna Goldfarb wrote that the bonds of friendship are critical to maintaining physical and emotional health.  She goes on to write that strong social ties boost the immune system, increase longevity, decrease the risk of contracting certain chronic illnesses and increase the ability to cope with chronic pain. 

     Most of us know that friendships improve our lives.  The problem becomes, though, how do we make and keep them? It has become difficult these days, especially as we get older, to make and keep friends. We are more socially isolated than ever before, and social isolation is one of the most damaging stressors we can face.

  What do we do?  I am often being asked, "How do I make friends? How do I reconnect with old friends?"  People are busy and distracted. It can be difficult to figure out how to break through all of the noise and connect.  But it can be done. 

   The first step to renewing our social circle is to have a clear idea about what friendship should look like.  Friendship should be positive. Friends are people who are consistent, offer support, and with whom we can laugh. They are also people with whom we can be vulnerable.  The overall tone is one of positivity.  Our friends lift us up, celebrate our successes, help us process our defeats, and help us laugh about life, ourselves, and everything else.

 The second step is to examine why your social circle has been getting smaller. How have you been spending you time? Is it on things that are important to you?  Try making a list of things you enjoy doing, both the big things and the small things.  Keep the list where you can see it and add to it as more occurs to you.  How much time do you spend doing these things?  How can you add more of them to your life?  What can you do less of to make more time for the things on your list?

  Then, see how you can involve others in your activities.  Are there groups of people already doing some of the things on your list?  Can you join them?  Can you invite someone to join you for a walk? To go to a movie? To try out a new restaurant? Join a knitting group? A bowling league?
 Extend an invitation and keep an open mind.  It can be hard to reach out with an invitation, but bear in mind that most of us like to be invited, and many of us are feeling disconnected. People like others who make them feel liked. People like others who make them feel heard and accepted.  Bear that in mind as you reach out.  Take a risk, stay positive, and focus on just having a good time and getting to know the other person.  See what happens.

 It's also important to nurture friendships with people who are already dear to us, but maybe we've become disconnected from them, or maybe we take them for granted.  Who are the people in your life who have always been kind? 
       That might be a short list, but those that make the list are the ones to make time for, reach out to, and connect with. Nurturing our relationships is one of the biggest investments we can make for ourselves. It's an investment in long term health and happiness.

 Did you know that hypnosis can help us improve our relationships?  It can.  By relieving symptoms of social anxiety and worry, hypnosis can help us reach out and connect with others more easily. 
Hypnosis also can help us problem solve, view events or issues in a new way, and learn new ways to behave and interact with others.  

  Don't hesitate to contact me to find out more about how hypnosis can help you!  I love to answer questions!

How Hypnosis Helps IBS

How Hypnosis Helps with IBS

          What is Irritable Bowel Syndrome?  No one seems to know for sure. Ask the medical community and it seems to be a confusing cluster of symptoms that have no real remedy.

Ask a person who has been struggling with IBS, though, and they will not be so unclear: IBS is a serious problem that causes pain and makes life difficult. At best, it is living with discomfort and symptoms that just make doctors shrug.  At worst, it is gut wrenching pain, and stomach events that can be painful, traumatic, and humiliating.

The cause of IBS has not really been determined.  Theories, though, about the cause are varied, and range from dietary issues such as food allergies, to an overly sensitive enteric (or gastrointestinal) nervous system, to bile acid malabsorption, to chronic alcohol abuse, to peristalsis, to a sedentary lifestyle.

It may be that all these elements make the symptoms of IBS worse.  We do know, however, that a series of changes seem to help most people with these symptoms.

It might be helpful to start a diary or journal.  Keep a running log of food eaten and symptoms.  It would also be helpful to note other factors such as stress level, exercise, medication taken, or anything else you think might be impacting your symptoms.  Think like a detective, look for clues and emerging patterns.

Another step would be to make sure you are eating regular, well balanced meals.  This means eating at the same time each day, three times a day. Eating too little at one meal, and then too much at another can induce symptoms. Make a habit of eating regular meals that are balanced, that is, that contain a combination of macro nutrients.  Allow sufficient time to eat your meals and allow yourself time for regular bathroom habits.

How Hypnosis Helps

       Many clinical studies show that hypnosis helps reduce or eliminate symptoms of IBS.  Hypnosis that uses progressive relaxation techniques, stress reduction, along with suggestions specific to a client's particular symptoms or concerns seems to be most effective.  One study, done at Britain's University of Manchester, showed that hypnosis helped 70% of IBS patients treated. 

       Hypnosis offers symptomatic and psychological benefits along with physical relief of symptoms.  What's more, in follow up studies, clients who used hypnosis to reduce or eliminate their symptoms were found to still be symptom free five years after terminating hypnosis!

  Why Does Hypnosis Work?

   The digestive system is very sensitive to stress.  Stress makes symptoms of IBS worse.  Hypnosis, by its very nature, helps clients not only reduce stress, but also be better able to cope with stressful situations, so that their overall level of stress is reduced.

   The vagus nerve runs from the brain through the whole digestive system, and controls much of the digestive process. Vagal tone, or the health of the vagus nerve, impacts the health of the digestive system.  Hypnosis has been shown to improve vagal tone, so it  impacts the health of the digestive system.

        The brain and body have powerful tools for healing. Our bodies want to be healthy, and they want to heal.  The healing abilities of our brains and bodies are released during sleep.  The immune system, autophagy, growth hormones, and other healing processes are activated during sleep, which is why we often feel better from ailments after a good night's rest.  

      Hypnosis mimics certain stages of sleep. When clients are in hypnosis, as shown in studies using MRI technology, brain activity and brain waves look a lot like sleep.  Hypnosis has the power to release the healing powers of the body that are only available to us when we sleep deeply. Some studies show that the brain, under hypnosis, can target certain things to heal; the suggestions given during hypnosis can help the brain and body "decide" where to target healing.

 Hypnosis can also improve sleep quality and duration.  Most hypnotists teach their clients self hypnosis, and give them strategies to help improve and deepen sleep, so the powers of healthy sleep are not only activated in session, but carried out once the client is home as well.

  Through stress reduction, improved self care, improved sleep, and hypnosis, IBS symptoms can become much more manageable.  If you are interested in learning more, contact me.  Inquiries are always free and I would be happy to answer any questions or provide any information via email, text, or by phone call!  Contact me today and start on your healing journey! 

  

  

How A Daily Dose of Kindness Can Protect Us

How A Daily Dose of Kindness Can Protect Us 

                    Modern life is stressful. We know this.  All we have to do is look at the numbers of people diagnosed with mood disorders. Those numbers have been skyrocketing.  Even our children are stressed; mood disorders and other symptoms of stress such as school refusal have been increasing among school aged children for years.

                  Stress hurts us physically and emotionally. It wears down our ability to cope, to find solutions, to look forward to positive outcomes.  It weakens our hearts, and impairs our ability to burn fat and use food as fuel in a healthy and balanced way.  It dampens our creativity and keeps us focused on the negative. Stress, especially long term stress, erodes the quality of our lives.

                  But we do have tools available to us to combat all of this stress and its symptoms. Simple things that we can do that end up having a profound effect on our ability to protect ourselves from the symptoms of ongoing stress are available to all of us are at our fingertips.   A simple but powerful technique to help combat stress and protect ourselves is to create an environment, as best we can, of positivity.  This includes the environment around us and also the environment in our own minds.

                 We begin creating this positive environment by spending time each day taking caring notice of ourselves. We can check in with ourselves to see how we are feeling and see if there is anything we can do to take care of ourselves.  And we can say kind things to ourselves.

              Seems simple, doesn't it?  Yet giving ourselves a little kindness each day in the form of truly being present and checking in with what we need and giving ourselves a positive self statement can have profound effects on the quality of our lives over time.
 
              Check ins reduce stress by allowing us to become more in tune to what we need, and so allowing us to take action to meet these needs.  How does this work?  How many times have we found ourselves working through lunch? Or racing from one place to another either at home, at work, or out doing our errands, and suddenly realizing we haven't had any water or a break all day?

             This is stressful. Ignoring the signals our bodies send to us to try to get our needs met sends messages to our minds and to our bodies that are negative and stress inducing.  Taking one minute to take a deep breath, be present, and see what we need and what we can do about it starts to turn this around.
    Maybe, when we pause to check in with ourselves, we find we need some lunch, a drink of water, or we are cold and need a sweater.  Maybe we need to get up and walk around for a few minutes, or sit down and rest.  Taking one minute a few times a day to be present, check in with ourselves and address our needs as we are able goes a long way to reducing the daily stress that builds up in our lives.

             Aside from Check-Ins, a daily positive self statement helps reduce stress, too.  We can be so negative with ourselves in our own minds.  We predict doom, tell ourselves we aren't enough, tell ourselves to not expect so much.  The problem is, our minds believe us.  What we believe, we set about making true.  Creating an atmosphere of positive thought in our own minds is the antidote to negative self talk.
          Think of a positive thing to say to yourself each day, and say it in the morning, and also when you notice your thoughts turning negative.  Some examples of positive self statements that people have used successfully are:
  Every day I do my best.
  I am capable, beautiful, and loved.
  I am good enough, I have enough, I do enough.
  Every day I live in the quiet expectation of good.
  I can be happy.
  I am a good, kind person and deserve to feel well and live a good life.

Every day, we can use these simple tools to help combat stress and lift us up, protecting us from the negative effects of modern life.

Remember to check in, a few times a day.  Some people find that checking in before meal time really helps them to be better in tune with their appetite and what food their bodies really need.  But do whatever works for you, try to find three times a day to check in and see what you need.

And give yourself one positive self statement a day.  Notice, as time goes on and you practice these two simple steps, how much better you feel.  Notice how the symptoms of stress start to reduce.