When the body’s ‘alarm system’, the ‘fight or flight response’ is activated the digestive system shuts down to conserve energy so we know that the nervous system impacts on the digestive system.

The symptoms of IBS can be painful, discomforting and embarrassing which then leads to more stress and anxiety relating to travel, being at work and socialising etc. “What if there isn’t a toilet immediately accessible, what if I don’t get to the toilet in time etc.” Your life can become controlled by your digestive system and what would be everyday activities for most people can be a potential obstacle for the IBS sufferer.

Research proves that hypnotherapy is one of, if not the most effective treatments for IBS when it can’t be controlled by a simple change of diet. The hypnotic state is a deep state of relaxation. By learning how to relax deeply and achieving a hypnotic state every symptom in the body slows down, stress/anxiety is minimised and you learn how to regain control over your thoughts, feelings and emotions and send the correct signals from your nervous system to the digestive system.

 With IBS the digestive system is either blocked (constipation) or it is working too quickly (Diarrhoea) so hypnosis helps you to slow it down or speed it up. If you would like us to assess whether or not your symptoms can be helped with hypnotherapy call us now to arrange a free consultation.

Our last blog described the digestive system. We will now consider what takes place in this digestive process. It is a continuous changing of substances, which is brought about chemically and organically. This changing is called Metabolism. Upon food being taken into the stomach, it is then mixed with gastric juice and passed into the small intestine in a semi digested state called chyme. At the entrance of the duodenum is the pyloric sphincter muscle, a constricting ring which prevents chyme passing through until it is of the right consistency. This process takes about three hours.

As food passes through the duodenum, it receives bile, (manufactured by the liver), from the gall-bladder, and pancreatic juices from the pancreas. The ducts from each gland unite so that the two secretions are poured into the duodenum at the same time and place, - about three inches from the pyloric orifice.

In the small intestine, much of the changed food element is absorbed into the bloodstream. All the digested food is dealt with here, the undigested parts passing on into the large colon, where liquid food is absorbed. Any remaining undigested parts are then pressed forward by peristalsis action until they reach the sigmoid flexure, and are ejected into the rectal tube.

The intestines ARE NOT BOWELS, as popularly understood, - they are digestive organs. The bowel commences where the small tube leads from the sigmoid flexure. It consists of this tube, (about 2” long), and the rectum. The bowel has one function only, that of dealing with the faeces.

Food passes into the large intestine two to five and a half hours after eating, but it requires nine hours or more before a complete meal has been dealt with.

Diagnosis of IBS

Until recently IBS was usually diagnosed by exclusion of diagnosable physical abnormalities and organic disease. In other words various tests, x-rays and examinations would be made in order to rule out other digestive problems such as chrohn’s, colitis and bowel cancer etc. A diagnosis of IBS could take a very long time which meant a long period of uncertainty and consequent worry and lots of invasive diagnostic ‘tools’ being inserted into the body. This period of worry and stress would often exacerbate the symptoms.

In February 2008 the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) issued new guidelines to the NHS for the diagnosis and management of IBS in primary care. http://www.nice.org.uk/nicemedia/pdf/cg61ibsqrg.pdf

NICE say that “Key elements of management are establishing a positive diagnosis; identifying symptoms that require prompt referral, and working in a long term partnership with the person with IBS, which is a significant change form the previous practice of diagnosing, predominantly by exclusion of diseases, which often led to unnecessary investigations and referrals.”

IBS can be diagnosed if someone reports having had any of the following symptoms for at least 6 months:-

Abdominal pain

Bloating

Change in Bowel habit

And if abdominal pain or discomfort is relieved by defecation or associated with altered bowel frequency or stool form and at least 2 of the following apply;-

Altered stool passage (straining, urgency, incomplete evacuation)

Abdominal bloating, distension, tension or hardness

Symptoms made worse by eating

Passage of mucus

Symptoms of lethargy, nausea, backache and bladder symptoms maybe used to support a diagnosis. However, many of these symptoms can overlap with other gastrointestinal disorders.

NICE recommend that treatment and care should take into account patients individual needs and preferences and that good communication is essential to allow patients to reach informed decisions about their care.

Once the diagnosis has been made the patient and their family or carers will be given the opportunity to be involved in decisions about treatment and care. General dietary and lifestyle advice including physical activity levels and relaxation will be provided and a referral to a dietician made if diet is considered to be a major factor. For people who don’t respond to dietary and lifestyle changes or to pharmacological treatments after 12 months, a referral for psychological interventions will be considered such Hypnotherapy, CBT or other psychological therapy.

In our next blog we look at how and why IBS might have a psychological component to its symptoms.

The Digestive System

The digestive system consists of the alimentary canal - a continuous tube from the mouth to the anus, and the accessory organs - teeth, tongue, salivary glands, pancreas, liver and gall bladder.

The process of digestion is the turning of solid food into a substance which can be easily absorbed into the blood stream, thereby nourishing all the tissues of the body by means of conversion and absorption.

Food is placed in the mouth and is masticated by the teeth. It is moistened by the salivary glands and formed into a ball (bolus) by the tongue. As this bolus slips beyond the tongue, the trachea (wind pipe) is automatically closed by the epiglottis to prevent any food passing into it. We all know the unpleasant experience of food ‘going down the wrong way’ and causing a paroxysm of coughing. When the food is safely swallowed, it is gripped by the pharynx and pressed on into the oesophagus (or gullet) by peristalsis action. This is a squeezing movement caused by the contraction of the muscles in the tract. Symptoms of IBS appear to be caused by a spasm resulting in the peristalsis action taking place too quickly or too slowly. The oesophagus is about ten inches long and descends in front of the vertebrae, through the diaphragm to the upper end of the stomach.

The stomach is a muscular sac shaped like the letter ‘J’ and it holds an average of one and half pints. It lies above the umbilicus (navel) and to the left of the xyphold cartilage, just below the diaphragm, and partly under the left lobe of the liver. At the lower end of the stomach is a valve, called the pylorus, the orifice of the small intestine, the first twelve inches of which is the duodenum, which is shaped like a horse shoe. This now continues into the portion consisting of the upper two fifths of the remaining small intestine, - the jejunum. The last part is the ileum. The small intestine is about twenty five feet long in the adult, and is coiled around in numerous directions until it reaches the ileocaecal valve, the entrance to the large intestine.

From the caecum, the large colon ascends on the right side of the abdomen as far as the liver, when it turns at the hepatic flexure into the transverse colon as far as the spleen, and now turns downwards at the splenic flexure into the descending colon as far as the sigmoid flexure, which leads to the rectum.

Our next blog will explain how you digest food and how the medical profession diagnose IBS

Over the next 3 months we will be focusing on the condition known as Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) the symptoms of which could be affecting as many as 20 % of the population to varying degrees.

If you are a sufferer or know someone that is you can visit this site over the next 3 months and find out more about this debilitating condition and how to combat it. The next post will describe what IBS is and how it is diagnosed.

The show starts at 10 am and closes at 5 pm and includes free workshops, free tasters, free demonstrations, free advice, competitions, deli/cafe, champagne & seafood bar. Admission is £5 on the door (save up to 50% by booking on line at www.lifemakeovershow.co.uk)

The figure of 80 % is hard to believe and it could be that bullying may be difficult to define and one person’s take on bullying might be viewed by someone else as ‘office banter’. It’s also interesting that we tend to think that living somewhere else will eliminate stress.

Some people appear to thrive on pressure and stress whereas others ‘buckle’ under it. Whatever contributes towards creating stress in your life it is the way that you react to it that will determine the outcome.

When we work with clients suffering from the emotional, physical and psychological effects of stress we help you to regain control over your emotions, behaviours and thoughts and make the appropriate changes in lifestyle that will improve the quality of your life.

Other findings from the Samaritans survey included: 

• Over a third of people identify work as being the main cause of stress.
• Half a million people say their work is so stressful that it is making them ill .
• Five million people feel very or extremely stressed by their work.  Workloads and relationships with colleagues and management are cited as the biggest contributing factor, and to make matters worse managers feel that they don’t have the skills to deal with it.
• 12.8 million working days were lost to stress, depression and anxiety in 2004 at a cost of 3.8 billion.
• Absence from work due to sickness, costs UK business nearly £11 billion a year, but the estimated cost to society is nearer £23 billion.
• 49% of people are worried about the effect stress is having on their health.
• 32% of workers feel their employers turn a blind eye to the problem of stress.
• 83% would rather say they were sick with flu or other problem than admit they were stressed.
• 40% of IT workers, retailers, caterers and engineers feel unsupported at work and over half unable to deal with stress.

* Stressed Out: A study of public experience of stress at work, December 2007.

For more information go to www.stressdownday.org

The first section of the book is about making that all important decision to stop and committing to that decision. You have to really want to do it for yourself and not because you feel you ought to for the sake of your partner or children or because a medical professional is advising you to stop or because you are being ‘nagged’ or made to feel like a pariah by government bans and anti-smoking advertising.

The second section of the book focuses on how to go about stopping once you have made your mind-up to do it. There are many methods/approaches available to help you quit but the problem is that most don’t deal with both the physiological and psychological aspects of smoking. As Elliott says “it’s like cutting off the tops of the weeds and leaving the roots intact. When you stop in the right way, which involves a change in your ‘mindset’ and attitude towards smoking it can be easy, by pulling up the roots so that you can stay stopped for good. Staying stopped is dealt with in the final section of the book.

You can obtain a copy of the book from http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stop-Smoking-Easily-Transform-Your/dp/1934266051/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1198359405&sr=8-1

The smoking ban has now been in force for 7 months and we would be interested in your views on whether or not it has made your life better or worse or not made any difference at all. We welcome views from smokers, non-smokers and from publicans on how it has affected business since it was introduced.

I hadn’t given too much thought to the gender differences in the smoking habit before until i read this article http://www.articlecity.com/articles/health/article_6948.shtml on a blog this morning. Men have always found it more difficult to seek help for psychological, behavioural and emotional problems than women do. As problem solvers we men think that we should be able to find our own solutions to problems and don’t want to be dictated to by our partners, the government, medical profession and therapists etc. However, how many men will take their car to the garage when it breaks down or have a computer fixed by an IT expert when the computer crashes. Perhaps that’s the aswer for many smokers. They have to wait until the body starts to breakdown before they will seek professional help. It might be a regular morning cough or difficulty breathing when climbing the stairs or something more serious like a heart attack or emphasema.

What is clear is that a ‘nagging wife’ or a ’nanny state’ government banning smoking is more likely to strengthen a smokers resolve and encourage their rebellious streak.  Even the french have now banned smoking from bars and restaurants from the start of this year. “I will stop when i want to stop” is often the response from a male smoker. The sad part of this stubborn response is that it can and often does lead to a premature and harrowing death. Prevention is always better than cure and if you do it the right way with our help you are much more likely to succeed.

You can experience the best in Alternative & Holistic lifestyles, live music, free workshops, talks, demonstrations, organic food and a children’s area. For more information visit www.starcommunities.com

We will be exhibiting again this year so don’t forget to come along and visit us. 

Having reflected on what happened last year you may feel it was a good year, a bad year or just mediocre, but what can you learn from it that will help make this year a better one?

Traditionally, at this time, people make New Year resolutions and usually they tend to be about changing a habit or behaviour. A time when you might decide to ‘give up’ smoking or go on a diet to ‘lose weight’ and/or attempt to cut out alcohol. Whilst these changes are sensible and responsible lifestyle choices they often result in failure within weeks and sometimes days. This is because the focus tends to be on deprivation which most human beings are not very good at in the long-term. Motivation is usually triggered by a desire for pleasure or the avoidance of pain.

How many times have you resolved not to do something at the start of a new year but failed by the end of January because you felt deprived, missing out on pleasurable activities and in no less pain than you were before? Perhaps this year could be the time to change your approach, because ‘if you always do what you have always done you will always get what you always got’.

You could set yourself some positive and meaningful goals this year and enjoy the pleasure from achieving them and focusing your mind on the benefits and the pleasure the changes bring. For example, if you want to stop smoking for financial reasons decide to use the money you wasted on cigarettes on something healthy and pleasurable instead.

Whatever changes you want to make in 2008 don’t hesitate to contact us if you need some professional help.