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Can a easy every day audio hypnosis session assist ladies discover aid from one in every of menopause’s most disruptive signs—scorching flashes—with out treatment? A brand new medical trial led by Baylor College’s Gary R. Elkins, Ph.D., professor of psychology and neuroscience and director of the Thoughts-Physique Medication Analysis Laboratory, suggests it will probably. By reducing scorching flash frequency and depth by over 50%, self-guided hypnosis provides a nonhormonal choice for the tens of millions of girls whose scorching flashes intrude with sleep, temper and high quality of life.
Revealed within the journal JAMA Community Open, the multicenter randomized medical trial evaluated the effectiveness of a six-week, self-administered hypnosis program in comparison with a sham management utilizing white noise. The examine enrolled 250 postmenopausal ladies experiencing frequent scorching flashes, together with almost 25% with a historical past of breast most cancers—a gaggle typically excluded from hormone-based remedies.
“It is estimated that over 25 million women in the United States have hot flashes, with up to 80% of women in the general population reporting hot flashes during the menopause transition, and 96% of women with breast cancer report hot flashes soon after beginning anti-cancer therapy,” Elkins mentioned. “While hormone replacement therapy is highly effective in reducing hot flashes, it is not a safe choice for everyone, and therefore, women need additional safe and effective alternatives.”
After six weeks of every day self-hypnosis audio recordings, contributors reported a 53.4% discount in each frequency and depth of scorching flashes, and on the 3-month follow-up, scorching flashes have been lowered by 60.9% in comparison with a 40.9% discount for girls within the management group. The guided self-hypnosis intervention had an excellent bigger therapy impact on decreasing scorching flashes in ladies with a historical past of breast most cancers (64% discount after six weeks).
Visible Summary. Credit score: JAMA Community Open (2025). DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.42537
Self-guided hypnosis: A breakthrough method
The examine is the primary to check self-guided hypnosis with an energetic management situation (i.e. sham white noise management group), permitting researchers to higher perceive how a lot of the profit got here from folks’s expectations or the placebo impact.
“This was a major breakthrough and innovation, as almost all prior studies of mind-body interventions have only used wait-list, psycho-education or simple relaxation to compare the active hypnotherapy intervention,” Elkins mentioned. “Additionally, all periods have been self-administered hypnosis, which demonstrated that ladies may learn to use hypnosis for warm flashes on their very own with assist and steerage.
Elkins emphasised that self-hypnosis supplies advantages which might be simply discovered and practiced utilizing audio recordings or app-delivered hypnotherapy.
“It can be practiced at home without needing to travel for doctor visits, and it is relatively inexpensive compared to in-person sessions,” Elkins mentioned. “Once a person learns how to use self-hypnosis to reduce hot flashes and improve sleep, it can be used for other purposes such as managing anxiety, coping with pain and for stress management.”
On the 12-week follow-up, contributors within the self-guided hypnosis group confirmed a 60.9% discount in scorching flashes in addition to considerably better enhancements in sleep, temper, focus and general high quality of life. Almost 90% of contributors within the hypnosis group reported feeling higher, in comparison with 64% within the management group.
“We are very excited about the findings from this important study,” Elkins mentioned. “Our ongoing research aims to further determine how self-hypnosis can significantly improve sleep for breast cancer survivors and women in the peri- to post-menopause transition.”
Via this and different research, Elkins and his staff have been in a position to decide that hypnotherapy is the one behavioral intervention constantly proven to cut back the frequency and severity of scorching flashes to a clinically vital quantity amongst each post-menopausal ladies and breast most cancers survivors.
Extra info:
Gary Elkins et al, Self-Administered Hypnosis vs Sham Hypnosis for Scorching Flashes, JAMA Community Open (2025). DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.42537
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