Surgery Patients Fear Less and Heal Faster with Creative Visualization

There’s no such thing as routine surgery. Ask anyone who has to go under the knife or laser…fear of bad results, painful scars and slow rehabilitation all combine to make any surgery a nerve-wracking experience.

Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be that way. Creative visualization and relaxation (CVR) can relieve stress and aid healing in surgery patients no matter what form of surgery they face.

For years, physicians and therapists have used guided relaxation, intense concentration, and focused attention to achieve deep relaxation and heightened states of awareness prior to surgery. Patients using these techniques are known to have less pain, require less pain medication, and enjoy a more rapid recovery.

While CVR doesn’t replace traditional surgery prep or follow-up, it does help the patient maintain a sense of calm and maximize medical treatment to the best possible effect.

That’s because CVR is a relaxation technique that uses concentration and deep breathing to calm the mind and put your body in the best possible state for repair and healing.

Another form of technology, called brain entrainment, has also enhanced CVR’s ability to aid surgery patients. Brain entrainment, or biofeedin, devices feature glasses and earphones that deliver finely-tuned light and sound frequencies to synchronize the left and right sides of the brain. This produces full-spectrum brainwave activity for a deeply relaxing experience.

Brain entrainment machines transport the surgery patient’s mind into the deepest meditative states, magnifying the effect of the binaural beats and allowing those undergoing surgery to relax--a nearly impossible feat for most patients--and let the body’s natural healing processes calm nerves and aid in recovery.

Despite the medical technology behind them, such biofeedin devices don’t require a medical degree to use; most leading light and sound machines can plug into any MP3 player. And, 20 minutes of biofeedin is equal to four hours of sleep. That’s a boon for those who endure sleepless nights tossing and turning as they deal with pre- and post-surgery stress.

Most of all, when used in conjunction with CVR audio sessions, brain entrainment machines allow every surgery patient to experience an easier, more rapid recovery and, often, less need for pain medication. And that is the whole point.

With audio sessions that deal with pre-surgery calm for better healing and soothing pain relief for rapid healing, CVR session creators draw from patient experience and hone in on the problem areas that stress patients out before surgery and keep them from engaging in their own healing afterward. CVR audio sessions help those undergoing surgery decrease stress and reduce or eliminate the discomfort associated with medical procedures.

Surgery, whether major or minor, is a frightening and uncertain event. An uncommonly stressful situation, though, calls for an uncommon solution. New tools like CVR and biofeedin provide exactly that.

Why focus on stress or pain when you can do your body so much good by concentrating on the healing process? CVR sessions for surgery preparation and healing train listeners to focus their attention on the one thing that matters as they go into surgery…relaxing. They become so focused on the success of the procedure that they easily ignore the negatives around them. The result is relief from anxiety and the development of a positive mental attitude. And that gets them back on their feet faster.