Glenda Cedarleaf Author, Hypnotherapist, Meditations for Sleep, Relaxation, Healing, Manage Stress, Prepare for Surgery, Pain Management
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    • A Guide for Writing and Recording Guided Imagery Meditations
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    • Creativity
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    • Ebb & Flow: Breathing with the Ocean
    • Envisioning
    • Fairiy Tales
    • Evening Bedtime Reading
    • Finding Your Healing Place
    • Freedom from Emotional Eating
    • Gratitude Meditation
    • Great Spirit Invocation
    • Grieving With The Rain
    • Guardian Meditation
    • Guided Imagery for Letting Go
    • Guided Imagery for Your "Third Act"
    • Healing Dream
    • Healing Surgery
    • Heartbeat MeditationListenClips
    • Holiday Reading: A Sailor's Gift
    • Holiday Stress Relief
    • Imagery to Meet your Magical Child
    • Inner Child Magical Journey
    • Inner Healer Alchemy
    • Inspired Movement: Becoming Unstuck
    • Intro to Relaxation
  • Listen Clips J-W
    • Journey Through the Chakras
    • LakeHouse Meditation
    • Letting Go Into the Lightness of Your Being
    • Mermaid Magic Meditation
    • Mid-Life Journey
    • Midsommar Meditation with Summer Sounds
    • Mindful Eating and Self-Care Affirmations
    • Mindful Morning Meditation
    • Morning Courage: Medittation/Affirmations
    • Morning Infusion: Come Rise Up Again
    • Ocean of Reiki Love
    • Ocean Sleep Journey
    • Ocean Mindfulness
    • Peaceful Transition
    • Portal of Transformation
    • Pregnancy and Childbirth
    • Remember Who I Am
    • River of Relaxation
    • Progressive Relaxation
    • Sacred Flute: Med for Letting Go
    • Shower of Hope
    • Sleep into Dreamtime
    • Sleep into Dreamtime for Children
    • Sleep Lullaby at the Sea
    • SoulCollage Meditations
    • Stories for Your Inner Child
    • Transforming Challenges
    • Transforming Pain and Discomfort
    • Visualizing Recovery from Illness
    • Your Peaceful Interlude
    • Your Healing Journey
    • Wash Away
    • When you are hurting:Inner Child Alchemy
  • Blog
    • The long lost sister and a flutist
    • Solstice Siddhartha, Sacred Rest
    • A Guide to Writing and Recording Guided Imagery Meditations
    • From Shallow to Divine Feminine Presence
    • Ocean of Reiki Love
    • Hope
    • Where Is The Light ?
  • Home
  • My Books
    • Who Are You Santa Lucia?
    • A Guide for Writing and Recording Guided Imagery Meditations
    • Meditative Bedtime Stories
  • Content
    • Healing Imagery for Lyme
    • Testimonials
    • Relax
    • Sleep
    • Journey to Healing Places
    • Spiritual and Archetypal Support
    • Grieving and Letting Go
    • Reconnect with your Inner Child
    • Creativity Meditations
    • Health and Wellness
    • Affirmations
    • Imagine: Bedtime Stories for Adults
    • Intention Focus Empowerment
  • Explore
    • Journey Preparation
    • For Fellow Healers
    • What is Hypnotherapy
    • Trauma: A Case Study
    • Research Article Reprints on Guided Imagery
    • Articles and Videos on Guided Imagery
    • Benefits
    • Affirmations
  • Course
  • Bio
    • Customized Audio
    • What is SoulCollage® ?
  • Listen Clips A-I
    • Affirmations for Well-Being
    • Beginning Again
    • Bedtime Story Sleep Journey
    • Bedtime Story: New Day
    • Bedtime Story: Claire and the SageWoman
    • Bedtime Story Claire & Sisters of Assisi
    • Bedtime Story: Claire's Grandmother Love
    • Bedtime Story: Claire's Spring Inspiration
    • Bedtime Story: Claire's Magical Summer Day
    • Bedtime Story: Claire's Autumn Day
    • Bedtime Story: Claire's Winter Day
    • Bedtime Story East O' the Sun
    • Bedtime Story: Claire's Winter Solstice Dream
    • Bedtime Story:Gift of the Magi
    • Bedtime Story Rumplestiltskin
    • Bedtime Story: Sleeping Beauty
    • Belly Breathing
    • Blissful Bathtub Meditation
    • Calming Mountain Mindfulness
    • Circle of Support
    • Connecting with Animal Companion
    • Connecting with Your Guardian Angel
    • Connecting with Your Wise Woman
    • Creating an Intention
    • Creativity
    • Divine Embrace
    • Divine Feminine Blessings
    • Ebb & Flow: Breathing with the Ocean
    • Envisioning
    • Fairiy Tales
    • Evening Bedtime Reading
    • Finding Your Healing Place
    • Freedom from Emotional Eating
    • Gratitude Meditation
    • Great Spirit Invocation
    • Grieving With The Rain
    • Guardian Meditation
    • Guided Imagery for Letting Go
    • Guided Imagery for Your "Third Act"
    • Healing Dream
    • Healing Surgery
    • Heartbeat MeditationListenClips
    • Holiday Reading: A Sailor's Gift
    • Holiday Stress Relief
    • Imagery to Meet your Magical Child
    • Inner Child Magical Journey
    • Inner Healer Alchemy
    • Inspired Movement: Becoming Unstuck
    • Intro to Relaxation
  • Listen Clips J-W
    • Journey Through the Chakras
    • LakeHouse Meditation
    • Letting Go Into the Lightness of Your Being
    • Mermaid Magic Meditation
    • Mid-Life Journey
    • Midsommar Meditation with Summer Sounds
    • Mindful Eating and Self-Care Affirmations
    • Mindful Morning Meditation
    • Morning Courage: Medittation/Affirmations
    • Morning Infusion: Come Rise Up Again
    • Ocean of Reiki Love
    • Ocean Sleep Journey
    • Ocean Mindfulness
    • Peaceful Transition
    • Portal of Transformation
    • Pregnancy and Childbirth
    • Remember Who I Am
    • River of Relaxation
    • Progressive Relaxation
    • Sacred Flute: Med for Letting Go
    • Shower of Hope
    • Sleep into Dreamtime
    • Sleep into Dreamtime for Children
    • Sleep Lullaby at the Sea
    • SoulCollage Meditations
    • Stories for Your Inner Child
    • Transforming Challenges
    • Transforming Pain and Discomfort
    • Visualizing Recovery from Illness
    • Your Peaceful Interlude
    • Your Healing Journey
    • Wash Away
    • When you are hurting:Inner Child Alchemy
  • Blog
    • The long lost sister and a flutist
    • Solstice Siddhartha, Sacred Rest
    • A Guide to Writing and Recording Guided Imagery Meditations
    • From Shallow to Divine Feminine Presence
    • Ocean of Reiki Love
    • Hope
    • Where Is The Light ?
Guided imagery, mind-body strategies may improve quality of life for patients with diabetes
​

Friday, Aug. 9, 9:45 a.m.
PHILADELPHIA — Several highlights from this year’s American Association of Diabetes Educators Annual Meeting and Exhibition include new strategies to improve management of diabetes. In particular, one keynote speaker explored the concept of using guided imagery to help patients with diabetes.
Linda E. Sartor, RD, MA, CDE, LDN, RYT, explores more in this blog post.


What's the most effective therapy you can give your overwhelmed, stressed out, and depressed patients to improve their health? Guided imagery and mind- body strategies! Really, you say? Who knew!

These techniques are used by the US Army and US Marine Corps to deal with depression and posttraumatic stress disorders, elite athletes to improve performance and even the average Joe/ Josephine to deal with anxiety-based behaviors. It's the "lazy man's meditation." It's low-cost, and everyone can do it.

Tons of current randomized, controlled studies confirm that, as endorphins are raised, patients with diabetes have lower blood glucose and HbA1c levels, improved depression and neuropathy, and a better sense of well-being and quality of life.

  • Linda E. Sartor, RD, MA, CDE, LDN, RYT, is a nutrition specialist at the Penn Rodebaugh Diabetes Center in Philadelphia. Sartor reports no relevant financial disclosures.

Imagery Defined
This definition comes from Dr. Jeanne Acterberg by way
of Imagery International's website.
When we use the word “imagery” we honor the definition put forth by one of our dearly missed mentors, 
Dr. Jeanne Achterberg, who recently passed away. She stated it well by saying that when we refer to “imagery,” we mean

 “the thought process that invokes the senses: vision, audition, smell, taste, the sense of movement, position, and touch. It is the communication mechanism between perception, emotion, and bodily change.  A major cause of both health and sickness, the image is the world’s greatest healing resource. Imagery, or the stuff of the imagination, affects the body intimately on both seemingly mundane and profound levels” (Imagery and Healing: Shamanism and Modern Medicine, p. 3 – Jeanne Achterberg, 1985)

The Academy for Guided Imagery includes a page on their website that cites specific research about imagery and specific conditions. You can find it here

Here is a list from The Academy for Guided Imagery's website of many of the clinical applications of  imagery 
• Acute and chronic pain relief 
• Addictions 
• Anxiety, phobias, and panic disorders
• Cancer treatment and life-threatening illness 
• Chronic pain control and management
• Couples and relationship counseling
• Depression 
• Family and parenting issues
• Fertility, birthing, and delivery 
• Fitness training 
• Grief therapy
• Headache management 
• Immune augmentation 
• Issues of aging 
• Managing chronic illness and preventing acute exacerbations 
• Meaning and purpose 
• Medication compliance and adherence issues 
• Mind/body issues 
• Post-traumatic stress disorders
• Preparation for surgery and medical procedures 
• Relaxation training 
• Sleep disorders 
• Smoking cessation
• Spirituality 
• Stress reduction and management 
• Survivors of abuse and trauma
• Teaching self-care 
• Terminal illness and end of life care
• Weight control
Guided imagery may be powerful therapy for patients with diabetes
www.healio.com 
Healio Endocrinology  Highlights from AADE 2013  August 9, 2013
PHILADELPHIA — Guided imagery can lower HbA1c levels, reduce depressive symptoms and decrease neuropathy in patients with diabetes, keynote speaker Belleruth Naparstek, LISW, BCD, psychotherapist and creator of the Health Journeys guided imagery series, said here at the American Association of Diabetes Educators Annual Meeting and Exhibition.

“Guided imagery is an immersive hypnotic intervention. It consists of calming words, soothing music and positive images designed to structure a relaxing, healing experience that targets specific health outcomes,” Naparstek said during her session. “This is a classic intervention that can make a big difference for your patients with little effort, cost or trouble.”

It can be spoken one-on-one by a practitioner, presented in a group, or self-administered by a recording. Naparstek said this intervention provides patients with mastery control and portability. Otherwise known as “the lazy man’s meditation,” it requires no training, discipline or preparation. “Just press play and it delivers the intervention,” Naparstek said.

Recently, guided imagery has emerged in hospitals and through insurance carriers as an adjunct therapy for diabetes and other chronic conditions. It’s also being used by the US Army and Marine Corps for sleep-related guided imagery, Naparstek said.

According to Naparstek, the use of guided imagery in patients with diabetes can do the following:

  • Reduce HbA1c levels
  • Reduce blood glucose in the short- and long-term
  • Improve circulation and neuropathy
  • Raise endorphin levels which decrease pain and lift mood
  • Enhance feelings of empowerment, hope and mastery
  • Facilitate transition from hospital to home
  • Reduce anxiety-based behaviors including eating, smoking or drinking
In addition, guided imagery provides immediate benefits and is portable and user-friendly. Naparstek also offered practical tips for success to the diabetes educator. She said that by putting imagery audio clips on the phone line at the hospital setting, patients may feel less stressed. Further suggestions made by Naparstek include: uploading clips of imagery breathing exercises, affirmations, or walking meditations to your patient’s smart phone or mp3 player for wide-range use.

“Techniques that promote relaxation and mood regulation will shift biochemistry in ways that can profoundly benefit people with diabetes,” Naparstek said. – by Samantha Costa


Additional Articles

Guided Imagery for Musculoskeletal Pain: A Systemic Review, E. Ernst, P. Posadzki September 2011

Guided Imagery-Relief for Stress and Emotions During Breast Cancer Treatment, Pam Stephen June 29, 2011

Raising Pain Tolerance Using Guided Imagery, David Bresler, PhD, Lac, July 1, 2010

Replenishing the Spirit by Meditative Prayer and Guided Imagery, Katherine Brown Saltzman, RN, MA

 

Case Studies on Guided Imagery offered by members of Imagery International

http://imageryinternational.org/about-guided-imagery/case-studies/


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