So, this post is perhaps in a slightly different mood and spirit than some of my others.

I want to talk about allergies, because lately in Santa Fe, NM (and I imagine in other places as well) seems lots of people are talking about their allergies and how much they are suffering with them, as if it is some rite of passage — “Oh!  This is a BAD allergy year…”  But doesn’t it seem like people are ALWAYS saying that?

I just found this article when searching allergies in Santa Fe on the home page for our local paper here, The Santa Fe New Mexican:

“Allergy sufferers: prepare for a month of pain”

Sue Vorenberg | The New Mexican

3/27/2008 – 3/28/08″

So First off, as a hypnotherapist I was horrified by this glaring negative suggestion (basically instructing people to suffer… it must be so because the paper says so!)

Early Spring, like late Summer, is a time of frequent seasonal allergy problems here in Northern New Mexico.  And I am guessing from the date in the by-line that this is an older article that it just found for me, but it could just as well be current from the buzz around town.

The thing about these season allergies that a lot of sufferers seem unaware of is that they are operated predominantly by the mind, not the body.

This may sound like a rather sweeping claim, and if you are curious about my statement I encourage you to ask your doctor about it.  Ask your doctor why people with an allergy to a certain pollen can look at a PICTURE of that plant, and start to show a histamine response.  Ask how it is that our bodies can be fooled into a physiological response by the IDEA of an allergen.

Perhaps the answer to this question is related to the explanation for how so many allergy sufferers find their symptoms significantly lessening or even disappearing with no treatment besides HYPNOSIS!

Seasonal allergies have become a specialty of mine, and the success rate I have witnessed is so hard to believe I am not even going to post it here for fear I will be accused of fraud.  But the point is, this isn’t about me and what a genius I am (it’s true!) but rather the point is that OUR MINDS do this allergy thing to us.  The theory I have heard goes something like this:

At some point in time, the body is particularly stressed for some reason, which in turn diminishes the immune system and its capacity to respond to pathogens and irritants in the body.  Allergens are not toxic, not pathogenic, but they ARE irritants.  Under normal conditions, our body deals with these irritants easily, flushing them away almost unnoticed just as we do with so many other intruders in our breath, our skin, our mucus membranes.   However, if the immune system is suppressed as a result of stress (physical, psychological or emotional) AND we are simultaneously exposed to a rather large dose of an irritant, our bodies will be unable to deal with it in the normal ways and we will begin to have a more drastic reaction to the irritant.  The body then learns to associate this drastic response to the presence of the irritant (allergen) and so an allergic response is learned.  (funny, just writing about this my nose is starting to run!!!  time for some self-hypnosis…)

So the extreme responses [runny, itchy, sneezy nose, itchy, watery eyes, scrathy throat etc.] are learned on the basis of an event, or sequence of similar supporting events.  If this is the case, that program can be reset, that response unlearned.  This kind of mechanism functions at the level of the subconscious mind, not the conscious mind, so sitting around telling yourself not to sneeze seldom does any good, but with the right language and the right state of mind, your seasonal allergies can simply stop, just because you tell them to.

Interestingly, for spring-time allergies, with a lot of clients, the subconscious identifies a desire to go out and enjoy the emerging beauty of nature, and as long as these people let themselves enjoy the natural world, they don’t suffer from their allergies.  Often there is a deeper message, sometimes associated with the cause of the original stress at the time the allergy was learned.  Sometimes to truly let go of an allergy means to face that inner stress and release it or make peace with it.  It isn’t always easy, but it is rewarding, and a lot better than months of tissues and drugs!

James A. Serendip

So first o