Naturalpath

“The mind body connection in kids is very important. What I see in kids all the time is how their emotions and what they are feeling can really affect their health. Kids who have asthma will have a flare immediately after emotional or traumatic events. Eczema might worsen, flares of Ulcerative Colitis might occur.

“Kids can really understand this mind/body connection because their imaginations are so rich. Kids can learn at a very early age, and probably even as early as five, to meditate, simply by telling us a story or going into their favorite room and letting us know what that room feels like, what they see, how they feel when they’re happy. Kids don’t have any bars on their imagination.

“When kids use that mind body connection and understand how their mind can facilitate healing in their bodies, they can ultimately heal many of the different processes that are going on.

“What we see in terms of guided imagery and hypnosis for kids are very good successes for simple things, such as bed wetting, constipation, all the way to more complex and very serious chronic illnesses like cancer, where kids can actually help heal their white blood cell response in their bone marrow. It’s fascinating and there’s a lot of research out there on the benefits of guided imagery and hypnosis in kids.

“When you teach kids these systems of meditation, guided imagery, self-hypnosis, whatever you’d like to call it, they can take this with them for the rest of their lives and in any given situation really help to interact and calm their immune systems, their nervous systems, their digestive systems, their respiratory systems, and really any system in their body as long as they understand that they have the power to do that.”

---