Guided Imagery

According to Belleruth Naparstek, a leading expert on guided imagery,

"Guided imagery is a gentle but powerful technique that focuses and directs the imagi-nation. It can be as simple as the athlete's 10-second reverie, just before leaping off the diving board, imagining how a perfect dive feels when slicing through the water. Or it can be as complex as imagining the busy, focused buzz of thousands of loyal immune cells, scooting out of the thymus gland on a search and destroy mission to wipe out unsuspecting cancer cells...Over the past 25 years, the effectiveness of guided imagery has been increasingly established by research findings that demonstrate its positive impact on health, creativity and performance.... People can invent their own imagery, or they can listen to imagery that's been created for them. Either way, their own imaginations will sooner or later take over, because, even when listening to imagery that's been created in advance, the mind will automatically edit, skip, change or substitute what's being offered for what is needed. So even a tape, CD or written script will become a kind of internal launching pad for the genius of each person's imagination."
(Quote from www.healthjourneys.com)

The following is a sample ten minute guided imagery exercise from the Personal Support and Lifestyle Intervention Program of the UCSF/CPMC, a program of the UCSF Carol Franc Buck Breast Care Center.

1. Help yourself to relax in whatever way you find easiest:
   • progressive muscle relaxation
   • body scan relaxation
   • breath counting
   • imagine relaxation flowing through you like a warm water-fall or gentle mist
   • other
   
   
2. Imagine yourself in a beautiful, safe retreat in nature. Use all your senses. Here are some examples:
   • A garden where you watch fluffy, white clouds in a blue sky, while you inhale the fragrance of flowers and feel a gentle breeze on your cheek
   • A mountain scene where you feel the enjoyment of your muscles walking on a path. You smell the pine trees warming in the sun or dip your feet into a cool mountain stream and let your foot rest on a round, slippery stone.
   • The seashore where you feel the sun warming your shoulders, you wiggle your toes under the sand to find the cool, and you hear gentle waves hissing as they pull back from shore.
   
   

3. As a general wellness promoting exercise, spend as much time there as you like, imagining yourself moving and feeling just the way you would like to. See, feel, and experience yourself doing whatever represents to you, a picture of your optimum health.

4. To work on a specific physical or emotional difficulty, imagine it and study it carefully for a few moments. Then call up an image of the same problem, now in a completely healed state. Imagine the problem changing into the healed image. End by focusing on the healed image.

5. You may wish to draw or write down some thoughts about your imagery session.