In this week’s episode of SuperAge, Dr. David Spiegel, who, after receiving a PhD in medicine from Harvard, went on to become a renowned expert in hypnosis, dissociative disorder, PTSD, as well as a Stanford professor. He has also authored many books over the course of his 40-year career, including Living Beyond Limits: A New Hope and Help For Facing Life-Threatening Illness. In our conversation, Dr. Spiegel shares his insights on harnessing the power of the mind for healing and wellness. Drawing from experience, Dr. Spiegel discusses the significant impact of hypnosis in managing pain, stress, and anxiety, especially in cancer patients. He illustrates how self-hypnosis can be a vital tool for emotional and physical wellbeing and provides fascinating stories about its effectiveness. This episode offers a unique perspective on research-backed alternative healing methods, emphasizing the untapped potential of the human mind in health and recovery.

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Key Moments
“We started out helping people to stop smoking and we found that one out of five people just stopped smoking using the [Reveri] app right away. So that's about as good as I get when people are sitting in my office and I'm doing it. And it's about as good as you get using varenicline or bupropion or nicotine patches as an alternative.”

“They learned to control their pain with self-hypnosis so that a new pain in their chest didn't automatically mean to them that their disease was progressing. It meant they needed to do something to control the pain. And they did. So they had half the pain. And in our original study that we published in The Lancet, we found that the women randomized to work groups actually live longer than the control patients by an average of a year and a half.”

“We found actually that people with breast cancer who were inefficient sleepers, who had trouble getting to sleep or staying asleep, actually also had shorter survival. But the other way around is that good sleepers live longer. It was having a long period of good 7 hours of consistent sleep at night, predicted with fewer disruptions, predicted longer survival with breast cancer.”

“After a deep inhale, a slow exhale is important. And part of why it is is, you know, we're used to saying, you know, if you're anxious or tense, take a deep breath. Well, actually, the inhale actually tends to increase sympathetic activity because it reduces venous return or blood to the heart. If you think about it, you're lowering pressure in the chest.”

Connect with Dr. Spiegel
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