IBS Awareness Month ~ New IBS Video

Three little letters have such a huge impact on an estimated 20% of the population. IBS are three letters that are commonly heard but less often understood. IBS or Irritable Bowel Syndrome is a common digestive disorder which negatively affects the lives of millions of people every day. It is a condition that affects people physically and emotionally and there is no medical cure. That being said there is plenty of hope for relief of IBS symptoms both physically and emotionally. The IBS Audio Program 100 for adults has more than 12 years history in helping people in over 40 countries to reduce and manage the symptoms, some people simply ‘walking away from the symptoms’ completely. This IBS home use program uses specific interlinked hypnotherapy processes along with the proven ‘ongoing progressive session induction method’ (OPSIM) to maximise user experience and outcomes. For the younger IBS sufferer the IBS Audio Program 60 for children is available. In the UK hypnotherapy is a suggested treatment option for IBS patients after 12 months of non effective pharmacological treatment. Please take a look at my informational IBS video http://www.healthyaudio.com/

Learning from 2009

As the few remaining days of 2009 tick by, I wonder how this year, and the last decade will be viewed by history. I wonder how history will view world events; view our country, our politicians, and our society? I wonder if we will be brave enough to look at ourselves and what we have and haven’t done.

Time will tell, I hope our leaders will learn from it. I hope we as individuals will learn from our past too, because it is only by remembering our past actions and our inaction that we can feel sure footed enough going into our future. As long as we learn from the mistakes, and avoid them in the future, as long as we build on the positive times, we can move into the next year and decade better than we leave this one.

Those of us who take an interest in the news headlines and look a little deeper, will not be surprised that our society is going to have some testing times over the coming few years. Economically we can expect hardships, those who are hoping to avoid those hardships will, in the main be disappointed, for only a small percentage of individuals will be untouched by the pending economic storm.

For the rest of us, it will be a case of heads down and hard work. We will need to develop innovative products and services for our businesses to survive. We will have to learn self development methods to meet the challenges which will inevitable be faced, and we will have to take responsibility for our selves.

None of the above however is beyond us; we are more than capable of meeting the economic storm which is gathering. We have done so in the past, and we will do so again. On a personal level, I developed my IBS Audio Program 100 because there was a real need for it, and the many other programs I have developed over the years were developed because there is a real need for them. Some of them I hope will be used to help us to rise to the challenges to come. Dealing with the disappointments and negative emotions of being made redundant is an obvious example. Developing greater confidence and self esteem will be necessary for many people. Dealing with anxiety should be high on the to do list too. For those who struggle with irritable bowel syndrome IBS and its physical and emotional symptoms may well find the symptoms become worse during stressful times and events and considering new options of choice may be needed.

Every day of my working life I meet and work with people who are prepared to learn, to let go of old negative thought patterns, who invest in their own self development, learning to meet challenges in their every day lives and relationships.

Meeting the challenges of highly stressful events at work, and out of work, I work with people who have chosen to take responsibility for them selves, and to help themselves to live a happier, more comfortable and more balanced life.

Some of them come from difficult backgrounds and up bringing, others just setting out on life, in their teens and early twenties but all of them exhibit one thing, a common thread through them all, and that is one of an inner strength, an inner resource which has helped them to over come, sometimes even the word survive is not to strong for some of their journeys, but that strength is there, and they have chosen to use it to help them to move on, to something better, and invariably they are successful, because they know and realise that they can do, and be better, than they are when we first meet.

And that same strength I believe is in each and every one of us. I believe that each and every one of us, regardless of background can achieve more, if we first identify the need and desire to move on, and then act upon it. Finding what we need to help us to move on, identify what we want to achieve and then find the help, in whatever form to help us be more balanced and productive human beings.

So when we see the headlines in the papers and on the news in the coming months, let us remind ourselves that headlines sell papers, and grab attention, but let us remember that we can choose to be victors or victims, we can choose to wait and see, or we can choose to go out and grab what we want, and as long are we are not scared of hard work, and don’t always expect a quick fix, if we have patience, but also a drive to move on, then we can look forward to something better.

I see the possibilities very day with patients, and receive emails from people using my programs who have trusted themselves to make a difference. And usually it all starts by acknowledging the past, and learning from it, and then moving on in a different way to create a better life for themselves and their families, and therefore a better future too. And this often ripples out and touches those around them too.

My hope for 2010 and beyond is that we use what we have learned from the past, to map a better, brighter future for ourselves and society in general.

IBS in Children

During November Healthy audio Limited are offering 15% discount on their IBS Audio Program 60 for children.

The program was developed by myself, and follows the proven Ongoing Progressive session Induction Method (OPSIM) which I developed for the acclaimed IBS Audio Program 100 for adults.

Researchers are recognising hypnosis for IBS in children is just as beneficial, though many doctors prefer not use the word hypnosis which is a little strange since the word Hypnosis was a term first used by James Braid, a Scottish Physician in approx 1842!

This Hypnosis Audio Program is suitable for ages 8-13 years, it has an informational summary for parental / guardian listening, two introductory tracks for the child and six interlinked sessions, and has an accompanying booklet including listening schedule, check list, progress log and other relevant information.

IBS in Children is a troublesome distressing condition, for both child and parent. For those with children suffering with IBS you don't have to be told this! For those parents who have not considered hypnotherapy for the IBS condition then I hope the information on my website gives you hope, and whether or not you decide to use my program or seek out a therapist who has worked in this field, I wish you and your child well.

Anxiety Treatment Hypnosis

Late last week I received a wonderful email from a

user of my Anxiety Treatment hypnosis program. I was delighted with this feedback which captures, what I wanted to achieve when I developed the program. The user as you will read below has not yet completed the program, but I suspect she can look forward to more benefits.

Hi Mike, Just wanted to say thanks for the anxiety programme I am really enjoying it and find I can really relate to all the things you say! Although not yet finished it I thought I would send an update. I found the resource libraries very good and explanations you give are an excellent description of the way it sometimes feels! Basically it feels as though the whole programme was written for me personally! When I get my dizzy spells I just think to myself its only anxiety its just a thought! I have made some positive progress feeling a lot more confidant
On the whole I am feeling pretty good still have bad days but they are just that days as opposed to weeks. Thanks again ~Laura B Cheshire England

I think it is important for all those who are anxious and see no way out of their anxiety feelings to understand that there are options. I suspect this program will be used as a last resort by many users, this was the case with my IBS Audio Program 100 in the early days. For some it is difficult to understand how just listening to a CD can help. (This program is 6 CDs, or MP3 download, contains 2 resource library tracks, 2 familiarisation tracks, 10 interlinked sessions, a listening schedule, symptoms check list and other relevant information for the user.

The very short answer I give people when I am asked about this is as follows.

It's really quite simple, each and every thought creates a physical response, so if you change the thought you change the response. If you change the thought of expectation you change the response too. If you choose to think differently life too can be different.

So anyone who is suffering with anxiety and panic attacks,

1st: remember reading this,

2nd: bookmark my site, and

3rd: when the time is right (there is no hard sell on my site. Ever!) consider using it as

it might be the best thing you did to help yourself.

Irritable bowel Syndrome IBS in children

Irritable Bowel Syndrome or IBS is a common motility problem of the digestive system. Research often cites the number of lost working days, social impact and other examples of how IBS blights the lives of sufferers. Many report in fact the majority reports are relating to the impact of IBS in adults, but what about children who have irritable bowel syndrome, what is their story?

Some 10 years ago I released the IBS Audio Program 100 for adults, as I was one of the first to recognise the emotional impact this condition has on the IBS sufferer, now it appears others in the field of gastroenterology are more fully recognising the importance emotions play in compounding the IBS condition.

But what about IBS in our children? What about the fear and unknowing this condition brings to our children, in addition to the physical aspects of the condition? What about the missed days at school, what about the social impact and the missed days from work for parents or guardians?

In 2008 I was delighted to receive a local business innovation and research award for my work in paediatric IBS and the program I developed the IBS Audio Program 60 for children

For the ages of 8 – 13 years this audio program has interlinked sessions using imagery and suggestion to help reduce the physical symptoms and of course the emotional symptoms of this condition.

With a parental CD and listening schedule included for support, guidance and understanding this program is like its adult version, leading the way, quietly but effectively.

Irritable Bowel Syndrome patients survey

Yesterday I made a post about an interesting study on IBS.
My commentary observations are below.

A revealing study entitled: International Survey of Patients With IBS: Symptom Features and Their Severity, Health Status, Treatments, and Risk Taking to Achieve Clinical Benefit has been published in the Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology: July 2009 - Volume 43 - Issue 6.

In it, it was reported that some surveyed “IBS patients would give up 25% of their remaining life, an average of 15 years, in order to receive a treatment that would make them symptom free.” This is quite an astonishing revelation. It was also reported that a combined 14% would risk a 1/100 chance of death and/or serious and disabling side effects in exchange for elimination of symptoms .

This is an astonishing finding, and is probably a fair representation of the frustration and despair felt by a good majority of refractory (resistant to treatments) IBS patients worldwide.

It was interesting to note that even with a listing of medications as well as complementary and alternative treatments, only two mind-body approaches, meditation (5%) and relaxation (5%), were reported as being tried by only 10% of the respondents.


There was absolutely no mention of the use of gut-directed or gut-specific clinical hypnotherapy reported. Yet, there has been over twenty years of its successful use in clinical trials. How astonishing it is to know that an individual would prefer to put a potentially harmful substance in their body before considering an extremely effective treatment method that is virtually free of side-effects.

It is certainly understandable why IBS patients who have already had years taken from their lives in pain and frustration, would opt for such a extreme consideration. Society is geared for instant results. Take a pill today and feel better within a few hours. Or perhaps, take a pill or two daily, and over a few weeks, feel better.

But what happens when the pills don’t result in the patient feeling better, no matter the duration of time? I have had a few people object to allowing themselves a mere ½ hour a day to relax and passively listen to a series of different guided interlinked imagery/hypnotherapy sessions for IBS over the course of a mere 80 days for a journey to feeling better. (The IBS Audio Program 100 is structured over a 100 days which includes 80 days of listening for only ½ an hour on those days).

For a few very severe refractory IBS cases, it may take a few more days, but the reality in my world, is that the vast majority of patients greatly reduce and even eliminate symptoms within the 100 days of their entire life. There is no risk of negative side effects; there is no risk of less years of life. Yet people are willing to take such risks, and they don’t have to.

The only thing standing between the IBS patient and starting to feel better and reduce symptoms is knowledge. IBS patients it seems are just not aware of all of their options. Clinical hypnotherapy, or guided imagery specifically designed for the IBS patients, such as the IBS Audio Program 100® for Adults and Teens and the IBS Audio Program 60® for Children have shown over many years that this treatment is not only safe, it is also extremely effective for the vast majority of patients.

For the IBS sufferer, there is a big difference between being willing to shorten their life by an average of 15 years in exchange for being symptom-free and a mere 100 days to take the journey to feeling better.

A big difference. Fifteen years or 5,475 days vs. 100 days.
That’s 5,375 days difference.

All rights of the report owners acknowledged.

Hypnotherapy: An explanation

You may wonder how hypnosis, hypnotherapy and guided imagery can actually be of any benefit to you and help you to improve various medical or emotional conditions. Hypnosis is not stage hypnosis, nor mind control.

Hypnosis simply puts you into a normal and natural state of mind that all individuals experience many times throughout the day. It is a state of intense concentration. Experiencing hypnosis or hypnotherapy is not sleep, unconsciousness, nor mind control, it is simply an altered state of consciousness. Day dreaming for example is another altered state of consciousness, you remain alert and aware of your surroundings but your focus of attention is elsewhere.

Generally experienced as restful and relaxing, it is different to slumber. During hypnosis (the altered state of consciousness) you are aware of your surroundings, hearing sounds, smelling smells, also being aware of movements and in control of your actions. Consciousness is NOT lost, rather it becomes more selective.
It is typical to be more aware of internal processes than in the outside world’s activities and distractions. Contemporary scientific studies show trance is a natural and normal state of mind and like other states, such as alertness or pleasure, which have many different and individual components.

When a therapist uses this very same state in hypnosis to guide and assist you, this becomes therapy – hypnotherapy uses the state of hypnosis as a form of therapy – and anything the therapist says, you can accept or reject freely. Being in the state of hypnosis is not only natural, but it is voluntary, and you are able to speak, hear, and communicate if needed.

Guided imagery or visualization is one aspect of hypnotherapy where descriptions of images for you to visualize help you to work through various medical or emotional concerns either by direct suggestion or use of metaphor in the imagery. It is often said that imagery is the language of the subconcious mind. These images may not be “rational” to your conscious mind, but they are symbols that can be very powerful tools in helping to guide you to heal or improve yourself for many conditions. Other times, the therapist will give you suggestions to help you on your healing journey. Each person interprets these suggestions, or views the imagery in their own way, according to what is needed by the person at the time – you will experience the very same session differently from another individual, because your own subconscious mind knows exactly how to interpret the images or suggestions in the way that is just right and tailor-made for you.

For more about being always in control, about the brain, brain waves and more, follow the link provided.

The PR Company!

The PR Company didn’t quite reply in the way I was hoping they would! After years of researching and development of the IBS Audio Program 100, the PR Company who will remain nameless to hide their blushes, sent back the IBS Audio Program 100 unopened with a nice note on what looked like expensive letter headed papers.

Dear Mr Mahoney, Thank you for your recent communication.
Having reviewed your product; the IBS Audio Program 100, it is, it is in our opinion
unmarketable and therefore return it to you.

Thank you for contacting us,
We wish you well for the future.

Yours sincerely….

So there it was. Failure at the first hurdle! They sent it back even without even opening it, which initially hurt me, but then decided (after a few days of internal searching of where I had gone wrong!) they were wrong not me.

I had seen first hand what this condition did to the lives of people. I had learned through my research into this that my program worked. So I decide to keep going.

(And for anyone connected to that company, I can tell you, your lack of foresight, and perceived laziness did me a great favour in the long run. The program is now used by IBS sufferers in 43 countries, and from me, and the thousands it has helped. THANK YOU!)

Without that knock back, I wouldn’t have been spurred on to do more, to keep persevering, so again thank you.

Time passed and people got to know about my IBS Audio Program 100, I got great positive feedback from it. And for some considerable time I focussed on that. Then I was asked to do a follow up program for people who had done the IBS Audio Program 100 and wanted to work on other areas of their life, and so my next program was developed, Towards Inner Peace. Over the years, I did more research in more areas and subjects, until today we have 17 programs which are helping lots of people in many different ways.

Next Hypnotherapy

Irritable Bowel Syndrome IBS

Irritable Bowel Syndrome IBS
The birth of the IBS Audio Program 100

In 1991 I was visited by three women in the same week at the medical centre where I am based, all presenting with IBS, irritable bowel syndrome a common gastrointestinal condition for which there is no medical cure, nor is there any real understanding of why it develops in some individuals and not in others, but there are some excellent theories and lots of medical research still going on so the hope for a cure out of a bottle is still alive.

In that week of 1991 I saw the misery first hand this condition brings to people. I didn’t know much about the condition but in that week I had seen enough to know this was something I wanted to become involved in. I didn’t work with the three women as I didn’t know enough about it to give me confidence enough that I could help. So I started researching, I started learning lots about the IBS condition.

I saw there was research being done using hypnotherapy to help IBS sufferers, I learned about that too, and after several years I was confident I could start to write my own scripts. But I wasn’t going to do it the way I had discovered in my research of others, I believed I could do it differently, but still as (hopefully more) effectively as what was already being done.

Every IBS patient that came to me I treated for free. I explained I was learning about the condition and if they were willing, so was I. And what I did made sense, I brought a structure to the learning about getting well, I could see the difference is a short time of the majority of people I was working with, physically and emotionally there were recovering, growing, getting well and enjoying taking part in their own healing. They gave great testimonials to their friends and family and their doctors. They couldn’t believe it, I was delighted and word spread.

I saw more and more people for it, and they were going to their doctors and the doctors started to send people to me. Eventually I had to start charging for the service, nothing major but there are economics in life, I had my family to keep, by his time our daughter had arrived and was eating us out of house and home along with her brother. But even then the clients and patients still came. I knew what I had developed was important.

One day I did a home visit to a chap, I recorded his session on my portable tape recorder as I always did, and he said, you need to record this professionally. I knew no-one who did recordings professionally, I had no idea about how I would go about it, and I certainly didn’t have the money to do it. So I parked the idea, but the thought never left me.

Then a few weeks later, I saw a patient who just in passing said she played the flute, and she was going to be recorded, she had a friend who did it. I was immediately interested, I asked if I could be introduced to her friend, I was and we hit it off immediately. We shared similar beliefs had similar morals and ethics and it worked well.

I had to restructure the scripts I had done, to make them more usable for listeners, I had to make sure the listening schedule was right too. It all mattered, it had to be right.

The first recording session was a nerve rattling experience. Even the slightest outside sound could be heard, the microphone was so sensitive. The recordings were getting done, but the work was taking me away from my patients and my income. It was costing more than expected. So I raised money by getting a loan and put my home up as capital. It was a nerve wracking experience, but I was so sure I was doing the right thing.

I also then had to get patients to try the recordings I had created, to follow the schedule for 100 days and to report back to me over the next three years. By this time it was late 1997 the logistics of the duplication, packaging, delivery and fabrication has been massively underestimated. But I learned, I found people I could trust and work with through trial and error I eventually had the packaging of the program done, by today’s standards it looks quite amateurish but it was the content that mattered, and to be honest at the time it looked fine.

I was sure the program would work, the results from the trials were very pleasing, and it was time to get the word out. My first decision was to contact a big Press Release company and so my labour of love, the IBS Audio Program 100 was sent off for its first commercial critique.

Tomorrow: Disaster!