Picture Yourself Thin

Oct. 9, 2000 -- Picture yourself trim, toned, healthy, and happy.

Some experts say that this technique -- called guided imagery -- along with some other alternative methods including meditation and aromatherapy -- may help you become just that: trim, toned, healthy, and happy.

Guided imagery involves putting mind over matter by picturing yourself as you wish to be, whether it's worry-free, pain-free, nonsmoking, or thin. A growing number of medical studies have shown that guided imagery can help patients cut down on anxiety and pain before and after numerous surgical procedures, speed up their recovery, quit smoking, lose weight, and overcome fertility problems.

One study by Jeffrey Rossman, PhD, director of behavioral medicine at Canyon Ranch in Lenox, Mass., found that those participants who listened to a relaxing guided imagery tape while participating in a standard weight-loss program dropped an average of 8½ pounds over the eight-week study period. By comparison, study participants who followed the same weight-loss regimen, but listened to music tapes instead, only lost an average of 4¼ pounds during the same period.

Called "Health Journeys," the 60-minute tapes used in the study are designed to reduce the craving for food, increase confidence, safely speed up the body's metabolism, help the body convert fat into energy, reinforce positive behavior change, and teach relaxation skills.

While exactly how this mind-body technique works is unclear, many guided imagery experts have their theories.

"It comes down to the biochemistry in our brains. Guided imagery helps release endorphins and stimulate the immune system, making it stronger," says Diane Tusek, RN, the founder of Guided Imagery Inc. in Cleveland and the former director of the guided imagery program at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation. Endorphins are brain chemicals that affect a whole host of processes in the body including mood, perception of pain, memory retention, and learning.

In studies conducted at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, patients who listened to guided imagery tapes showed a 65% reduction in pain and anxiety both before and after abdominal and heart and chest surgery.

"You are diverted, so you are not thinking about your illness; instead, you go to a special place in your mind like a tropical beach, where you can imagine all your difficulties and negativity being washed away by water," Tusek tells WebMD.

When it comes to weight issues, "a lot of people focus on food to fill a void in their life, but guided imagery can help them work on the underlying emotional issues preventing weight loss," she says.

"Focus on the positive. Pick a desired weight and imagine yourself at that weight. How would you look? How would you dress? How would others view you," Tusek says. "Don't think 'I'm fat, I'm fat, I'm fat.'"

Tusek says the same principles can help smokers kick the habit. "If you want to quit smoking, imagine that you have quit and focus on how healthy you feel and how clean your lungs are," she explains.

Cathy Nonas, RD, director of the VanItallie Center for Nutrition and Weight Management at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York City, conducted a similar study to Rossman's on overweight individuals, but this time the participants plateaued around the sixth month and stopped losing weight.

"We were trying to stop the plateau as much as possible by changing dietary methods [and other factors], and we have played around informally with the use of meditation, guided imagery tapes, and other alternative treatments," she tells WebMD.

While the guided imagery did not help participants get past their weight-loss plateau, it may have been because participants did not listen to the tapes, Nonas tells WebMD.

But this is not to say that guided imagery can't have a role in weight loss, she adds.

"Obesity is a chronic disease, and we only treat it acutely. That's the problem," Nonas says. "We help participants lose weight, then push them off into the sunset and hope they survive -- which they can't, and in any other chronic disease we wouldn't expect them to," she explains.

Nonas and colleagues are working on designing and perfecting a model for chronic care of obese people. "There's a great place for alternative techniques because if someone is going to try to keep weight off, they well need all the tools that they can use that are not harmful."

Guided imagery, along with Tai Chi, meditation, and other alternative treatments may help obese people lose weight and keep it off, Nonas says. "All in all, these are things we still need to explore because I think they will be helpful."

Mitchell Gaynor, MD, medical director of the Cornell Center for Complementary and Integrative Medicine in New York City and the author of Sounds of Healing: A Physician Reveals the Therapeutic Power of Sound, Voice, and Music, agrees with Nonas.

"A big part of being overweight in this country is eating too many carbohydrates or refined sugar products and a lot of it is just out of habit," he tells WebMD. "When you are anxious, you reach for a bag of potato chips, but music, sound, meditation, and even aromatherapy are even better ways to curb this stress and anxiety."

It's a matter of changing your reward system, Gaynor says. For example, next time you feel stressed out and have an urge for a bag of potato chips, take a bath with lavender, chamomile, or even sage instead.

Studies have shown that such baths actually lower stress hormones and help people feel better without overeating, he says.

"I've seen a lot of patients lose weight with these methods," Gaynor tells WebMD.

Other investigators also have found that aromatherapy can help people lose weight.

In one study recently presented at the 13th International Congress of Dietetics in Edinburgh, Scotland, researcher Catherine Collins, the chief dietician at St. George's Hospital in London, reported that overweight individuals who wore a skin patch that releases the scent of vanilla lost an average of 4½ pounds after four weeks of wearing the patch on the back of their hand.

In the study, Collins and colleagues divided 200 overweight volunteers into three groups that either wore a vanilla patch, a lemon-placebo patch, or no patch for four weeks. During the study, volunteers who wore the vanilla patch showed a greater decrease in appetite and fewer cravings for chocolate and other high-calorie snacks, when compared with volunteers in the other two groups.

One New York-based nutritionist, Jessica Krane, RD, sums it up this way: "Losing weight -- and keeping it off -- is a very personal experience. What helps one person may not necessarily help another, but any type of alternative or complementary method -- whether guided imagery, meditation, or aromatherapy -- along with a healthy diet and regular exercise program is absolutely worth a try -- it can't hurt and may even help."