#182 Dentist Appointment - Relax & Sleep Hypnosis Daily

Hello and welcome to Relax and Sleep Hypnosis Daily. My name is Jason Newland and please only listen when you can safely close your eyes. So I hope that you can understand me.

I might sound a little bit different from normal but I've just been to the dentist and had two teeth removed yesterday. So my mouth is still a bit weird. I'm going to have to get used to it but it's okay.

I don't think it should make any difference to talking because I talk using my throat rather than my mouth if that makes sense. So the reason I'm kind of mentioning the dentist is I found it a little bit difficult. So I've never had two teeth out at the same time you know and it's a little bit of trauma for your mouth.

I mean it is. The mouth doesn't enjoy it. It wasn't painful but it was uncomfortable having someone's hand in my mouth and most people listen to this have probably been to the dentist and had similar things done.

So it's not an enjoyable experience and it's not supposed to be I guess and although I do remember something that took away my fear of the dentist. I've never really been hugely scared but I didn't like it. You know I used to put it off and avoid it especially once I got old enough to be able to do that.

When I was a kid I didn't have any choice but I saw this documentary or it was like a news article and this was in early 2000s I think and there was this little child and it was a little news bulletin, a news item you know. I think it was on the local news and there was a small child that was severely disabled and I think he'd only left his house you know like three times in his life you know.

It was that bad and he had all kinds of problems and he could talk and he was a funny little kid.

He was probably about seven, six years old or so you know. He was still very young and he was smiling and the reporter said to him why he said I hear you're going to the dentist today this afternoon and the kid smiled he said yeah I'm going to the dentist and the the reporter said why are you smiling you almost sound excited to be going why and little kid said something that I'll always remember he said well I'm excited because I've never been to the dentist before now you know you could go negative on that and say well well yeah he's not

been before so he doesn't know how awful it is that's not why I took from that I took the optimism of a small child to actually appreciate the fact that he was getting out of his home to do something new to experience something new and to have that attitude that positive attitude that's natural you know you can't teach a little child that that's a natural attitude is I changed my way of looking at it because really dentists are magicians they are they do amazing things they make pain go away whether

it's through a filling or whether it's through having to extract the tooth or whether it's root canal which is something obviously no one wants to have I guess but they're magic men and women you know it's it's phenomenal because toothache is awful it's horrible so and I realize you might think well what's this got to do with relaxation and sleep or whatever well I'm coming to that now having had my attitude changed like 20 years ago about the dentist I didn't have that it's also it's almost like a societal fear

a shared societal fear of the dentist like it's if you if you're not scared of going to a dentist there's something wrong with you know it's expected when actually if you go to a dentist because of a toothache you should be looking forward to going there because you're going to come out having sorted out that problem and the toothache is going to go away hopefully forever or for at least a few you know a few years you know depending on the situation or a few months you know you might have

to have more treatment in a few months but that toothache is going to disappear and you can just get on with your life now I'm not here you know to tell you how wonderful dentists are because they are we're lucky to have them doctors dentists nurses whatever you know life would be very very difficult or more difficult without them but that's not what this recording is about even though I have a positive attitude towards dentists while I was actually in the dentist chair I haven't been told that I needed two

extractions I'd only ever had two extractions in well as an adult and two separate extractions and the last one I had was a bit of a nightmare because the dentist couldn't get the tooth out and in the process really damaged my gum so I ended up in more more pain than I went in there with but yeah the gums heal very quickly I mean this doesn't hurt anymore really it's a little bit a little bit tender but compared to yesterday it's almost like 70 70 percent less pain which is phenomenal

just overnight um and it's not throbbing the way it was before when it was aching you know the toothache so I was sitting in this chair okay this is probably a bit long-winded I realize that I was sitting in this dentist chair and I started going into panic mode my breathing changed and I really thought oh this isn't good my mouth was numb so I think it what it was is a loss of control I didn't have control of the situation in a way that I wanted to now of course

I could have just said stop at any time you know I was in control and generally we're all in control even when we think we're not there's consequences to that you know there's consequences to just standing up and walking out of your job but you do have the ability to do that you know there's consequences to any situation I guess there's always not necessarily bad consequences but if I'd have stopped and said stop and walked out of the dentist I'd have gone through all that you know uh all of those

anesthetic injections for nothing gone through the whole process for nothing and what would I do next I'd go home and still have a toothache in fact I wouldn't just have a toothache I'd have half a tooth in my mouth because it'd already been breaking the tooth up to get it out so I kind of wanted to stick it out I've never walked out in a situation like that before I've always stuck it out because that's just the just the logical thing to do I can't walk out of a halfway through

a procedure I can if I choose to but I choose not to because that's causing me more problems plus the chances are the dentist won't see me again depending on the situation he did seem like a really nice bloke so I'm pretty sure if I stopped said stop and explained to him how I was feeling he probably would let me go down into the waiting room seeing the next person then see me again you know he seemed like a really really gentle kind person so that I imagine that's what would

have happened so I'm sitting there and I'm having my breathing is too quick and I'm feeling strange I'm probably hyperventilating a little bit I'm breathing through my mouth for some reason I'm struggling to breathe through my nose because I've got my mouth wide open and I think to myself what am I going to do here and then a part of me thinks well I make these recordings and you know it's easy it's fairly easy to relax when you're sitting on your sofa or lying down on your bed no distractions nothing

really that you need to think about in that moment and it's it's almost like a perfect scenario in a way to just let go and allow your mind to slow down because really your mind doesn't have anything to really focus on when you're at home maybe you've got the lights off you're just in your recliner or just sitting in a comfy sofa or as I said lying down on your bed there's nothing to think about and if you've got me talking to you that in itself is a distraction from the

thoughts in your mind and when you hear my voice especially if you listen regularly to my recordings whether these ones or other ones that I do you'll you may notice that as soon as the recording starts to play you automatically feel more relaxed and your mind just starts to slow down just naturally maybe even the thought of lying down and or sitting comfortably and listening you know the the build-up to it the decision or I'm now going to listen to a recording listen to a podcast and you may start to

have a sense of well-being a sense of comfort familiarity maybe so I'm sitting in a dentist chair and I'm kind of thinking this to myself well I do this at home we do this for blimey it's over over one and a half decades I've been making recordings online for people to listen to so I'm thinking okay and I pretty much chose the most simple thing to do but it worked it really did work I basically counted down from a hundred now it wasn't to fall asleep all it was is to

help me relax also to give me something to focus on that was both internal and external now you might think what do you mean external well I was saying the word in my mind but I was also seeing the number of it and I was seeing the number in my eye in my mind and it almost felt like the number that I was seeing was external I know it wasn't I know it's internal and saying it out loud in my mind it felt like I was actually saying it rather than

just thinking it so you could think of a number and you can look at a number on a piece of paper or you can actually say it out loud in your mind and it's different and with your eyes closed you can see a number which is different from just thinking about a number if you see it in big you know big letters I'm saying letters but you know big numbers maybe bright colors whatever it has an effect it's a distraction and although it is internal obviously it feels almost external and

it really was a good distraction it also did help me to feel more relaxed it calmed me down something to focus on and I admit I wasn't giving it my whole focus because I could still feel this thing rummaging around in my mouth so what I was doing was giving less attention to the pressure and the you know the physical pressure of what was going on inside my mouth I didn't forget about it altogether I didn't completely block it out it was still there I could still feel it I still

knew that there was someone doing that I still knew where I was you know I didn't become unconscious didn't fall asleep but my attention changed from being 100% on him and what he was doing to my mouth to help me to probably 40% focusing on the counting it's probably started off at 10% on the counting and I'll be honest at the beginning I was trying to increase my focus on the counting and I kept losing the counting and focusing on him but part of the reason is because he was talking

to me and he was asking me if I was okay you know so he kind of broke my training thought a little bit it doesn't take much for me but because it was counting it was very easy to get back into it it's very it's not like I was reciting a passage from Shakespeare you know it was very easy to get back to the counting and it didn't matter if I got if I went back to the right number or not you know if I was at 89 and I went

to 75 who cares it doesn't matter it's not important there's no awards to be won there's no prize money involved it's just going back to focusing on the numbers and saying the number in my mind seeing the number big number on the screen in my mind counting down and something I noticed that did happen is things seem to speed up externally when I did this now I was doing this very slowly there's no hurry at all with the counting I had no idea how long I was going to be in

the chair I didn't know how long I was going to be there at all I really didn't how long it's going to take um you know two teeth I just imagined twice the time but not really because the preparation is the same amount of time whether it's one two four five I guess so it was it was fairly quick I was in and out within 20 minutes but things seem to move quicker outside from the point where he's saying well now we're going to start on the first tooth and I

said yep I nod put what I used to put my thumb up so he could like to answer because I didn't have a pad and paper on me pad and paper pen and paper a pad and paper and some pens some crayons and I just thought you know let's do that as a good example a good way of communicating with him and as I was counting down counting down I started at 100 I probably got down to about 72 when he said that's all done all done okay and it's almost

like there was some kind of time distortion like I was going in slow motion internally he was going faster but he wasn't really he was just going normal speed but because I was going slow motion internally well now it doesn't make sense does it really because I don't know he just it seemed to it seemed slow internally but outside seemed to go faster I saw them saying on that one because I realized that actually for me to go fast internally would make everything else slow would it I don't know but

I was going slow internally and the actual outside stuff seemed to just shoot by maybe it's that whole you know waiting at a bank knowing you've got a beer you've got to be back at work in five minutes and there's a queue and you're watching the clock and although time almost is going so slow the clock is moving a lot faster than it normally does so that you know two o'clock point where you're supposed to be back at work it's getting closer and closer and that minute hand seems to be

moving faster than normal but everything outside of the clock like the queue is moving very very slowly the people at the counter of the bank are moving very slowly that seemed to be what was happening there so I was moving very slowly I was the queue in the bank and the dentist was the clock kind of you know moving quick which is ironic because well not really ironic but you know he had a clock on his wall that was broken and it said something like 20 to 7 and it was

just stuck on that time maybe he didn't want to be looking at the clock every all all the time which I understand I mean it's good to sort of keep track of time I guess if you're seeing people that have appointments but you know I don't think having a clock I don't have a clock in here at all I don't want to know what the time is all the time especially if I was working you know sitting in an office you don't want to be seeing the clock because time seems

to really go slowly at times especially in the afternoon the morning shoots by I always notice that the morning shoots by but then after lunch between like two and five or six you know whenever you leave it seems to go slower that last hour I know it's psychological so counting down from a hundred I find and I found slowed everything down for me in a situation where I was getting stressed I was yeah but for I would say good reason you know it wasn't it was yeah good reason having someone's

hand in your mouth removing your teeth is it's not necessarily supposed to be a relaxing experience I've managed to create it into one or into a more relaxing experience it was it was almost I guess the cold water and the hot water situation like the dentist was the hot water and I added some cold to make the hot water bearable and by adding that counting down slowly saying the numbers inside my head and seeing because I had my eyes closed and seeing the numbers in my mind big numbers that was

the cold water being added to the hot water which was not just the dentist but the whole scenario the whole situation a dentist a dentist chair there's other things like there's a beautiful dental nurse there and looking inside my mouth which was a mess not not before hopefully not before the dental you know surgery started but I felt very self-conscious I did and it I think that's pretty natural I'm pretty sure and you know having someone's hand in your mouth the extracting teeth or whatever it's you know it's it's not

the most relaxing situation but I managed to add that cold water to the situation to the heat the hot water of that scenario and it did the trick it really did you know my breathing slowed down I did feel more relaxed I felt more in control without trying to be too controlling I think I felt more in control more not wanting to be in control you know not needing that because I wasn't in you know I wasn't really in control in that situation in a sense of I wasn't you know

someone else was doing something but I gave him permission to do that by sitting there by going there I gave him permission to help me so there is that mentality of like you know what okay dentists are not the most popular people in the world which is a shame it's dentists and vets I think probably above doctors in a sense of no one likes taking their pet to the vet and no one likes taking we don't like going to the doctors either do we but I guess it depends on the

situation but ultimately they're all places that are there to help us so going to the dentist doesn't have to be a negative experience if you think about that small child for him it was a positive experience because he'd only left his house three times before I think he'd have been happy to go to a slaughterhouse or you know he wouldn't care like going to go swimming in a swamp full of alligators at least I'm getting out of the house probably not true is it but he you know just go for

a swim are you not coming in with me mum no no we'll just wait here where do we go in home don't worry about that you don't need to worry about going home so yeah swimming with alligators maybe not but you know he was looking forward and that changed my perspective it also changed my experience of the day because I'd had a bit of a crappy day feeling sorry for myself and I spent a lot of my life feeling sorry for myself it was one of my favorite hobbies and I

still do it sometimes but I try not to do it as much I try to have more to get more in touch with what I'm grateful for and focus on perhaps what I do have not what I don't have and on that day after seeing that little boy on the news excited to go to the dentist because he hadn't been outside he never gets to go outside he's never been to the dentist before I stopped feeling sorry for myself for a few hours anyway stopped feeling sorry for myself it's got

a reality check you know and I know that some I've seen this when I was a counselor some people would come in to the counseling room and they'd tell me something really you know difficult hearing if you know I mean difficult stuff to hear something really really traumatic and then I'd say well there's worse people off there's people off that had much worse happen than to me now there's obviously there's truth in that obvious you know there's truth in that statement from a logical perspective and it's something that we're told

as kids isn't it oh you think you've you know there's worse worse things happening there's kids worse off than you make sure you eat all your dinner there's people starving in the world you know that kind of mentality that we used to go on when I was a kid and it was I used to like say well why don't you send it to them then there you go there's my liver I don't want to eat it and oh there's people starving it didn't make any difference to me I was a

little kid I didn't I didn't really understand what was going on it was only in the probably I was 85 that the you know with band-aid and stuff when that all came out I didn't really understand about that stuff so being told that in the 70s like what are you on about well you know they can have my dinner if they want that was my attitude I was a proper little shit wasn't I but yeah I mean basically I went off on a tangent then didn't I so that's it the

basic thing is I suppose if you're going to go to the dentist to get in touch with the idea that they're there to help you that you're going to feel better afterwards maybe not immediately afterwards you know if you if you've had a tooth extracted you know you're not going to feel great and when the anesthetic wears off it's going to be a bit of pain but that pain is it's a sign that the the aching tooth is no longer there the problem has been sorted and the pain reduces continuously

reducing over time it might take a few days before it's completely cleared up and healed but it's because it's an open wound it takes time takes a bit of time and the fact that it stops hurting gradually stops hurting quite quickly shows you how healthy you are because your immune system your healing system is working which shows how healthy you are as a human because that stuff is working perfectly he said to me he looked at it he said because I had to when I had the teeth out at the

end he said clench down on this like a cloth thing like a white cloth a bit of a weird color for something that's about to be stuck on blood but and I only held it for probably about a minute or two and then he held it up he looked he said oh good it's starting to clot already so the blood was starting to clot which means the healing process was already starting immediately so having trust in your own body your own body's healing process is also something that's quite a positive

attitude to have as well and to remember which then takes away the stress and tension of going to a dentist because it's all going to work out fine with that added counting down can help you to relax calm down your body your mind gives you something to focus on as well so it's a distraction distraction it's a distraction during the extraction oh dear I'm here all week so I'm going to go thank you for listening it's a different kind of recording today but it might maybe it's useful maybe not I don't know I hope so

a little bit so take care lots of love remember to be kind to yourself because you deserve to be happy lots of love be gentle with yourself as well bye