Health: Lighten the load

Published on Saturday 14 November 2009 13:48

KEEPING healthy is all about balance and taking time out from the daily grind to recharge the batteries. Spending a week on a sunlounger is a tried and trusted method but taking it one step further are advocates of the Lightning Process, a method of balancing mind and body that has followers in Esther Rantzen and Dancing on Ice champion Suzanne Shaw. Retreats are dotted around the world, with several practitioners in Scotland.

Rantzen says the technique cured her daughter Emily, who suffered from ME for many years, while Shaw began using the technique after she was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome last year. "I have great faith in the Lightning Process, whose inventor, Phil Parker, cured my daughter of the chronic fatigue that had engulfed her for 14 years," says Rantzen.

The Lightning Process claims success in treating conditions affected by the neurological systems, particularly Myalgic Encephalopathy (ME), chronic fatigue syndrome, post viral fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia.

The retreats are centred around a three-day training programme, costing from 560, aimed at rebalancing mind and body. "This training is derived from osteopathy, neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), hypnotherapy, self-hypnosis and life coaching," explains Michelle Clemons, who runs courses in Provence. "It teaches, step by step, how to influence key body systems such as the immunological, neurological and musculoskeletal systems, and teaches your brain and body to work together to powerfully and positively influence your health and life."

Said to be especially effective for people who have become stuck in a cycle of repetitive, damaging behavioural patterns, advocates say the process creates new connections in the brain that stimulate the production of endorphins in place of stress hormones.

Process developer Phil Parker puts various post-viral syndrome conditions under the single banner of ME, as he believes them to be part of the same type of condition. However, he is keen to emphasise the impressive success rates achieved do not imply the condition is all in the mind.

"ME is not a psychosomatic illness; it's a physical illness," he says. "After developing the Lightning Process and finding it so successful with all sorts of 'difficult to treat' cases, I began to consider if it would be effective in helping ME sufferers.

"To my astonishment, the effects were instant and profound; clients with all kinds of different ME symptoms were able to influence them and get better."

Of course, such a combination of alternative approaches to health are not without their critics. The largest ME charity in the UK, Action for ME, states: "Our stance has always been that, although we understand people's desire to try therapies in their desperation to get well again, we strongly advise people to examine any claim of recovery with scepticism.

"More research is needed into the effectiveness of all treatments, management techniques and other approaches. There is no one treatment that is beneficial to everyone. We would always advise people with ME to ask questions about the evidence for benefit before paying out large amounts of money."

The charity carried out a health and welfare survey in 2008 and found that, of the people who had tried the Lightning Process, 53 per cent found it helpful, 31 per cent reported no change and 16 per cent said it made them worse.

According to Parker, there are various physiological responses involved in conditions such as ME, which make the body produce certain hormones that affect our blood sugar and thyroid levels, suppress the immune system and make us prone to illness. (Some experts believe ME affects the body's ability to deal with adrenaline, the stress hormone.)

Parker believes ME sufferers need to train their brain to normalise the body's physical stress response, to avoid the long-term, inappropriate production of adrenal hormones that affect the body's tissues, and the non-dispersion of adrenaline.

"In addition to the likelihood these physiological responses cause a vicious circle of ME symptoms, I also discovered a set of common findings in ME cases, involving a number of repetitive and specific thought patterns," says Parker.

"By using Lightning Process techniques, many former ME sufferers have been able to affect their body's physiological responses and also change their thought patterns, demonstrating how the body and the mind powerfully influence each other. These techniques have repeatedly reduced or eliminated people's ME symptoms," he says.

Chronic fatigue syndrome sufferer Elle O'Connor, who attended a five-day retreat in France at Chateau Columbier with Clemons, has since gained more control of her symptoms. "The training taught me loads about myself, and my shoulders no longer feel they are carrying the weight of the world around on them; I'm trying to ease up on my need for perfection, a big challenge to me, but I'll get there," she says.

Clemons says the training can be useful for a myriad of other issues that relate to our modern lives, such as panic attacks, stress and anxiety, cessation of smoking, low self-esteem and phobias. "The Lightning Process retreat I run in Provence offers much more than an alternative holiday. It can be a life-changing experience," she says.

For more on Phil Parker's Lightning Process programme, visit www.lightningprocess.com, 0208 895 4007; for more on the Provence retreats, visit www.energies4life.com, 0789 084 7472. To find out about Action for ME visit www.afme.org.uk