What is Hypnosis & Hypnotherapy?
Hypnosis is a completely natural state of being that we all enter into without ever realizing and one that we all enjoy daily. It’s that warming feeling when we’re just dropping off to sleep and waking up or become totally absorbed in a good book or film.
Hypnotherapy is the scientific use of Hypnosis for therapeutic purposes. It is medically established that when we are totally relaxed our senses are heightened and our mind is more open to positive suggestions for our well-being.
How does Hypnotherapy work?
The brain has different levels of consciousness, or awareness, ranging from fully alert to drowsy to fully asleep, with variations in between. Hypnotic states occur naturally and spontaneously.
Everyday examples include:
- Daydreaming
- Being absorbed in a pleasant task and losing track of time
- Doing a mundane task (such as washing the dishes) while thinking about something else, to the point you can’t actually remember performing the task
- Getting lulled into a dreamy state by boredom, for example, when listening to a dull speech.
Hypnosis deliberately induces this kind of relaxed state of awareness. Once the mind is in a relaxed state, any therapeutic suggestions can have a great effect on attitudes, perceptions and behaviours. Some researchers believe that hypnosis promotes particular brain wave activity that allows the mind to take in and adopt new ideas, while others suggest that hypnosis accesses the ‘unconscious mind’, which is more open to new ideas than the rational ‘conscious mind’.
Benefits of Hypnotherapy
Hypnotherapy can help in so many areas of our life, here are just a few examples :
- Reverse negative patterns of behaviour and conditioning or abuse of the past that prevents you from moving forward positively in life.
- Feel better about yourself and your own sense of self-worth and thereby improve relationships in all areas of personal life and career.
- No longer fall victim to unwanted or destructive emotional states such as anger, sadness, jealousy, rejection.
- Manage stress and resolve anxiety-inducing states.
- Control pain, and obtain relief from other psychosomatic conditions such as skin disorders, IBS etc.
- Overcome dependency on sleeping pills, drugs, alcohol, antidepressants, etc.
- Resolve the issues that cause weight gain.
- Overcome unwanted habits, compulsions, phobias or fears.
- Help with goals and to improve self-belief that you are now more in control of what happens in your life.
Can hypnotherapy really help me? What are the benefits of going to a hypnotherapist?
These are the most common questions asked when people consider going to see a hypnotherapist. Some people are understandably a little apprehensive about considering hypnotherapy as a treatment, usually because of misconceptions by what they have seen on the television or in films. But when you think about the benefits that can come from a Hypnotherapist, you’ll see it’s really worth it:
Hypnotherapy can help treat Anxiety and Depression
Many people are reluctant to take medication to treat Anxiety and Depression because they don’t want to become dependent on medication. Other people just can’t seem to find a medication that works for them. Hypnotherapy is a drug-free and very effective way to calm anxiety and treat the symptoms of depression. By using hypnotic suggestions to eliminate the triggers of Anxiety and Depression people that suffer from Depression and Anxiety can sometimes find 100% relief from those conditions by using Hypnotherapy.
Hypnotherapy can help reduce stress
Stress can cause serious illnesses in people like heart disease, high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes, and sleep disorders. If you have a lot of stress in your life and you feel like you can’t get it under control by using diet and exercise then it’s time to think about Hypnotherapy. Because hypnotherapy involves putting you in a deep state of relaxation, it gives your mind and body a chance to experience the relaxation that they desperately need.
Hypnotherapy can help deal with childhood issues
People with traumatic childhood tend to experience emotional issues such as low self-esteem or self-worth, irrational behaviour etc. during their adulthood. The issues and problems that you experienced as a child might still be impacting you today and causing you to make bad decisions. Inner Child Therapy is a great way to work through childhood issues and replace those negative messages about yourself with positive ones.
Hypnotherapy can treat addictions
It doesn’t matter what you’re addicted to, hypnotherapy can help you kick the addiction of food, alcohol, drugs, smoking and many other addictions. Hypnotherapy helps to rid your body of physical addictions to whatever you are addicted to. Hypnotherapy is proven to help break addictions for good so that you don’t relapse and become addicted again within a short time.
Hypnotherapy can help you change your behavior
Hypnotherapy can help you change your behaviour patterns so that you can be healthier and happier. Often behavioural patterns are learned in childhood, but a hypnotic suggestion given while you’re in a deep hypnotic state can help you get rid of those old messages telling you to behave in certain ways and replace them with messages to act in new, more appropriate ways. If you are trying to recover from the effects of a dysfunctional family or an abusive childhood, using hypnosis to help eliminate the unhealthy patterns that you learned to survive can be very therapeutic.
Hypnotherapy can help recover buried memories.
All of the experiences that you’ve had throughout your life are buried in your brain somewhere. If you have lost touch with the parts of your brain that hold memories of your childhood hypnosis can help you go back and remember the things that you need to remember to know why you act the way you act now. Typically this is used to help people that were abused as children understand their behavioural patterns but there can also be happy memories that you have forgotten as a result of an injury or accident that can be recovered with Hypnosis.
Hypnotherapy can help manage chronic pain
If you have a disease that leaves you in frequent pain like Fibromyalgia, Arthritis or Migraines then you already know that sometimes it feels like nothing will stop the pain. When drugs and diet don’t help you can manage your pain using self-Hypnosis. In many different scientific studies, Hypnotherapy has been proven to be an effective pain management technique. So if nothing else is working for you when it comes to controlling your pain, or if you don’t want to take prescription painkillers, you should try Hypnotherapy. Pain management is taught only after a diagnosis of your ailment from a doctor.
Hypnotherapy can help you lose weight and keep it off
Hypnotherapy has been proven to be 30% more effective than just dieting when it comes to weight loss. Medical professionals speculate that Hypnosis helps people who are hanging onto the extra weight for psychological reasons or people that overeat for psychological reasons eliminate their psychological need for extra comfort food which makes it easier for them to lose weight.
Hypnotherapy can cure sleep disorders
Millions of people suffer from sleep disorders that range from full insomnia to night terrors, wakeful sleep, sleepwalking, and the inability to fall into REM sleep which your body needs. Sleep disorders can cause a wide range of other problems like obesity and addiction to either sleeping medications or caffeine or other stimulants to keep the body going even though it’s exhausted. Sleep disorders are notoriously hard to treat. Many sleep disorders have an associated psychological condition that makes it necessary for people to get both psychological and physical treatment to be able to get some sleep. Hypnotherapy can help treat the psychological problem that is causing the sleep disturbance while at the same time it puts the body in a deeply relaxed state that helps the body and mind become rejuvenated.
Hypnotherapy – The Physical Benefits
One of the little known benefits of hypnotherapy is that it greatly helps improve your physical health. Because during your hypnosis session, your heart rate slows down, and you are deeply relaxed and at peace, you reduce the workload for the heart, not only during your hypnosis session but throughout the rest of your day. Also, self-hypnosis can lower the levels of a person’s cortisol (which is the chemical produced due to stress and anxiety). Normally, these chemicals stay stuck in the body, even when the stressful situation is long over with. But, Hypnosis creates a very special state of relaxation which dissolves those chemicals.
Hypnotherapy can also help you to reduce your risk of cancer, high blood pressure, and slow down the ageing process. How is this possible?
While you are in hypnosis you are eliminating unstable oxygen molecules. You are improving airflow to the lungs to help you with your breathing. Oxygen and relaxation are clear solutions to the delay of biological ageing.
Hypnosis can increase your feeling of youthfulness. It rejuvenates feelings of vitality, leading you to a more positive outlook in life. If you want to feel joyful and stable, hypnosis is the best choice.
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