16 Ways Hypnosis Can Make You Healthier than Ever Before
What is the first image that comes to your mind when you read the word “hypnosis”? For most people, they imagine a wacky, eccentric performer who hypnotizes a person from the audience to cluck and dance like a chicken. This is one of the most common representations from the media of something that, in reality, can actually prove beneficial to people’s lives. Hypnotherapy continues to be a sought-after form of treatment from people who have already tried following diet trends, going through rehab programs for quitting smoking and eliminating a drug addiction, and several other means of improving one’s life, only to end up repeating their most vicious cycles.
Have you ever wondered why hypnosis is even considered as a treatment for those examples in the first place? The answer is because hypnotherapy does work. You may have skepticism about the process, and that’s fine. But if you’ve already tried so many other methods to not only get healthier physically but also mentally, maybe it’s time to consider this form of therapy after all.
Here are 16 ways that hypnosis can, in fact, make you healthier in body and mind than ever before.
1. Physical Healing
You may have undergone surgery and are feeling twinges of pain still. You may have an old wound that never properly healed, so the pain is recurring. You may be undergoing treatment right now for a disease, such as cancer or diabetes. You may be feeling that the medication is getting the best of you, and making your mental state even worse.
Hypnotherapy for physical healing is in fact a genuine form of treatment. When sessions take place alongside your traditional method of healing such as physiotherapy or taking medication as prescribed by your doctor, you may find that the combined efforts can provide you with that pain relief you seek. By using visualization as well as other techniques, hypnosis can help to alleviate the effects of the symptoms you are feeling when your body is recuperating. Note that the body cannot heal if your mind is in turmoil. If you’re looking to see the results of physical healing from hypnosis, it’s best to address both the body and mind during your sessions.
2. Drug Addiction
You already know you need to quit, but you’re ashamed to ask for help. Your family wants you to quit too, but your relationship with them isn’t very good. There are countless reasons why someone with a drug addiction, no matter what substance it is, may find themselves repeating the negative cycles.
Hypnotherapy works to help you understand not only how to break such negative patterns, but why they happen in the first place. By undergoing sessions with a hypnotherapist, you can identify the triggers that cause you to relapse. It could be a certain past trauma you’ve left unhealed, or pressures at work or home, for example. Whatever they may be, hypnosis for drug addiction can help you better understand your habits and work to transform them into healthier and eventually cleaner living.
3. Alcohol Addiction
Alcohol is another aspect that is heavily ingrained in our society and the way we interact with others. There’s a difference between having a glass of wine at a social event and having a glass every single night…or two…or more…and it’s done as a reaction to your child having a bad day, or you’re constantly having a stressful time at work.
The thing about most rehab programs for alcohol is there is always a chance to fall back into your addiction if your mind doesn’t change in the process. If, however, you enjoy having an occasional drink with friends or you use alcohol when cooking and simply want to reduce your intake, that is where hypnosis can benefit you. By reducing your alcohol intake with hypnosis, you can go back to enjoying your drink without overdoing your consumption of it, or paying the price (i.e. a hangover) later. Again, in order to really see the positive effects, you have to want to overcome your addiction first.
4. Smoking Cessation
No amount of graphic imagery or warning on cigarette boxes are stopping people from smoking. Maybe you need to quit so you don’t smoke around your children, or you can’t help but reach for another cigarette when your job gets stressful. Whatever your reason may be to quit, hypnosis can help.
Smoking cessation is designed to help you understand the why behind your cravings and the fears associated with quitting. If you are feeling up to working on quitting this habit permanently, then this type of program is a good place to start. Much like reducing your alcohol consumption, you need to want to quit smoking first in order to see hypnosis’s benefits in full.
5. Weight Management
Yo-yo diets and weight loss, eating healthy for one week and then relapsing to eating fast and junk foods the next, going to the gym for a week and then never going back…weight is one of the most difficult things to deal with day in and out. High standards of beauty and self-worth are shoved into our faces daily by society, and it’s gotten so difficult to trust anyone or anything that claims they’re able to help you with your weight. It’s a touchy subject, and rightly so, because being thin or fit is so ingrained in our society today.
Hypnotherapy can help with weight management if you’re looking to lose weight in a healthy way, as opposed to changing your diet from one week to the next. Multiple sessions will need to take place for this sort of change, but the end result will be a much healthier and a much happier you.
6. Food Eating Disorders
Overeating, binge eating, eating no vegetables, eating only foods high in sugar, and failing to exercise all the while are all examples of disorders associated with why you’re not able to manage your weight properly. Sugar addiction goes hand in hand with several eating problems and disorders as well. Bulimia and anorexia can also be attributed to unhealthy mindsets that are based on our childhood traumas and fears.
Hypnosis is a good way to look at the causes of these eating habits and really change the negative affirmations you are making when it comes to food. Whether you’re a picky eater or you eat out of stress or boredom, hypnotherapy is worth considering if you want to change not only the way you eat, but how and why you eat without completely eliminating delicious food from your diet. The best thing is, hypnosis doesn’t require you to take any medication or undergo surgical procedures—the only things that are required are you, your hypnotherapist, and a calm environment for the sessions to take place.
7. Concentration & Focus
These two states of mind go hand in hand. There are tons of distractions that can deter you from your current goals, however small or big they may be. In addition to these distractions, fears and phobias can also disrupt your senses of focus and concentration both. Losing your sense of focus can lead to pressing deadlines being missed, or prevent you from living a more balanced and calm lifestyle.
Hypnotherapy is an excellent way to improve these mental abilities. If you struggle daily with both, it may be time to consider getting a helping hand.
8. Anger and Guilt Release
Both of these are emotions that, while valid, should not completely take control of your life. Too much anger can lead to physical symptoms such as heart attacks; too much guilt can lead to severe anxieties and negative impacts on your relationships at work and at home.
By undergoing hypnotherapy sessions, you can learn how to best regain control of your emotions and how better to handle your anger and guilt in a healthier way. You can better understand the triggers that caused such emotions to take control in the first place, create new ways to cope with and approach those triggers, and eventually release their hold on your life.
9. Nail Biting
Nail biting is another habit much like an eating disorder in that it’s the physical symptom of stress or anxiety taking place. Anyone of any age can resort to this habit when they are experiencing such anxieties and are looking to soothe their discomfort. Unfortunately, nail biting can also result in great self-harm if left alone for too long.
Hypnotherapy can help children, teens, and adults who need help to overcome this habit and reduce their self-harmful tendencies. It will help you to identify the triggers that create this negative pattern and thus come up with new ways to avoid these triggers entirely.
10. Sleeping Problems & Insomnia
No matter how old you are or what stage you are at in your life, sleep is a necessary part of living a healthy life. Too much sleep can make you feel disoriented and even groggier; too little can make you feel irritable and unhappy. Insomnia is also a harmful sleeping disorder that can impact the way you live your life.
Hypnotherapy works well for anyone with a sleeping problem as it consists of several approaches to inducing relaxation, such as guided imagery and focused attention. If other forms of treatment have already been attempted to no avail, consider undergoing a session or two of hypnosis. You can regain that deep, restorative sleep your anxiety has been depriving you of.
11. Public Speaking
Not everyone enjoys being surrounded by people, let alone be the target of undivided attention. Not everyone knows the perfect thing to say when they’re put on the spot abruptly either. The fear of public speaking is usually derived from a lack of self-confidence in oneself. When we get into a headset where everything can go wrong while speaking publicly, it gets too hard to come out of that negative thought process.
Hypnotherapy can help not only to reduce that sense of panic when public speaking, but also to induce more confidence in yourself to speak to larger audiences. Hypnosis taps into the subconscious and replaces those negative thought patterns with more positive affirmations. Undergoing a session for this reason can leave you feeling more empowered and confident in your ability to communicate.
12. Stuttering
As with public speaking, stuttering can have a negative impact on your life when it comes to daily communication. We all need to talk to someone whether it’s over the phone or in person, but there are times when stuttering or other speech impediments can interfere with your life and your ability to connect with others. Some impediments are psychological and can come about even if there’s no family history of them, or a consistent source.
Hypnotherapy can help to ease your troubled emotions as a result of your stuttering. Together with a hypnotherapist, you can both identify the triggers of emotional causes or physical ones, and then come up with a new technique to help you relax and focus on your speech. You can leave your session feeling more confident and in control of your voice.
13. Sports Performance
Did you know Tiger Woods acquired help from a hypnotherapist when he was a teenager? He understood the power of hypnosis when it came to being a golfer. It’s possible that some of your favourite athletes may also have undergone sessions, all for the sake of improving themselves and the way they play the game.
Whether you’re a beginner or a trained professional, you know the importance of performing at your best. Some days it’s tough to get out and play, but it doesn’t have to be. With a little help from hypnosis, you can not only improve your sense of focus, but also increase your performance.
14. Bedwetting
We assume bedwetting is an issue limited to children only, but in fact there are medical reasons for teens and adults to wet the bed accidentally as well. Medical conditions such as diabetes and urinary tract infections can cause this behaviour to occur. If these have been ruled out, however, as a cause for why your child is continuing to wet the bed, then it’s a good idea to really look at their subconscious patterns.
Bedwetting brings along with it a whole slew of emotions, shame being a big one. No kid wants to wet the bed, but if an unpleasant trigger is planted into their subconscious at an early enough age, it’s very likely that behaviour will continue. Again, this is where hypnotherapy can be the most effective means of treatment. As mentioned before, it can identify the exact subconscious trigger that is affecting you or your child, and then with one or a few sessions you can learn new behavioural patterns to help prevent the trigger from occurring. Depending on your child’s emotional state, more than one session may need to take place.
15. PTSD
Post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, is not only limited to a specific person but can in fact be triggered by anyone who has witnessed or experienced a terrifying event. The trigger usually leads to flashbacks, nightmares, and severe anxiety as a result of said event. An example can be witnessing a car accident as a child.
Hypnotherapy works well to help you heal from this disorder for several reasons. One, again, it does not rely on medication. Two, hypnosis can change your feelings and attitude about the traumatic experience you witnessed or were involved in. Do not think for a moment that hypnosis will make you forget the event completely, or that you will be ‘cured’ of this disorder forever. I’m not talking about applying a quick fix; I’m talking about completely changing your approach to how those events took place. For those who do want to stop mentally replaying those events in the mind, or want to move on from such a severe state of anxiety, hypnosis is a great place to start your mental health recovery journey.
16. OCD
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a debilitating habit that unfortunately can control your state of mind completely. Most people who have obsessions such as those prevalent in OCD know they need to improve, but always find themselves repeating the patterns. Sometimes it will settle down slightly and then flare up in times of stress. Other times, it will prevent those from meeting deadlines or carrying on with their lives.
Hypnotherapy is not only helpful on a mental level, it’s effective on the feeling level. OCD is typically fueled by fear–fear of not making sure everything is in its place, fear of losing a sense of structure, fear of what may happen if something is left unchecked…fear of what will happen if the compulsion isn’t followed through with. What hypnosis does is help to completely remove the sense of fear that fuels obsessive actions. By doing so, not only will a greater sense of calm be instilled, but also a new thought pattern can be introduced to help you not follow through with the OCD patterns. If you wish to apply both hypnotherapy and another method such as CBT to help you with your OCD, that’s perfectly fine.
Ready to finally reach your health goals?
Hypnotherapy can address any of the above issues and so much more. For those who still need some convincing, or couldn’t find an issue that related to their case as described above, you can visit the Symptoms page on my website and see for yourself how I can be of service.
I’d also like to leave you with some positive affirmations, if you feel you need them:
- You are not alone in your health struggle.
- You are not weak or selfish for putting your health needs first.
- There are people who do support you and care about you.
- Yes, you can change, for the better.
If you feel you are ready for hypnosis sessions, give me a call. I’m always happy to hear your story and to help you discover how best we can meet your health goals and heal your body and mind.
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