How Hypnotherapy Helps with Blushing

Tell me if this sounds familiar: someone pays you a compliment, and you feel your face getting flushed with red hot heat. You’re blushing at this very moment, and you hate it.

Normally we think of blushing as a good thing. But for some, blushing either tends to happen too much and they try to hide their reaction, or they are suffering from erythrophobia, the fear of blushing.

Did you know you can change your reaction, however? I’ll tell you why blushing happens, what erythrophobia is, and how hypnotherapy can help you.

What Does it Mean to Blush?

Aside from embarrassing moments, blushing happens as part of our unconscious fight or flight/freeze stress response. This natural response causes blood to rush to our face, neck, ears, and upper part of the chest, which is then followed by heat and a tingling sensation.

While some people believe blushing can be naturally attractive, there are many who find it causes them further embarrassment and upset, as they fear when and where they may blush.

Blushing out of embarrassment can become severe for those who are extremely anxious in social situations. They’ll put all effort into avoiding social contact, which is known as social anxiety.

What is Erythrophobia and What Causes It?

Erythrophobia is the technical term for the fear of blushing, or blushing in general. It’s often caused by the following situations:

• Speaking with someone you feel is socially or professionally superior to you
• Talking in front of a group
• Doing a task while others watch
• Talking to members of the opposite sex 
• Being criticized in front of other people

Blushing and erythrophobia can be seen as symptoms of restraining beliefs and irrational fears embedded within our subconscious, which when we’re awake are beyond reach from your normal logical conscious mind.

Treatment for blushing (and the fear of blushing) is geared towards any underlying stress and anxiety, and getting to the root cause.

Hypnotherapy for Blushing and Erythrophobia

Those who blush may overthink things about dealing with certain situations by worrying before things happen, and try to hide it, which often makes their situation much worse.

There are some who have been able to break the cycle by announcing when they are about to blush to others. The more we accept that part of us, it most likely won’t happen. Ways to help manage blushing include distraction exercises and deep breathing.

Hypnotherapy helps to control blushing through accessing the unconscious mind, delving into that root cause of the issue, and helping to learn how to cope with it calmly, ultimately becoming more relaxed.

Hypnotherapy also helps with social anxiety and anxiety in general, which in turn will help with blushing by addressing the root cause (that being the anxiety).

When we reframe our negative thought process, we feel more comfortable in situations that usually cause us to blush.

Hypnotherapy also helps to increase self-confidence and self-esteem and reduces sensitivity to situations that can trigger blushing.

Need Help Outside of Sessions?

Here are two techniques you can try at home to start with. One is a relaxation technique and the other, a subconscious technique.

This is often referred to as the “cool breeze” technique:

• Make sure you’re relaxed. 
• With every breath, allow yourself to relax more deeply. 
• Imagine a situation that makes you blush, for example public speaking. 
• Feel your face become flushed and red. 
• Imagine a cooling breeze blowing across your face. 
• Your face begins to cool, and the blood is moving from your face back into your body. 
• You say, “Calm and relax,” to yourself in your mind and visualize the words in front of your eyes.
• As your face is cooling, your whole body follows, causing you to feel calm, more at ease and relaxed. 
• With each breath, imagine yourself more relaxed and becoming cooler.

Now the subconscious technique is often called the ruler technique.

Blushing is caused by the mind. This technique tells your subconscious mind you can increase your blush response. With the power of the mind, if you can increase something, you must be able to decrease it as well. 

Here’s how it works:

• Make sure you’re relaxed. 
• Visualize a standard ruler in front of you, with the numbers 0-100 marked. This is your level of relaxation. When you are embarrassed, the ruler will measure 80, 90, or 100. When you’re completely unconscious, it will be 0. 
• While in your relaxed state, notice what number your ruler is at. 
• Think of a recent experience that caused you to blush. Vividly imagine it. 
• When you are visualizing this event, notice what number your ruler is at. 
• Now, let go of this event you were remembering, it is now behind you, in the past. 
• Think of a pleasant, relaxing place to clear your mind. 
• Imagine your ruler again. Using your powerful mind, lower the number of the ruler down several levels. 
• Visualize yourself in a difficult situation, like giving a talk to a group of people. As you’re imagining this, bring the numbers on the ruler down and allow yourself to relax.

If you are able to increase your blushing by using your thoughts, you can also decrease your blushing by using your thoughts. We don’t always realize what we do subconsciously, but if we do exercises like these we can practice control and be more self-aware.

Blushing doesn’t have to be a scary thing, and you’re not alone in thinking your blushing is an issue or fear.

If you have any questions or concerns about hypnotherapy for blushing, or you feel you’ll learn best with a guide, feel free to contact me today.

Creative Commons Attribution: Permission is granted to repost this article in its entirety with credit to Healing Soul Hypnosis and a clickable link back to this page.