Hypnosis:

A State of Highly Focused Attention,

Benefits

Because hypnotherapy works by reducing the stress response, it can help alleviate the symptoms of:

  • Pain

  • Irritable Bowel Syndrome

  • Anxiety/Depression

  • Phobias, such as spiders or flying

  • Anger

  • Insomnia

  • Work, relationship, or life related stress

  • Smoking cessation

And because it is in the family of non-sleep deep rest, it may:

  • Stimulate neuroplasticity

  • Improve productivity

Limitations

Hypnosis is safe for most people, just like mindfulness and mediation is.

However, it is NOT suitable for everyone.

For example, hypnosis is not recommend for people who experience extreme forms of mental distress, like:

psychosis, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder

And what is hypnosis, I hear you ask.

Well, it’s a brain-body state of focused relaxation that is very normal for humans to experience. In fact, we all experience hypnotic-states in our day to day lives.

Yes, you experience hypnotic-states even if you don’t believe in so-called hypnosis. Alas, objective reality doesn’t care about your beliefs!

That’s a good question. Hypnotic-states are a feeling of zoning out, like when you’re driving to work along a familiar route, or even when you’re watching TV. If you’d like to watch someone get hypnotised in a therapeutic and scientific sense, watch this video, or this one (hypnosis, unfortunately, does not involve magic; in fact, it’s much more straightforward).

Very simply, your brain and body go into autopilot. When used in a therapeutic setting, however, the hypnotic experience can be guided towards particular and useful ends of the client’s choosing, like coping better with anxiety or reducing chronic pain.

Learn more by checking out hypnosis facts and myths. The most important one to know is that you cannot be controlled, and you cannot be made to do things you don’t want to do.

Those are myths, and they exist because of stage hypnosis - which is about entertaining audiences, rather than helping clients. Stage hypnosis does contain elements of truth, but the process is vastly exaggerated.

And what does it feel like?