Hypnotize Yourself

Do you want a secret weapon to lose weight, quit smoking, develop an exercise habit, or project more confidence? Well, published research indicates that hypnosis can transform mental patterns and perceptions that create bad habits. In other words, to change your life it’s often necessary to change how your mind views your success. If you hypnotically see yourself as slim and vital, these mental images can become reality.

Even the internationally noted Stanford Medical School recognizes the power of hypnosis. They offer hypnotherapy for pain, symptom, and stress management, for phobias, and to prepare nervous patients for uncomfortable medical procedures. Today, hypnosis is gradually becoming mainstream, simply because it usually works.

Best of all, it doesn’t require a crazed man swinging a watch in front of your eyes. In fact, if you’ve ever been on autopilot while driving home, or lost yourself completely in a movie or not heard a sound while absorbed in your reading, you’ve already entered a self-hypnotic state.

Hypnosis is only a state of focused attention: one that occurs naturally for most of us, especially in childhood. If a frenetic work and home environment rarely allow this type of highly focused concentration, you may not have experienced this recently. Nonetheless, it is part of normal brain function and still accessible to you.

There is a range of suggestibility between any group of individuals: some can easily drop into focused attention or a trance, and others have to learn to relax first. Yet everyone can eventually achieve a hypnotic state. In fact, those who meditate or visualize are already practicing forms of self-hypnosis.

7 easy steps:

1. Choose a goal to focus on: weight loss, to quit smoking…

2. Find a place where you will not be disturbed for twenty minutes. Sit quietly in a comfortable chair where your back is upright and supported.

3. Close your eyes and take five deep, slow breaths. Breathe in through your nose, and exhale slowly through your mouth. Then, starting with your toes, tense your muscles as tightly as you can. Release them. Continue this process, moving slowly up your body until you finish with your head. Take a moment to scan your body. If there’s anywhere that remains tense, go back to that area and tense and release it until you feel your muscles loosen.

4. Once you’re relaxed, imagine yourself walking down a spiral staircase; note the material of the stairs, the temperature, and the sounds around you. As you step down each stair tell yourself, “I am going deeper into relaxation.” When you reach the foot of the stairs, you’ll be in front of a door. This leads to a room where you will be safe and warm for your hypnosis exercise.

5. Open the door, then close and lock it. Take in your surroundings and seat yourself comfortably in the room. Feel free to imaginatively furnish it exactly as you please. Then take a deep breath and let yourself be fully present in this new and safe place. Next, imagine viewing a movie of yourself, with as much detail as you can muster, performing all the actions necessary to achieve your goal. During this movie you see yourself doing each of the actions with confidence, ease and poise. The film ends with a scene of you achieving your goal and reveling in the joy that comes from accomplishment.

6. After you’ve watched the movie as long as you wish, and feel ready to leave this safe, imaginary place, slowly retrace your steps from the room and back up the spiral staircase. Take care to also deeply envision this part of the exercise. Once you’ve ‘arrived’ back home, sit for a moment with your eyes closed and take a deep breath.

7. Slowly open your eyes, and then when you’re ready, stand up.

For some, one powerful imagining of their new habits is enough to create a change. But most of us have to conquer our resistance and embed new patterns with repetition, usually over a month’s time. Keep repeating this exercise, constantly striving to add more sensation and detail. With time and practice, your ability to concentrate – to achieve a self-induced trance – will grow steadily, allowing you to conquer your bad habits day by day.