Healing the mind with Self-hypnosis: How you can fight your habits at home

For people who have spent a lifetime trying to kick a habit or overcome a fear, they have probably exhausted every option possible. Enter hypnosis, a method used for years to help people find a solution. From weight loss to reducing anxiety, there are self-help tracks for almost anything you can think of. We take a closer look at what this means and how it works.

What is self-hypnosis?

Hypnotherapy is the practice of putting an individual into a relaxed and trance-like state so that a therapist can help them focus on their problem. The patient is then guided by verbal cues to help them address and treat their problem. Hypnosis only works if a patient is willing. Resistance will render hypnotherapy ineffective if the client is not receptive to the process.

Hypnotherapy can now be readily accessed in the comfort of your own home. The internet has a wide range of self-hypnosis tracks to help you start your journey into reaching your therapeutic goals. Our minds are incredibly powerful yet malleable. Just because you have a fear of something today, does not mean you will have to live with it for the rest of your life. Thousands of people overcome their fears and habits everyday by using hypnotherapy. Taking time out of your day to practice self-hypnosis could be the best gift you could give your future self.

Conscious vs subconscious

Try and imagine your mind working in two states, the conscious and the subconscious. Your consciousness is responsible for the active thoughts you have each day, what you need to do at work, decisions on what to make for dinner. The subconscious controls our habits such as biting our nails. We do it because it brings comfort in stressful occasions, we hate that we do it but since it brings that short positive feeling, the subconscious allows that.

Ever driven somewhere, not thinking too much about the route and before you know it, you’re home without realising? The subconscious mind stores learned information such as knowing how to drive or ride a bike. You don’t have to actively think about it because your mind can easily go into autopilot and do the task for you.

So what happens if the behaviours you want to change are controlled by your subconscious mind? It’s a lot trickier to change subconscious thought. Where we would normally change our conscious minds umpteen times a day deciding on what to eat or wear, the subconscious is tricker to shift. We can all tell ourselves that smoking is bad or biting our nails will make our fingers look like stumps, but the truth is that these habits are too well ingrained in our mind and sadly our subconscious doesn’t really want to change anything about it.

Positive thoughts

Self-hypnosis can help you rewire your brain. For many people, negativity forms the bulk of their everyday thoughts. “I won’t apply for that job because I’m not good enough” or “there’s no use losing weight because I’ll never be happy with how I look” are just some examples of small microaggressions we aim at ourselves subconsciously. Even though, deep down, we know that

with some effort, we could feel better about ourselves, our subconscious controls our thoughts based on how we perceive ourselves.

Instead of starting your day with a negative mindset, it’s important that you include positivity in everything you do. Self-hypnosis helps reinforce the mindset that you can accomplish any challenge with effort. Changing how you think rather than solely what you think are an important part of overcoming your personal challenges.

Breaking the habit

For years, people have sought the help of hypnosis to beat their habits. Think of hypnosis and you may picture a swinging pendulum and a magician making you cluck like a chicken, but in reality, hypnosis is so much more. Using the power of language, hypnosis guides into a relaxed state so that you can better manage negative behaviours. Over the years, many people have looked to hypnosis as a way to treat habits and fears when all other treatments have failed. With the internet, self-help tracks are now easier than ever to access. Dedicating a few minutes a day to listen to these tracks can bring clarity and understanding to your problems and give you techniques to control them.

In a recent study published this year, researchers found that self-hypnosis helped patients with claustrophobia to undergo an MRI1. The close confinements of an MRI machine can make anyone uncomfortable but for those with a fear of small spaces, it can be even more terrifying. The patients listened to a self-help hypnosis tape while in the waiting room. Following this, they found that they were much calmer and less likely to request sedation prior to their scan.

Self-hypnosis is one of the most encouraging and productive things one can do to help beat a fear or habit. Like talking therapies for the treatment of mental health disorders, words are incredibly powerful and provide great reassurance. By removing old thought processes, you can replace negative sentiments with positive action and ultimately beat your fear.

You only have to google self-hypnosis to see that there are plenty of resources online to help you. Taking time out of your day to listen to these tracks and practice self-care can lead to a much better sense of self. You needn’t attempt to fight your demons alone.

Healthy behaviours

Dedicating a few moments a day to listen to self-hypnosis tracks can help your mind unwind and focus on what matters. Whatever it is you’re trying to steer yourself away from, the calming words of self-hypnotism will bring you to the realisation that there is a way forward.

Effective hypnosis requires practice. Don’t expect results if you’re intent on not being receptive. It can be easy to be sceptical of hypnosis, after all, people assume that it won’t work anyway. Take time out of each day to listen and promise your future self that you’ll continue to do the exercises. Seeing benefits take time so be resilient and patient.

If you want help with overcoming a fear or anxiety or maybe you are looking at beating a bad habit browse our website for therapies produced by our world class hypnotherapists that have helped tens of thousands of people around the world. 

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References:

1) Napp, A.E., Diekhoff, T., Stoiber, O. et al. Audio-guided self-hypnosis for reduction of claustrophobia during MR imaging: results of an observational 2-group study. Eur Radiol (2021).