Perhaps you’ve first heard of hypnosis in movies, wherein it’s portrayed as a method of controlling a person. Some movie villains or bullies will use it to make a person commit crimes or fall in love with someone.
Alternatively, you might have seen an actual hypnosis act on a stage. You might have seen a magician recruit people from the audience and get them to do something when they’re told a ‘magic’ word.
The way hypnosis is portrayed in media and stage may make most of you think it’s not real or only for fun. In reality, hypnosis is way more than that. In healthcare, it’s known to bring benefits to a person’s health and wellbeing.
Hypnosis is often used as a psychological treatment that can change your behaviors, thoughts, perceptions, and sensations. It’s commonly done by licensed professionals such as a physician or a psychologist.
Once patients have undergone hypnosis, they will feel relaxed, calm, and more open to suggestions. In medical terms, this treatment is called hypnotherapy.
What Is Hypnotherapy?
This is a form of therapy that uses hypnosis to treat people who have problems with controlling their behavior, vices, irrational thoughts, and other habits. During a therapy session, they can feel calm and relaxed as their concentration and focus starts to heighten. A licensed healthcare professional may do this by using mental imagery and verbal repetition. The hypnotist may also give patients instructions that will direct them to think of pleasant experiences from the past or bring them into a trance-like state.
Even though hypnotherapy remains a 100% natural and normal way of psychological treatment, it’s still considered one of the most enthralling phenomena of a person’s mind. This unique ability to enter a person’s own state of consciousness gives medical professionals a chance to help patients heal, understand themselves, and change.
Now that you know about hypnotherapy and what it’s all about, here are six amazing benefits you can reap from this natural treatment.
- Alleviate Anxiety
Hypnotherapy may be a helpful tool if you’re constantly struggling in dealing with your anxieties. Some of the reasons a person can suffer from severe anxiety can be due to a chronic health condition, phobia, past trauma, or intense conflict.
Hypnosis works in alleviating anxiety by helping your body stimulate its natural relaxation response through a nonverbal cue or phrase. When hypnotized, you’ll experience the following:
- Lowered blood pressure
- Slowed breathing
- An overall sense of wellbeing
For instance, if you’ve been suffering from anxiety due to conflicts or past life trauma, you may schedule a session for a past life regression therapy from a trained and licensed hypnotherapist. Past life regression therapy is a mild version of hypnotherapy wherein the practitioner will help diffuse the fog on your mind about the traumas from the past, enabling you to see and understand your memories more clearly. Experiencing a session may leave you with the feeling of having more control of your emotions and awareness of yourself.
- Promote Healthy Sleep
When you’re under hypnosis, you’ll be in a sleep-like state but will be still awake. For people struggling to fall or even stay asleep, hypnosis may help you relax and put you at ease.
If you’re a habitual sleepwalker, hypnotherapy can also train you to wake up as soon as your feet hit the floor. That way, any sleepwalking escapades in the future will be avoided.
If your goal is to improve the quality of your sleep, this therapy can help you with that too. Once you learn self-hypnosis techniques, you can include them in your bedtime routine and increase the time you spend sleeping. As an additional benefit, the routing may also help you easily wake up easily, feeling refreshed and fully energized.
- Treat Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) Symptoms
According to a study, hypnosis has been effective in treating irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). IBS is a health condition in which you experience abdominal pain caused by your bowels. This causes an uncomfortable feeling and can sometimes be debilitating under certain circumstances.
If you have IBS, you may experience bloating, diarrhea and constipation. With hypnotherapy, its progressive relaxation effect can provide you with soothing sensations and imagery that may help fight off IBS symptoms. Some of these symptoms that hypnotherapy can alleviate include fatigue, backache, nausea, and urinary problems.
- Ease Chronic Pain
Suppose you’re experiencing chronic pain brought by your surgery, or perhaps you’re experiencing body pains such as headache, back pain, migraines, or arthritis. In that case, hypnosis can help ease the pain. With hypnotherapy, the practitioner will guide you in gaining more self-control over the pain you feel, and ultimately, help you cope with it.
Hypnosis may serve as your relief as it may turn down the pain that you’re feeling. Keep in mind that hypnotherapy may be effective in alleviating chronic pain only when done frequently and for longer periods.
- Quit Smoking
If you ask every smoker, most of them would admit that giving up smoking will never be an easy task. Smoking can be difficult to break, especially if your life has revolved around it for so long. You’ll have to navigate an endless list of prescription medications and over-the-counter nicotine replacement medications. But sometimes, it’s not always enough. You may need hypnotherapy.
Hypnosis for smoking cessation can only work best if you closely collaborate with a hypnotherapist for one-on-one sessions. When you work with your own hypnotherapist, they can customize the treatment to ensure it matches your lifestyle. For hypnosis to work effectively in helping you quit smoking, you need to genuinely and whole-heartedly want to stop smoking and everything related to it.
There are two ways hypnotherapy can work for you.
- It can help you find a healthier alternative or replacement for smoking, and they’ll guide you into sticking to this new habit. It can be taking a walk, drinking tea, or chewing a piece of gum.
- It can help you thoroughly train your mind to associate smoking with negative feelings or outcomes such as foul odor, bad breath, or sour taste.
- Avoid Overeating
Some of you may think that the key to losing or maintaining a healthy weight is through regular physical exercises and consistently following a healthy diet. But these efforts will only be successful if you also get rid of those unconscious, emotional factors that prevent you from achieving your weight goal. For instance, as soon as you feel stress, your mind’s first instant instinct is to grab something from the fridge, therefore ruining your healthy diet.
Going through hypnotherapy will sharpen your concentration. Your hypnotherapist will keep on guiding you towards healthier food choices and help you avoid overeating under any circumstances. Once you have control over your eating habits, you’ll soon be able to incorporate your new healthy eating habit into your lifestyle, making it easier for you to achieve your weight goal.
Wrap Up!
Successful hypnotherapy will require practice and may sometimes take time. But with the help of a professional hypnotherapist, you’ll learn how to focus on yourself and shut down any external distractions. With proper training and practice, you can reap these amazing benefits of successful hypnotherapy. Just ensure you stay open-minded.
