Hypnosis, thanks to movies and TV, the very word conjures up the impression of a beady-eyed hypno-technician swinging a watch and chanting the words, "You are getting sleepy."
Do a Yahoo search, and you will find hundreds of thousands of web pages devoted to the subject, especially weight loss hypnosis. Unfortunately, many websites that sell self-hypnosis CD's for weight loss make wild, unsubstantiated claims. I've been in professional practice since 1978. So I think that I'm more than knowledgeable enough to set the record straight on weight loss hypnosis.
First of all, hypnotism is a tool, just like a scalpel is a tool. Just as assorted surgeons have diversified skill levels in the use of a scalpel, diversified hypnotists have assorted skill levels in the use of posthypnotic suggestion for weight loss. And to complicate the matter there are many varied forms and types of hypnotherapy.
Here are some of the wild claims about weight loss hypnosis that I've seen on websites, along with the truth of the matter:
"Hypnosis for weight loss will speed up your metabolism." The truth is that weight loss hypnosis won't speed up your metabolism. But it can be very useful at helping to program your subconscious with increased motivation to exercise, and exercise can increase your metabolism. Similarly, autosuggestion to speed up the metabolism for quick weight loss can be effected by programming the unconscious to motivate the intake of increased amounts of protein, because that intake will step up your metabolism.
"Self-hypnosis will make you become slimmer." This is false. But weight loss hypnosis can be used to help diminish your appetite, so that you eat less, and eating less can help you to lose some weight.
The average person's appetite and urges are triggered by two subconscious programs:
A. When you pair eating with any other behavior, the other behavior will trigger cravings for food and a compulsion to eat. This is called a conditioned response. For example, if you eat when you watch a movie, you will automatically get an urge to eat each time you go to the movies.
B. When you feel tense, you feel a strong desire to put food into your mouth for relaxation. This is because of programming that you received as a baby. When you got difficult, your mom put a bottle in your mouth. You got distracted, relaxed, and probably fell asleep. Now when you get cranky (anxious or tense), you feel compelled to put something into your mouth for relaxation and pleasure.
C. There is a third subconscious program that is present for some people. It's called emotional eating. Emotional eating takes place when a person is motivated to make him or herself fat, because by being fat they will protect themselves in some way.
For example, if someone got their heart broken in a relationship, their subconscious will usually motivate them into a behavior that would prevent them from getting their heart broken again. Example: They are motivated to gain weight to keep them out of another relationship, because that will annihilate the possibility of another broken heart.
D. I have written several articles on hypnosis for weight loss and emotional eating that are available on my website.
There are some powerful ways to use weight loss hypnosis to overcome emotional eating. So just how can weight loss hypnotism fix the above problems? Let's cover them one at a time.
In paragraph "A" above: Conditioned responses can be "wiped out" without effort using an approach that I call the "Flash." The flash trains the mind to setup a new set of triggers. In the above example, the subject had unconsciously married the impression of food in the hand, with the TV. Each time he / she sat down to watch the TV, the subconscious mind filled in the missing part of the impression: It "Flashed" the impression of the food in the hand, and the subject felt a urge, and an compulsion to eat.
The Flash is a technique that helps us program the subconscious to use the visualization of the TV as a trigger for the mental impression of you watching TV without eating. When we lose the visualization of the food, we lose the cravings.
When we momentarily disassociate (see ourselves from the point of view that someone else would), we are not able to sense our feelings (cravings and urges).
When we see ourselves in a behavior (watching TV without eating), we feel a compulsion to engage in that behavior. So the subject loses the cravings, and actually gets a strong compulsion to push food away.
In paragraph "B" above: The subject is eating and drinking for relaxation and pleasure. We teach the subject self-hypnosis for weight loss, because the very essence of the hypnotic state is deep relaxation.
And we utilize the "Flash" to program the subconscious to use the mental pictures that are triggering feelings of nervous tension and aggravation, as triggers for secondary mental pictures that will trigger relaxation instead. When the subject feels more relaxed overall, oral compulsions are greatly diminished.
In paragraph "C" above: We discussed obsessive eating which makes the person overweight. The "behavior" of being overweight then provides some sort of emotional protection. So we use a technique called an NLP reframe, which programs the subconscious to take the responsibility for making the subject automatically substitute some other more acceptable behavior that will provide the same emotional protection, in place of being overweight. And that reframe will eliminate the urge to eat for emotional purposes.
Self-hypnosis for weight loss can be a very powerful methodology. I can only uncover the tip of the iceberg in this short story. Please see my website for larger comprehensive articles and information.
By: Alan B. Densky