Self-hypnosis

Description

It’s a medically recognized technique that uses the mind’s innate powers to promote improvement in all kinds of mental and physical conditions.

A variety of health care professionals are trained in hypnotherapy — doctors, nurses, psychotherapists, dentists, and chiropractors.

With self-hypnosis, you don’t have to rely on someone else to guide you into this powerful mental state.

Let’s examine how hypnosis and self-hypnosis work, how you can use them to improve your mind and mental health, and how you can induce a hypnotic state of consciousness at will.

HOW DOES HYPNOSIS WORK?

Hypnosis is a trance-like state that’s characterized by extreme relaxation, increased suggestibility, and heightened imagination.

Hypnosis may work by changing electrical patterns of brain function known as brain waves.

Using electroencephalographs (EEGs), measurable changes in brainwave patterns have been detected.

During hypnosis, you are in the theta brainwave state — the same state experienced during daydreaming, deep meditation, and light sleep.

Another theory is that during hypnosis the conscious mind takes a backseat to the subconscious mind, allowing you or your therapist to work directly with the subconscious.

And lastly, it’s been noted that under hypnosis, activity in the left side of the brain goes down while activity in the right side increases.

So although the left-brain, right-brain dominance theory has been debunked, hypnosis may alter the way the two hemispheres of the brain communicate with each other.

WHAT IS SELF-HYPNOSIS?

Hypnosis was originally called mesmerism, as in the word mesmerize.

If you’ve ever found yourself mesmerized or entranced by a crackling fire, ocean waves, or ripples in a pond, you’ve experienced self-hypnosis.

You would have felt profoundly relaxed, lost in your thoughts, and temporarily unaware of the rest of the world.

Self-hypnosis occurs when you intentionally put yourself into this state without the help of a hypnotherapist.

ALL HYPNOSIS IS SELF-HYPNOSIS

In a way, the term self-hypnosis is redundant since, in fact, all hypnosis is self-induced.

Psychiatrist Milton Erickson, widely regarded as “the father of hypnosis,” considered all hypnosis self-hypnosis.

Unlike in the movies, where the villain hypnotizes his subject to do things she would never normally do, no one can hypnotize you if you aren’t willing.

A hypnotist or hypnotherapist merely facilitates the process.

But you are fully capable of achieving the same state on your own.

Most people inadvertently hypnotize themselves several times a day.

Most of us have driven a car while in a hypnotic state!