How Hypnosis Helps IBS

How Hypnosis Helps with IBS

          What is Irritable Bowel Syndrome?  No one seems to know for sure. Ask the medical community and it seems to be a confusing cluster of symptoms that have no real remedy.

Ask a person who has been struggling with IBS, though, and they will not be so unclear: IBS is a serious problem that causes pain and makes life difficult. At best, it is living with discomfort and symptoms that just make doctors shrug.  At worst, it is gut wrenching pain, and stomach events that can be painful, traumatic, and humiliating.

The cause of IBS has not really been determined.  Theories, though, about the cause are varied, and range from dietary issues such as food allergies, to an overly sensitive enteric (or gastrointestinal) nervous system, to bile acid malabsorption, to chronic alcohol abuse, to peristalsis, to a sedentary lifestyle.

It may be that all these elements make the symptoms of IBS worse.  We do know, however, that a series of changes seem to help most people with these symptoms.

It might be helpful to start a diary or journal.  Keep a running log of food eaten and symptoms.  It would also be helpful to note other factors such as stress level, exercise, medication taken, or anything else you think might be impacting your symptoms.  Think like a detective, look for clues and emerging patterns.

Another step would be to make sure you are eating regular, well balanced meals.  This means eating at the same time each day, three times a day. Eating too little at one meal, and then too much at another can induce symptoms. Make a habit of eating regular meals that are balanced, that is, that contain a combination of macro nutrients.  Allow sufficient time to eat your meals and allow yourself time for regular bathroom habits.

How Hypnosis Helps

       Many clinical studies show that hypnosis helps reduce or eliminate symptoms of IBS.  Hypnosis that uses progressive relaxation techniques, stress reduction, along with suggestions specific to a client's particular symptoms or concerns seems to be most effective.  One study, done at Britain's University of Manchester, showed that hypnosis helped 70% of IBS patients treated. 

       Hypnosis offers symptomatic and psychological benefits along with physical relief of symptoms.  What's more, in follow up studies, clients who used hypnosis to reduce or eliminate their symptoms were found to still be symptom free five years after terminating hypnosis!

  Why Does Hypnosis Work?

   The digestive system is very sensitive to stress.  Stress makes symptoms of IBS worse.  Hypnosis, by its very nature, helps clients not only reduce stress, but also be better able to cope with stressful situations, so that their overall level of stress is reduced.

   The vagus nerve runs from the brain through the whole digestive system, and controls much of the digestive process. Vagal tone, or the health of the vagus nerve, impacts the health of the digestive system.  Hypnosis has been shown to improve vagal tone, so it  impacts the health of the digestive system.

        The brain and body have powerful tools for healing. Our bodies want to be healthy, and they want to heal.  The healing abilities of our brains and bodies are released during sleep.  The immune system, autophagy, growth hormones, and other healing processes are activated during sleep, which is why we often feel better from ailments after a good night's rest.  

      Hypnosis mimics certain stages of sleep. When clients are in hypnosis, as shown in studies using MRI technology, brain activity and brain waves look a lot like sleep.  Hypnosis has the power to release the healing powers of the body that are only available to us when we sleep deeply. Some studies show that the brain, under hypnosis, can target certain things to heal; the suggestions given during hypnosis can help the brain and body "decide" where to target healing.

 Hypnosis can also improve sleep quality and duration.  Most hypnotists teach their clients self hypnosis, and give them strategies to help improve and deepen sleep, so the powers of healthy sleep are not only activated in session, but carried out once the client is home as well.

  Through stress reduction, improved self care, improved sleep, and hypnosis, IBS symptoms can become much more manageable.  If you are interested in learning more, contact me.  Inquiries are always free and I would be happy to answer any questions or provide any information via email, text, or by phone call!  Contact me today and start on your healing journey! 

  

  

How A Daily Dose of Kindness Can Protect Us

How A Daily Dose of Kindness Can Protect Us 

                    Modern life is stressful. We know this.  All we have to do is look at the numbers of people diagnosed with mood disorders. Those numbers have been skyrocketing.  Even our children are stressed; mood disorders and other symptoms of stress such as school refusal have been increasing among school aged children for years.

                  Stress hurts us physically and emotionally. It wears down our ability to cope, to find solutions, to look forward to positive outcomes.  It weakens our hearts, and impairs our ability to burn fat and use food as fuel in a healthy and balanced way.  It dampens our creativity and keeps us focused on the negative. Stress, especially long term stress, erodes the quality of our lives.

                  But we do have tools available to us to combat all of this stress and its symptoms. Simple things that we can do that end up having a profound effect on our ability to protect ourselves from the symptoms of ongoing stress are available to all of us are at our fingertips.   A simple but powerful technique to help combat stress and protect ourselves is to create an environment, as best we can, of positivity.  This includes the environment around us and also the environment in our own minds.

                 We begin creating this positive environment by spending time each day taking caring notice of ourselves. We can check in with ourselves to see how we are feeling and see if there is anything we can do to take care of ourselves.  And we can say kind things to ourselves.

              Seems simple, doesn't it?  Yet giving ourselves a little kindness each day in the form of truly being present and checking in with what we need and giving ourselves a positive self statement can have profound effects on the quality of our lives over time.
 
              Check ins reduce stress by allowing us to become more in tune to what we need, and so allowing us to take action to meet these needs.  How does this work?  How many times have we found ourselves working through lunch? Or racing from one place to another either at home, at work, or out doing our errands, and suddenly realizing we haven't had any water or a break all day?

             This is stressful. Ignoring the signals our bodies send to us to try to get our needs met sends messages to our minds and to our bodies that are negative and stress inducing.  Taking one minute to take a deep breath, be present, and see what we need and what we can do about it starts to turn this around.
    Maybe, when we pause to check in with ourselves, we find we need some lunch, a drink of water, or we are cold and need a sweater.  Maybe we need to get up and walk around for a few minutes, or sit down and rest.  Taking one minute a few times a day to be present, check in with ourselves and address our needs as we are able goes a long way to reducing the daily stress that builds up in our lives.

             Aside from Check-Ins, a daily positive self statement helps reduce stress, too.  We can be so negative with ourselves in our own minds.  We predict doom, tell ourselves we aren't enough, tell ourselves to not expect so much.  The problem is, our minds believe us.  What we believe, we set about making true.  Creating an atmosphere of positive thought in our own minds is the antidote to negative self talk.
          Think of a positive thing to say to yourself each day, and say it in the morning, and also when you notice your thoughts turning negative.  Some examples of positive self statements that people have used successfully are:
  Every day I do my best.
  I am capable, beautiful, and loved.
  I am good enough, I have enough, I do enough.
  Every day I live in the quiet expectation of good.
  I can be happy.
  I am a good, kind person and deserve to feel well and live a good life.

Every day, we can use these simple tools to help combat stress and lift us up, protecting us from the negative effects of modern life.

Remember to check in, a few times a day.  Some people find that checking in before meal time really helps them to be better in tune with their appetite and what food their bodies really need.  But do whatever works for you, try to find three times a day to check in and see what you need.

And give yourself one positive self statement a day.  Notice, as time goes on and you practice these two simple steps, how much better you feel.  Notice how the symptoms of stress start to reduce.

                  

               

Hypnosis

What is it? What can it do? Who can it help?

 Hypnosis is a natural state of consciousness that we all use daily. It is a state much like the state
we are in as we are falling asleep, or when we are driving a car on the highway lost in thought.
A hypnotist uses the state of hypnosis to communicate directly with the subconscious mind using
suggestions that reflect the client’s goals in order to solve problems, change habits or beliefs,
improve relationships, change perceptions, among many other things. It has been used to speed
healing after surgery, for addressing pain during childbirth, for anesthesia. A powerful and effective,
yet often misunderstood tool, research shows that 93% of clients achieve their goals after 6 sessions,
some need less.  

How does it work? Hypnosis is really two things: the state of being in hypnosis and
the power of suggestion.
When suggestions are carefully crafted to match the client’s goals, the subconscious mind readily
accepts them. The result is lasting change.

 It works very powerfully because our subconscious minds are really in charge of much of
what we do. Think about it this way: when we first learn something,
like driving a car or riding a bike, it takes our conscious minds a lot of effort.  
At first, it can seem like there is too much to think about, too much to remember.
As we practice, though, it becomes easier. And then we get to the point where we do much of it without
thinking about it.  This is because our subconscious mind has taken over much of the task.

Our subconscious mind is in charge of everything of which we are not immediately aware,
from our heart beating and breathing, to healing, to reacting when we touch a hot stove, to walking home
while having a conversation with someone; much of what we do is relegated to the subconscious mind.

Our subconscious mind’s primary goal is to keep us safe and alive. It creates fears to protect us.
It creates beliefs to help us understand our world and direct our behavior in a way that keeps us safe and
protected. It is a literal thinker, yet understands symbols and stories.

Very often, we learn behavior patterns when we are very young,
and do not have the ability to think critically about things.  
These beliefs and behaviors become ingrained in our subconscious
minds, and become our fall back pattern.  So, even when the behavior is no longer serving our
needs, we tend to fall back on it, especially when we are distracted, stressed, tired, overwhelmed,
or out of sync somehow.

 Hypnosis allows clients to make changes quickly by directly communicating with the
subconscious mind. The subconscious mind can learn and change, and hypnosis helps it do that.
It allows these unconscious behavior patterns and beliefs to be brought to awareness, examined, and
changed. It also allows the subconscious mind to think about beliefs and habits in a different way,
so that a new fall back behavior can emerge. Fear can be reduced, symptoms of anxiety,
depression, stress and worry, which cloud our ability to see solutions, can be reduced.  
The perception of pain can be reduced. New solutions to problems can be discovered,
as the subconscious mind is prodded to see the problem in a different way.

Hypnosis is a powerful tool that can effectively help anyone overcome problems, such as:

Smoking cessation

Weight loss

Chronic Pain Management/Headaches

Improving habits and lifestyle

Increasing confidence and performance

Improving relationships

Improving symptoms of depression and anxiety

Removing Fears

Goal Setting

Improving outcomes for surgery/improve healing

Eliminating Bed Wetting

Improving Concentration

Improve Study Habits

Improve symptoms of Stress, Anxiety, Worry

Reduce or Eliminate Insomnia

Improve Motivation

Relaxation and Stress Reduction

Habit Removal

And Many More

What Happens During a Session

During a hypnosis session, the hypnotist and client first talk to determine the goal for the session.
The hypnotist will also talk to the client about what hypnosis is like, what it can do, and
what to expect, as well as answer any questions.

  After the goal of the session is determined, the hypnotist will discuss strategies for meeting the goal,
and they will work together to make a plan of action with the client.  The hypnotist will then assist the client
in entering a state of hypnosis, and once that is accomplished, the hypnotist will talk to the client about
the goals and changes determined during the session.

The client is always the one in control. The hypnotist is the back seat driver.
The client can control their level of hypnosis, which suggestions they accept, and even end the session.
The client can reject any suggestion.

8 Steps to Hypnosis
Preliminary: Client and Hypnotist determine goals and strategies.
Hypnotist answers questions and explains what will happen. The Goal of the Session is decided and
Suggestions agreed upon.
Progressive Relaxation: A state of relaxation is reached so that it becomes easier to enter a hypnotic state
Induction technique: a form of guided imagery and further relaxation. The state of hypnosis is induced.
Deepening Technique: creates a deeper state of hypnosis if necessary.
Depth testing: Hypnotist determines if client is sufficiently in hypnosis,
and will either do another induction or another deepening if necessary.
Hypnotic Script: using imagery, direct suggestion, and guided meditation,
the hypnotist will suggest the changes that were agreed upon during the preliminary discussion.
Post hypnotic suggestions: Hypnotist will offer suggestions that will support the changes after the
session is over.
Exiting: the hypnotist brings client out of hypnosis.

Important Hypnosis Facts:

Anyone can by hypnotized, with a few specific exceptions: very young children,
the severely cognitively impaired, and the severely mentally ill.

A client can reject any suggestion, and is always in full control. They can come out of hypnosis
whenever they want to.  No one can be hypnotized to do anything they don’t want to do.

The ability to be hypnotized is not a sign of a weak mind.  

A deep state of hypnosis is most often not necessary to meet most client’s goals.

It’s not a truth serum. Anyone can lie or refuse to answer a question under hypnosis.
In fact, it can be used to fool lie detectors.

Hypnosis does not replace medical or psychological care.
It can support clients in making changes and improving outcomes, but is never intended to
replace any kind of treatment that may also be necessary.

Sleep, Weight, Heart Disease, Diabetes

Sleep, Weight, Heart Disease, Diabetes

        

            Does a lack of sleep, or sleeping less than 7 or 8 hours a night, directly contribute to weight gain? Does it also directly contribute to other diseases that plague so many, such as heart disease and diabetes? The answer, according to recent research, seems to be yes.

             Sleep is more important, it has been recently found, that most of us have thought.  Sleep is important for healing, learning, mood, memory, motivation, managing appetite, and preventing obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and even Alzheimer's.  The repercussions of not getting enough good, high quality sleep on our physical and mental health are devastating.  Sleep and good sleep hygiene are both catastrophically neglected curative and preventative treatments for many of the chronic ailments that plague us all.
 
          Did you know that there is a direct relationship between poor sleep and obesity? Obesity problems and sleep problems go hand in hand.  When we don't get enough sleep, our appetite increases, our cells process blood sugar less effectively, and we have lower impulse control.  So, we are hungrier, less capable of processing what we eat, and less able to make good decisions about what it is that we are eating.
        In 2003, a group of researchers coordinating from the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute of Health, and other organizations working on health research concluded a thirteen year long study about sleep. They found that in otherwise healthy young adults, a 95% correlation between short sleep (or not enough sleep) and obesity. They also found the reverse to be true, those subjects that slept an adequate number of hours were far less likely to be overweight, or to gain weight over the course of the study.

      This study was published in SLEEP in 2004, and concluded that improving sleep was an important tool for preventing and reversing obesity and the health problems that can go along with it.  This study took a look at people over the course of thirteen years, checking in on them at different ages.  Those with the shortest average sleep times had the highest body mass index by the end of the study, those that had the longest sleep times had the lowest BMI by the end of the study. They also found a correlation between short sleep and diabetes, with those sleeping fewer hours more likely to go on to develop diabetes later in life.  Why?

        When we are short on sleep, the cells of our body become more insulin resistant.  Insulin is released when glucose, or blood sugar, is present in our blood streams.  It is released by the pancreas to tell our cells to absorb the glucose out of our blood.  This is because, while cells can use glucose for energy, it is highly inflammatory to to the body, it is damaging to our circulatory system and the body needs to get rid of it as quickly as possible.

     When we are short on sleep, our cells can't absorb glucose as well.  They resist the call of insulin to absorb glucose.  The last cells to become resistant to insulin are fat cells, so our fat cells can absorb the sugar, turning it into more fat, but the rest of our body doesn't.  We end up staying hungry, and also increasing our fat cells.

    Inadequate sleep decreases the levels of the hormone leptin, which allows to feel full and burn fat.  Inadequate sleep also  increases the levels of ghrelin, the hormone that makes us feel hungry.  Inadequate sleep makes us, therefore, ravenous and not good at burning extra calories or fat reserves.
       Research shows that people who are short on sleep ate, on average, more than 300 more calories a day than they did when they had had a full night's sleep.   Trying to get by on 6 hours sleep is enough to cause this uptake in eating.  Based on evidence gathered through sleep studies over the past few years, not sleeping enough is very likely to be a key contributor to the obesity epidemic.

    Short sleep has also been shown to be hard on our hearts.  24% more heart attacks occur right after Daylight Savings Time ends, when we lose an hour.  The days after Daylight Savings Time begins, when we add an hour, see fewer heart attacks and strokes than any other time.

    Sleep is imperative for learning.  During sleep, our brains "empty out" our hippocampus, which stores short term memories, and decides what is important to remember, and important to process, and then stores what we need in long term memory.  Sleep helps us to put new information into context with things we already know, link memories, and solve problems.  Good sleep is crucial to learning.
  Matthew Walker, a neuroscientist who has been studying sleep, says, after years of intense research, "Sleep is one of the most important but least understood aspects of our lives, wellness, and longevity."

Sleep fights infection and illness by ramping up your immune system, which is why your body demands more rest when you are ill or recovering from something.  A few nights of not sleeping enough, less than 7 to 8 hours, renders the body more vulnerable to viruses, infections, even cancer.  Even a few nights of being short on sleep can reduce cancer fighting immune cells.  One study showed that in healthy young men, one night of sleeping only from 3am to 7am reduced the natural killer cells circulating in their immune systems by 70%.

Simply put, in order to feel well and to be well, we simply must sleep well.  The trouble is, how?

1.  The first step is to practice good sleep hygiene: Get up in the morning, stay up during the day time and go to sleep at a decent hour: 8 hours before your wake up time.  This is an important first step because you can only sleep when you are tired.

   2. The second step is to make sure you see natural light and get outside during the day to help signal to your brain when wake up time and sleep time are: your brain uses light to keep track of what time it is, and to keep track of when it's time to start to feel sleepy.
 
3. It's also important to sleep in the dark, for similar reasons, your brain only knows it's nighttime when it sees darkness. Exposure to bright light, especially overhead light in the evening throws off our body's signals that it is time to sleep, and delays the onset of sleep.  Think low light in the evening, and complete darkness at bedtime.

4. Sleep in a cool room.  Sleeping in a room that is too warm reduces sleep quality, as well. Our bodies are designed to lower their temperature while sleeping. Turn the heat down at night and sleep in a cool, dark room.

5. Reduce Alcohol.  While alcohol may make you feel drowsy, it actually impairs sleep.  Alcohol literally interferes with our ability to dream, so drinking before bed impacts learning and memory. It also interferes with our sleep cycles, so we end up waking up frequently during the night.  This disrupts how deeply we are able to sleep, so we do not get the full benefits of sleep when we have alcohol in our systems.

6. Eliminate Caffeine later in the day: Caffeine allows us to ignore signals that we are tired. It keeps the receptors in our brains for the chemical that builds up during the day, making us sleepier and sleepier the longer we are awake, busy. So we don't know how tired we are.  It takes at least 6 hours for caffeine to be cleared from the body, so eliminate caffeine after lunch time to improve sleep onset.
 
       Getting up early in the morning, getting outside in natural light, getting plenty of exercise during the day, avoiding napping,  reducing alcohol and caffeine, and getting to bed in a cool, quiet, dark room 8 hours before we have to get up can go a long way to positively impacting our mental and physical health.  If this does not improve your sleep, it might be time to see a doctor and have a sleep study done.  Ailments such as sleep apnea or other problems disrupt sleep and are also linked with obesity, diabetes, heart failure and stroke, as well as cognitive and memory problems.

    Improving sleep and protecting your sleep hygiene are major cornerstones of a lifestyle that allows you to be in your best shape mentally, physically, and emotionally.  If you have trouble sleeping, see if you can put any of these suggestions into practice.  Also, hypnotherapy can have a powerful impact on sleep. An experienced hypnotist can help not only uncover what might be impacting your ability to sleep, but will also be able to reduce physical and emotional symptoms that prevent falling asleep easily.  A good hypnotist will also be able to teach you how to use self-hypnosis at night in order to allow yourself to fall into a deep, restful, restorative sleep.

  If you are interested learning more about how hypnosis or hypnotherapy can help you improve your sleep, contact me!  Send me an email, comment on this post, or find me on facebook: @Tina M Grasso!

 

Hypnotherapy Helps!

How Can It Help You?  Hypnotherapy helps anyone who wants to

make a change or solve a problem, as long as they are ready to achieve their goals!  

It's one of the most effective solutions to many common concerns, such as smoking cessation, weight loss, chronic pain management, and the relief of symptoms of stress, depression, and anxiety.

How Does it Help?  Through a collaboration between the client and

practitioner, hypnosis is used to clear obstacles

preventing the achievement of goals, reduce symptoms, allow for creative problem solving,
and bring about changes to behavior, habits, and beliefs.  

Why it works:

   1. Through hypnosis, a client can change underlying

subconscious beliefs that are blocking the ability to alter habits,

reach goals, and access solutions. Hypnosis helps a client commit to new habits,

lifestyle improvements, and new ways of thinking.

    2. Hypnosis quiets the activity of the amygdala in the brain, the part that reacts to fear, stress, and anxiety.  Activation of the amygdala clouds the ability to see situations clearly. Our ability to understand and create possible solutions becomes shut down. Through hypnosis, we are able to quiet the amygdala and activate the parts of the brain that allow us to interpret our situation more effectively, generate solutions, and adjust our behavior. 

   3. By quieting the amygdala, and allowing the parts of the brain

that can think critically and creatively to function better,

the body and mind benefit from improvements to blood pressure, cortisol levels, and immune system function, and also from reduced stress, increased creativity, and improved problem solving. All of these factors improve how we feel, how we think, how we function, and how we heal.

   4. Hypnosis can change our perceptions.  All of what we perceive through our senses:

hearing, feeling, seeing, tasting, smelling, is processed through our brains,

especially our limbic region, or emotional processing center.  

The brain takes the signals from our senses and combines

them with our thoughts about those signals to create our experience.

By changing either of those factors: the signals from the senses coming in from the brain,

or how we think about those signals, we change our experience

and our feelings about our experience.   

5. Hypnosis can change our habits.  Often, our habits are behaviors that worked at one

point in time, for whatever reason, but no longer serve us in the present. The problem is that

during times of stress, fatigue, anger, or just when we get distracted or off schedule,

we often fall back on old behaviors because those have become our default setting.
Hypnosis brings out these old, outworn habits and allows our brains to reassess what we are
doing, and then process a new behavior.
Hypnosis can change our default setting, making it much more likely
that we will stick to the new behavior.

Don’t Underestimate the Power of Hypnotherapy!   

Make an Appointment Today!

Individualized Weight Loss Programs (HAES focus optional)

Smoking Cessation

Chronic Pain Management

Stress Reduction

Lifestyle Improvement

Age Regression

Freedom from Fears

Reduce Symptoms of Stress, Anxiety, Depression

Improve Performance, Improve Relationships, Improve Quality of Life!

Call, Text, or Email today to find out more or to make an appointment!  

978-257-3670, tinamgrasso@gmail.com, Facebook: @Tina M Grasso!

How Can Hypnosis Help with Weight Loss?

How Can Hypnosis Help You Reach and Maintain a Healthy Weight?

   
       Hypnosis supports weight loss effort in a variety of ways.  First, it can help to change our relationship with food.  Through hypnosis, we can come to see food as an enjoyable way to nourish our bodies. We can be allowed to let go of food as entertainment, comfort, and company.
How can hypnosis do this? Well, our subconscious mind is a creature of habit. When the going gets tough, or we are stressed, lonely, angry, upset or anxious, we fall back on old behavior patterns, because that is what our subconscious mind has learned has worked in the past.

       For some of us, as children, we were offered food as comfort and entertainment.  For some of us, when we were stressed, food was the only comfort available to us.  Or, we learned to use food as entertainment.  Others learned it was the one thing we could control. When we are young, we do not have control over our lives and we cannot think as critically as we can as adults about our circumstances.  What works for us in the moment becomes ingrained in our minds as fall back behavior: the cookie helped distract us from our boredom or loneliness. Getting take out or going out for dinner was a time of fun or relief from stress. Eating might have been one of the most pleasurable times of the day, or, maybe, the time during the day when we felt most connected to others.

Now,  it's not that any of these things are bad things to do, but when they get in the way of our goals, we need to make changes.  Many of us try, over and over again, to make changes. But we find ourselves falling back on old behaviors.  This is not because we are weak minded, gluttonous, or unaware of what we "should" be doing.  It's because we have some powerful underlying beliefs about food and its role in our lives.

    These beliefs and patterns stay with us, working under the surface, and drive our behavior.  This is why we can find ourselves not eating the way we intended; we can lay careful plans for a week of healthy meals, and then as the days roll on and the stress rises, we find ourselves driving through the drive thru or eating ice cream on the couch. This is our subconscious mind's way of taking care of us. This is what it has learned makes us feel better, it thinks it is solving the problem.

                                                       So, how can hypnosis help? 

      The good news is that the subconscious mind can be taught new tricks. Through hypnosis, we can teach the subconscious mind a new way of coping with external factors.  It can be taught that a nice walk, a call to a friend, engaging in a hobby or activity, a cold drink of water, listening to music, or any other positive habit we would like to develop, can help us feel calmer, more connected, less stressed,  happier.

      And once we start this process, it doesn't stop. We start to learn, really learn, how to use true self care to meet our needs, so we can start to put food back into its place: an enjoyable way to nourish our bodies at meal times, and that is all.

        Hypnosis helps us on another level, too. Because many of us fall back on old behaviors when stress rises. When we are anxious, fearful, or stressed the amygdala, the part of the brain responsible for fear responses, is activated.  When he amygdala is activated, it overrides other parts of the brain, such as the hippocampus, and we lose the ability to perceive our environment and our situation clearly.  We also lose the ability to come up with creative solutions or new behaviors. When our amygdala is in charge, we go back to what has worked in the past, and can't really see any other options.

         Under hypnosis, because it is such a deep state of relaxation, the amygdala quiets down. Our fear response subsides, and we are able to see all of our options more clearly, think creatively, problem solve and try new things. We can take the risk to reach out to someone or try something new.

       Hypnosis can also help us retrain how we perceive information coming into our senses. A skilled hypnotherapist can help us learn that healthy food is delicious, and also help us notice that junk food makes us feel poorly.  It can help us be aware of fullness and hunger. It can help us remember to take good care of ourselves so that stress and anxiety do not rise.

      These are just some examples of how hypnosis can help us reach our weight and health goals. It's hard to overstate just how powerful of a tool hypnosis can be.  If you would like to learn more, please  don't hesitate to contact me!

Hypnosis: A Misunderstood Power Tool

Hypnosis is a Misunderstood Yet Powerful Tool.

           When I first decided to become a hypnotist, many people looked at me strangely.  Because we have been mislead about what it is and how it works. It's actually one of the most powerful tools we have for behavior change and reducing the symptoms of stress. The uses for hypnosis are many, but the premise remains the same for almost all problems we are trying to solve with it: 

             Often to change our behavior, we have to change the way we think. We have to change the story we tell ourselves about what we are doing and why.

     Sounds simple, but it's not. We all have beliefs we developed early on, really before our critical minds could truly understand the impacts of those beliefs.  Those beliefs drive our behavior, and become our habits. These old beliefs stick around under the surface of things, driving our behavior behind the scenes. 

     

    As children, we do not have the ability to think critically the way we can when we are adults.  We believe much of what we are told, and develop behaviors to cope with our environment and our primary relationships. These default behaviors become ingrained, they become our fallback behavior.

      This is why we can have the best of intentions to start a new eating plan, a new exercise routine. We can decide we want to get up earlier, read more, be kinder, spend less money, stop smoking.  And, we can do all of these things for short periods of time, when we are focusing and using our willpower.  But willpower is a muscle that is not meant to be used all of the time.  It wears out. When stress rises, our schedule changes, or life happens, we fall back on our default behavior. Because our subconscious mind believes this default behavior is what works for us. This is the behavior, it thinks, that helps with the stress, fear, anger, exhaustion, or whatever it is that has come up.

      Hypnosis is a way to directly communicate with the subconscious mind.  Most of the time, our critical mind, our conscious mind, protects our subconscious. We don't allow new ideas in there very often.  When we work with a skilled hypnotist, though, we can communicate directly with this part of our mind to help it change the story.  We can bring these old, subconscious ideas and beliefs to the forefront of our minds, examine them, and change them. 

    Hypnosis is a powerful tool that can be used in so many ways. It can help us change our relationship with food, stop smoking, develop a daily exercise routine, reduce stress, anger, and fear. It can help us examine behavior that does not work in our own best interests. It can help us take the steps we need to take to reach goals we thought would always be out of reach. It can help us improve work and study habits, as well as performance. It can reduce anxiety.  It can help us manage chronic pain, symptoms of illnesses. It can help us improve relationships and create new ones. It can seriously improve the overall quality of our lives.

   Consider using hypnosis if you are attempting to make changes in your life. You will find it a powerful method to support changes. It's a relaxing, pleasurable, interesting journey that brings about results that can amaze you.  If you would like to learn more, please feel free to contact me!