Self-hypnosis, thanks to TV and movies, the very word conjures up the visualization of an evil-eyed hypno-therapist swinging a pendulum and chanting, "You are getting sleepy."
Do an AOL search, and you will find millions of web pages focused on the subject, especially weight loss hypnosis. Unfortunately, many websites that sell self-hypnosis CD's for weight loss make wild postulations. I've been in this business since 1978. So I think that I'm larger than qualified to set the record straight on weight loss hypnosis.
First of all, self-hypnosis is a tool, just like a scalpel is a tool. Just as remarkable surgeons have varied skill levels in the use of a scalpel, remarkable hypnotists have noteworthy skill levels in the use of hypnotic suggestion for weight loss. And to complicate the matter, there are many remarkable methodologies of hypnotic suggestion.
Listen to a couple of the wild suppositions 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." If you want to know the truth, the fact of the matter is that weight loss hypnosis can't speed up your metabolism. But it can be very efficient at helping to program your unconscious with increased motivation to exercise, and exercise can increase your rate of metabolism. Similarly, hypnotism 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 the metabolic rate.
Posthypnotic suggestion will make you lose some weight. This is false. But weight loss hypnosis can be used to help cut out your appetite, so that you eat less, and eating less can help you to lose some weight.
Your cravings 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 strong urge to eat.
This is called a conditioned response. For example, if you eat while you drive, you will automatically get an urge to eat each time you drive your car.
B. When you feel tense, you feel a strong urge to put food into your mouth for relaxation. This is because of programming that you received as an infant. When you got crabby, your nanny 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 unconscious program that is present for some people. It's called emotional eating. Emotional eating takes place when a subject is motivated to make him or herself fat, because by being fat they will protect themselves in some way.
For example, if a subject got their heart broken in a relationship, their subconscious can usually force them into an action 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 abandon the possibility of another broken heart.
D. I have written several articles on
hypnosis for weight loss and compulsive eating that are available on my website.
There are some effective and powerful ways to use hypnotic suggestion to eliminate emotional eating.
So just how can weight loss hypnotic suggestion fix the above problems? Let's cover them one at a time.
In paragraph "A" above: Conditioned responses can be "wiped out" without much effort using an NLP technique 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 associated the image 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 visualization: It "Flashed" the depiction of the food in the hand, and the subject felt a compulsion, and an urge to eat.
The Flash is a mode of procedure we use to program the subconscious to use the image of the TV as a trigger for a picture of yourself watching TV without eating. When we lose the picture of the food, we lose the cravings.
When we momentarily disassociate (see ourselves from the point of view that another person 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 an urge 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 unconscious to use the mental pictures that are triggering feelings of nervous tension and annoyance, as triggers for secondary thoughts and mental images that will trigger feelings of relaxation instead. When the subject feels more relaxed overall, oral compulsions are greatly reduced.
In paragraph "C" above: We discussed impulsive eating which makes the person overweight. The "behavior" of being overweight then provides some sort of emotional protection. So we use a discipline called an
NLP Six-Step Reframe which programs the unconscious to be responsible 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 abandon the urge to eat for emotional purposes.
Self-hypnosis for weight loss can be a very useful technique. I can only uncover the tip of the iceberg in this short characterization. Please see my website for more comprehensive articles and information.
