Weight Loss Hypnosis
Obesity is a leading health problem in America today. Some researchers predict that within a decade, nearly two thirds of all Americans will be at least overweight, and many of them obese. Obesity influences health, longevity, overall comfort level, self-confidence and many other aspects of life.
Hypnosis is a popular method for those seeking to lose excess weight. Compulsive overeating is a habit, a powerful addiction, seated in the subconscious. Overeaters are often in a daily, losing struggle with their own subconscious. Because hypnosis accesses the subconscious directly, it provides an opportunity to reprogram your approach to food and eating, breaking the overeating habit and making permanent changes in your behaviors.
How Hypnosis Helps You Lose Weight
A key problem in weight loss is the separation of hunger and appetite. The hypnotist will work with a client to determine if appetite has been mistaken for hunger, and create suggestions that realign these thoughts into their proper context.
Moreover, hypnosis can have a powerful effect on body image. The human mind carries within it a map, or image, of the external body. This map influences nearly every action, from how to move through a room to what clothes to wear. Researchers and the public have noticed that many people who lose significant weight continue to approach life as if still overweight. Over time, their bodies tend to expand again to fill the space allocated by the body image.
It is well established in sports that athletes who regularly visualize the actions of their sport make significant gains in the actual physical practice of the sport. Those who mentally rehearse a perfect 100 meter sprint become better sprinters. Those who mentally rehearse playing the piano become better pianists. Those who mentally rehearse being thin become thin.
Through hypnosis, the struggling conscious mind is relaxed and distracted, giving the client an opportunity to develop an inner vision of a thinner and healthier self. Through this work, this mental rehearsal, existing brain maps are rewritten and clients gain a new perspective to issues of food, eating and activity. Critical to success, once the body weight has been reduced, the work of creating a new body image makes it far more likely that you will not relapse into obesity.
How to Use Hypnosis for Weight Loss
There are many self-hypnosis recordings for weight loss available, from basic hypnosis sections to those blended with neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), binaural beats, subliminal messages and other technologies. Self-hypnosis recordings work moderately well for many people, though the sessions are rather general.
The greatest benefit and success will come from working in person with a hypnotherapist. A hypnotherapist will evaluate your individual concepts around eating, weight, activity and body image to create an individualized session. These sessions are flexible, integrate your responses, and can be changed each time as you make progress.
Many hypnotherapists will use self-hypnosis recordings in addition to in-person sessions to strengthen suggestions made during the session. Sometimes these are commercially available recordings, other times the hypnotist will create a recording of the in-person session to be used at home between sessions.