How to Use Self-Hypnosis

Reduce your stress and meet your goals

Self-hypnosis builds on some of the previous relaxation and stress reduction techniques I’ve been talking about lately. Just as with the other techniques, it’s a learned skill and may not be immediately as helpful as it will after a few weeks of practice.

Hypnosis was first introduced by Mesmer (which is where the term being Mesmerized comes from) but has been studied for a variety of conditions and shown to improve stress and even insomnia. For example, in post-menopausal women, a 2020 study showed that:

program and treatment satisfaction were high in all groups, adherence to daily practice met or exceeded adherence benchmarks. There were significant reduction of poor sleep quality in all groups with a significant increase in minutes slept in all groups. The majority of women also showed clinical improvements of duration. There were clinically meaningful improvements in reducing the perception of poor sleep quality in 50%–77% of women across time. Overall, the use of self-hypnosis as a treatment program for sleep problems related to menopause was acceptable for women. Data further support that hypnosis is a promising technique to improve sleep in menopausal women with sleep and hot flashes.

While hypnosis in general probably elicits images of a swinging pocket watch or a stage show where someone acts like a chicken, that is actually pretty far from reality. Self-hypnosis in particular begins with Progressive Muscle Relaxation. If you aren’t familiar with that technique, I have previously written about it here:

Then you build on that state of relaxation to a state of heightened mental relaxation so that your consciousness may suggest alternative behaviors or ideas to your unconscious mind. This type of technique has been applied to many problems such as smoking, anxiety and weight loss to name a few. Some people worry that they will lose control of their own choices or do something silly, but rest assured that no one does something that they wouldn’t do consciously in this state. The stage shows are just that — shows.

Practice

• To begin practice, complete one full cycle of Progressive Muscle Relaxation (see my article above if you need instructions for this).
• Deepen your relaxation by completing a count down. You may start at 20 (or 100 if you are especially stressed and have more time) and count backwards in your head at a comfortable pace. This might take a couple of session to get the pace and starting number that feels right for you, but a good starting point is to count back by one for every two or three seconds.
• Add the Suggestion. Remember you are talking to yourself so try to use I statements such as “I am eating less and becoming more slender every day.” or “I feel confident and able to face tomorrow’s challenges.” While your suggestion might not immediately take root, if you don’t see any changes after 2 weeks of consistent practice, you might want to change your suggestion to see if another works better.
• Termination — It’s generally preferable to formally identify the end of the practice by thinking to yourself that you are going to be fully awake and alert after you count up to three for instance. For example, you might think “1. I’m beginning to come out of it and move to a waking state….2. I’m becoming more alert and getting ready to wake up…..3. I’m completely awake and refreshed.” Don’t worry, you CAN just open your eyes and go about your business.

As always, let me know how Self-hypnosis works for you and be sure to check out my other stress-reduction skills.