Explaining the Powers of Hypnosis
by Jennifer Connor
Hypnosis is an effective means to change bad habits into good ones, negative feelings into positive ones while still being easy and enjoyable. Hypnosis works because of the way the human brain works. All emotion, beliefs and habits are kept in the subconscious mind. Hypnosis provides a direct link to our subconscious thus allowing us to manipulate our habits and replace negatives with positive beliefs.
Many of us t
hink of hypnosis as something similar to "deep sleep", but in reality it is more complex than that. Under hypnosis you are in a comfortable and relaxed state that focuses your concentration and attention, bypassing the filters of your conscious mind. Getting past these filters is what allows the subconscious mind to be receptive to positive suggestions and taps into the powerful mind-body connection. Experiencing a heightened state of awareness is common to most people while hypnotized, while approximately ten percent of people will become so relaxed that they do not remember the session. Hypnosis is not always the result of one person hypnotizing another, or even someone hypnotizing themselves. Everyone experiences natural hypnotic states at least twice a day, right before falling asleep and immediately after waking. Many people will also enter a natural hypnotic state while driving, often called "highway hypnosis". In fact, natural hypnosis may occur anytime you become complete absorbed in an activity such as reading a book or watching a movie. Everything else seems to get blocked out, even to the point of not hearing people talk to you. Whenever concentration is intense, natural hypnotic states are easy to slip into.
Hypnosis, and hypnotherapy, are not new. Hypnosis is known to have been used by the Egyptians in sleep temples as well as by the Greeks as an important part of the healing treatments. In modern times, the use of hypnosis came back with the work of Franz Mesmer, an Austrian physician in the 1700's. It was later brought to the medical arena in the 1800's by Dr. James Braid working in hypnoanesthesia. Hypnosis and hypnotherapy was also used as an effective and rapid treatment of post-traumatic stress disorders following both World Wars and the Korean War.
Since 1958, the American Medical Association has approved of hypnosis as an effective treatment and recommends that training be included in medical school curriculum. It is also recogized as a Complimentary and Alternative Medicine treatment modality by the National Institute of Health which continues to fund research in the feild of hypnosis.
While hypnosis is publicly best known for helping people break bad habits such as smoking and in the area of weight loss, researchers have also shown dramatic results in other areas. Areas that hypnotherapy has shined is as an adjunct to conventional treatments for cancer and for pain management. It is also known that hypnosis will often help in reducing and managing stress, overcoming insomnia, building self-esteem, and even improving performance on tests or in sports.
There are not many people who do not have habits or feelings that we would like to change. Unfortunately, it generally seems that nothing we do makes a lasting difference. It is not a flaw in our decision making or lack a will power, but rather a result of how our brains work. Hypnosis is the tool that unlocks the subconscious mind so that our conscious decisions to change are carried out in our day to day lives.
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