Sadly, for many people their only experience of hypnosis is with stage magicians and performers. Unsurprisingly they often associate it with illusion or tricks. Yet increasingly the benefits of taking a more active control in managing one’s mind (using techniques like self-hypnosis) are being recognised by the wider scientific community and general public. So what is it that they are realising?
The mind is such a powerful tool. It not only controls the conscious aspects of our lives like talking or perhaps reading this article but it also controls the subconscious processes critical to our survival like breathing, regulating our temperature and our heart beat (and so many more processes besides).
It has long been recognised that hypnosis can positively influence our thoughts and perceptions at a conscious and subconscious level but what many people don’t realise is its power to therefore enhance our physical well-being. The misconception can be due to a false concept that the mind and body are entirely distinct when clearly they influence each other all the time. Don’t believe me?
A quick experiment
Try slumping your shoulders over and hanging your head forward and make your face look sad. Go on try it. Now keep that way for 20 seconds. How do you feel?
Now roll your shoulders twice, stretch, sit up straight and smile slowly and broadly and keep that way for a few minutes while you read this article. We’ll come back to it. I promise.
So if hypnosis can help us control our minds then what aspects can we control? Well there are so many different things the brain does for us it’s hard to know where to start but to name a few
- by influencing the way we view food and exercise, say, we can help control our weight
- by influencing the way we view things like exams, for example, we can help regulate our stress and immune response
- by learning to relax and regulate blood flow we can reduce migraines
AND EVEN
- by controlling the way we perceive pain we can even replace the need for anaesthetic in operations
This isn’t just the domain of illusionists. The NHS Doctors, Dentists and anaesthetists are using these techniques right now in their day to day practices. In fact Diana was trained at the UCL’s prestigious hypnotherapy unit which only trained medical professionals.
Now back to that experiment
Are you still smiling? Well, depending on how committed you were to the experiment you may notice that you feel slightly different to the way you felt when you were slumped. It’s not news. Our physiology affects our mind. Ask any Alexandra Technique practitioner or read this article from Times Magazine to learn more about how your mind and body interact especially around smiling. How to Lift Your Mood? Try Smiling (Times Magazine)
If you are interested to learn more then there is a wealth of scientific research available online. We summarise some of the sources relevant to this article below:
Weight loss programmes can be more than double effective with hypnosis (University of Connecticut)
Research showing the reduction in migraines through the use of hypnosis (The Departments of Pediatric Neurology, Behavioral Pediatrics and Research, and Pharmacy, Minneapolis Children’s Medical Center, Minneapolis)
Improved immune response using hypnosis to control stress (Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology)
Review of the Efficacy of Clinical Hypnosis With Headaches and Migraines (University of Utah School Of Medicine)
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