Hypnosis will help you achieve your weight loss goals by

1. Helping your get, and stay, motivated
2. Change your food cravings from bad-for-you to healthy choices
3. Face cravings by “thinking thin.”
4. Ensuring that the subconscious doesn’t get in the way of your weight loss efforts
5. Helps you recognize the difference between true hunger and emotional eating.

Improve Academic Performance
You can use hypnosis to turn poor grades into good ones. If the cause of difficulty in school is caused by your disinterest or dislike in it, hypnosis can help. The suggestions given to your subconscious by a hypnotherapist will help you begin to enjoy learning and going to school each day, which will then impact your study habits. Your grades will improve by your more focused attention, effort, and enjoyment that you will get from school.

Memory and Concentration Improvement
Also going hand-in-hand with helping you improve your educational experience, hypnosis will help you remember more and concentrate better. There are a number of reasons why a person’s memory is compromised. Perhaps lack of sleep, lack of food, stress, or aging has caused you to not be able to recall information as easily as before.

There are several points that are important when trying to improve your memory and concentration:

1. Heighten emotional states are typically times of easier concentration
2. You need to have the intention to remember
3. You need a real interest in the subject
4. Use imagery and repetition to create more favorable memory situations
5. Being relaxed is essential for recalling
6. You need to have self-confidence that you can have a strong memory

Hypnosis will help you sharpen your memory and improve your focus. You will notice that your memory improves with the ability to remember more, more often.

Uses for Hypnosis

Weight Loss

In addition to eating right and exercising regularly, hypnosis is a powerful tool you can use in achieving your weight loss goals. For many people, their intentions are good, but they often lack the motivation needed to be successful when getting started. Here is how hypnosis can help:

1. You will experience slow weight loss which is most healthy, and longest lasting
2. You will learn healthy eating to keep weight off permanently
3. You will find new habits that you will enjoy, thanks to hypnosis, like exercise and healthy foods
4. You will have more positive self image as a thin person which will help you lose weight
5. You will remove the stress associated with losing weight, causing you to eat less
6. Your view of the weight loss process will change from negative to positive
7. Your increased confidence will help you become a new person

Why do people have weight problems? For various reasons, however, the most common reason is stress. Most people are multi-tasking and trying to balance family and work. The time crunch, coupled with the fact the many people eat comfort foods when stressed, means obesity and weight gain.

Hypnosis can help. Studies show that cortisol is a major player in the body’s response to stress. Stress signals hormones to stimulate the adrenal glands, which also activates pleasure seeking behaviors. To many, eating comfort foods – those that are high carb, high fat, high sugar, and high in empty calories – is a pleasure seeking activity.

Hypnosis relaxes the stress drive, causing the brain to not crave comfort foods and overeating. Hypnosis is also used as a proactive tool to avoid overeating in the first place.

How it Works

How does hypnotherapy work? A hypnotherapist will offer suggestions that the subconscious mind will accept. Once these suggestions are accepted and implemented, the mind begins making different choices. For example, for a patient that is trying to shed pounds, the hypnotist might suggest that food is not as appealing or tasty. As your mind accepts the suggestions given when hypnotized, you will find that next time you are presented with a food that is not good for you, your subconscious mind will tell you it is unappealing.

Types of Hypnotic Induction

How do you get into a hypnotic state? Trained professional hypnotists use several different methods to induce hypnosis. They are:

1. Fixed gaze - eye fixation
2. Imagery – progressive relaxation
3. Mental confusion
4. Mental misdirection
5. Loss of equilibrium
6. Nervous system shock

Psychodynamic Theory & Philosophy

The theory of psychodynamics focuses on people and their relationship with their surroundings and the rest of the environment. It is believed that a majority of your world can be influenced by your mind.

The brain takes cues and suggestions as subliminal communication, and when using scientifically proven concepts change can occur rather quickly. The change is often quite effective and long-lasting. Overall, the psychodynamic theory of hypnosis tells us that when offered suggestions; the subconscious mind can make positive change.

The Science Behind Hypnosis

There is more to hypnosis than just self-induced hypnotic tapes or the receiving of suggestions from a hypnotist. While these are both valid parts of hypnosis, there is more science behind the practice.

Brain waves are influential in the effectiveness of hypnosis. The brain has several states. They are:

- Beta: Waking state
- Alpha: Focused concentration*
- Theta: Deep meditation*
- Delta: Dream state

When the brain is at the alpha or theta state, hypnosis is effective. The mind is influenced during the delta and theta states. In this situation, the voice is a powerful tool; hence the hypnotherapist is invaluable here.

The subconscious mind can be seen as the connection between the nervous system and the conscious mind. This is why hypnosis is often used to unblock a memory.

What Exactly IS Hypnosis?

Hypnosis is difficult to define. People go in and out of a hypnotic-type consciousness everyday. Hypnosis compares to daydreaming in that you are still completely a part of your surroundings, however, your mind wanders.

In hypnosis, the hypnotist gives suggestions to guide a person through a mind journey. By guiding you through the subconscious, the guide can give powerful suggestions that will help you successfully make changes to your negative self-destructive behaviors, while substituting them for positive ones.

There are five states that need to be present before you can be hypnotized. They are:

1. Concentration
2. Relaxation
3. Motivation
4. Suggestion
5. Imagination

Hypnosis works because it affects your subconscious mind, which is unable to reason. Since it cannot reason, it accepts and acts upon the conscious mind’s suggestions. Before the conscious mind can be used as a tool in change, the five states above need to be in place.

According to researchers, the conscious mind takes up only 10% of the human brain. Conscious mind activities are everything you do that interacts with the environment around you. The remaining 90% of your brain is the subconscious mind. This part handles the body’s functions- such as breathing, blinking, muscular and skeletal interactions, and even cellular activity.

The subconscious is also where we get creativity and intuition, as well as emotion and rational/irrational behavior. The subconscious mind often has influence over the conscious mind. One of the bad parts of the subconscious mind is that it sometimes draws illogical rationalizations that lead to dysfunctional negative behaviors.

One of the most important points about the subconscious mind is that it is possible to reprogram it.

Commonly known as the gate between the conscious and subconscious mind, the “Critical Factor” has the power to take in or reject suggestions. When the Critical Factor sees change as threatening, it rejects the suggestion in an effort to protect.

This is why any suggestions that do not coincide with what is programmed in the subconscious are rejected. The Critical Factor has to be bypassed in order for change to take place. This means that you will go past emotion, memories, and habits. Once this is done, real change will occur.