Healthy Habits and Hypnotherapy

From an early age, we’re all taught what good and bad habits are. We hear things like, “Stop biting your nails, it’s a nasty habit,” or “exercising every day is such a good habit” or maybe even “it takes 30 days for something to become a habit, so stick with it!” While that last one has been disproven, it is true that humans are susceptible to forming habits, good and bad. It’s also true that hypnotherapy can help modify and alter our habits, helping us break the bad ones and create good new ones. There is some science to this, so let’s break it down.

How does it work?

A habit is just a pattern of behavior. These behaviors can be things we’ve done intentionally like a morning routine, or they can be things we didn’t even notice was happening like nail biting. Hypnotherapy uses imagery techniques to stimulate our Reticular Activating System, or RAS. The RAS connects our brain (thoughts and feelings) to our body (physical reactions) while our consciousness is in a state of rest (sleep or hypnosis). By stimulating the RAS in a hypnosis session, we can reprogram our mind-body reactions to specific triggers, allowing us to reprogram old habits or even create new ones.

This method can also help us identify the root cause of habits we didn’t mean to create even if we don’t consciously remember it. For example, which traumatic event or which element of stress caused us to start having panic attacks or why we started smoking as a stress response. Additionally, with a method called 7PATH, some hypnotherapists can teach you to hypnotize yourself, so you can safely modify habits even when you aren’t in session.

What kind of habits can be altered?

Almost any of them! Hypnotherapy is mostly known to help with smoking cessation and weight/food related habits, but it could also help with things like nail biting or emotional misdirection (lashing out when we’re stressed) or even compulsive behaviors. As long as you are open and ready to make real change and your hypnotherapist is well equipped, a LOT can be achieved.

Who could it work for?

Generally speaking, 60-70% of the population is moderately hypnotizable, and another 10% is highly hypnotizable, a concept we got more in depth with in this blog. Beyond statistics, hypnotherapy can be effective for anyone who comes to the sessions informed and prepared and open to the experience, including teenagers (with parental consent). That’s why it’s very important to find the right hypnotherapist and to do your research before your first session! We wrote a blog about how to do that too.  A good hypnotherapist will support you in creating clear and achievable goals, help you come up with a realistic time frame and game plan that feels motivating instead of daunting or overwhelming, help you identify any potential obstacles and help you plan ahead to overcome them, and encourage you to focus on all the ways you’ll benefit from your newly modified habits.

At Blooming Lotus, we offer services targeted toward breaking unhealthy and unwanted habits. We can help you up your motivation to exercise regularly or complete household chores in a timely manner, or we can help you quit smoking. With a doctor’s referral, we can even help you manage eating disorders. In fact, Cyndal wrote a whole book about using hypnosis to overcome bad eating habits which you can find here. If you have habits you want to break, or if you find yourself wishing you had the motivation to create some new ones, we’d love to help you start that journey. Feel free to give us a call or schedule a consultation.