When the average person hears the word “hypnosis”, the first image may be of a magician forcing a hypnotized subject (likely an audience plant) to squawk like a chicken or hop on one leg while immersed in a suggestive mental state. But there’s a lot more to hypnosis than the show put on by charlatans and stage performers. In fact, hypnotherapy has been practiced for decades in an effort to help patients get to the root of their problems and adjust their inner dialogue in order to make positive and significant changes in their lives. You may have heard about such therapies helping patients to overcome bad habits like smoking and other addiction, or to deal with a wide variety of phobias such as fears of flying or dogs. And if you’re suffering from stress and anxiety, you’ll be happy to hear that undergoing hypnosis with a licensed professional may help you to reduce your feelings of panic, lower your heart rate, and deal with the hurdles of life as they come at you.
You might be understandably skeptical about therapy that relies on pocket watches on chains swinging like a pendulum before your eyes in an effort to make you sleepy. But this is hardly the practice nowadays. Modern hypnotherapists basically provide guided meditation sessions that help patients to relax and enter a suggestive state. While there is something to the idea that you have to subscribe to the process, you don’t necessarily have to be a true believer for hypnosis to work. You just have to be willing to relax and allow yourself to be guided. When you permit yourself to be led into a suggestive mental state by a trained professional, you can begin to uncover the root of your problems and condition your mind to deal with stress and anxiety inappropriate ways.
Now, you might be thinking that there’s no reason you can’t do this on your own. And while this is technically true, it’s bound to be a lot more difficult without help. For one thing, meditation and hypnosis are not the same things. Completely aside from the fact that it can take months or years to master the art of meditation, even with guidance, you’ll be hard-pressed to make suggestions to yourself in such a state (although you could presumably record messages for yourself and play them during your meditative practices). On the upside, meditation can definitely help you to relax and release stored tension. But it may not necessarily help you to deal with the cause of your stress and anxiety in the same way as hypnosis can.
The trick is to find a practitioner that is not only familiar with hypnosis for anxiety, but that you feel comfortable with. If you’re nervous about the prospect of allowing someone else inside your head, so to speak, you’re unlikely to get the benefits that such therapy can offer. But when you want to achieve awareness hypnosis can definitely help you to accomplish your goals, not to mention giving you the tools you need to deal with stressors and anxiety-inducing situations in a new and productive way that is better for your mental state and your overall health. You simply need to conduct consultations with specialists in your area in order to find a practitioner you trust.
