Archives for March 2015

Smoking is an addiction that kills. It causes cancer, ravages the body and the brain, and even destroys the sex drive. Yet, millions of people all over the world cannot get rid of this addiction.

Why exactly do people smoke when they know very well that it’s bad for them? Why would your brain, which is always looking out for your survival, allow you to do something that is so terrible for the health of your mind and body?

The simple answer is that we are all human, and sometimes it is difficult to imagine life without the pleasure that an addiction brings. People get addicted to a lot of things such as food, sex, working out, gambling, Internet, or alcohol. Smoking is not any different from the pattern of any of these addictions.

But the good news is that it is possible to get rid of this addiction. When used the right way, hypnosis is a really effective technique to help you quit smoking.

How Does An Addiction Work?

For any addiction to work, you first need an expectation that it is going to be good or pleasurable. When you engage in the addictive action, you get really excited and reach an almost trancelike state. The brain produces dopamine, a natural cocaine-like chemical, which causes this excitement. You also get a feeling of satisfaction with the release of chemicals called endorphins.

It is both endorphins and dopamine together that encourage a person to do essential things such as eating and drinking, having sex, and resting when tired. If your brain didn’t reward you for doing these things, you wouldn’t do them at all. But unfortunately, it is exactly the same reward system that has been designed for survival that creates addiction for even survival threatening activities such as smoking.

Habituation is an important aspect of addiction. The more you have something, the more you need to reach the same state of satisfaction. This too is a human development mechanism. When you master the skill, you get a pleasurable endorphin and dopamine rush. But the newly developed skills become second nature and to get the same pleasurable buzz, and you need to up your skill level. This is what gives you the drive to continue developing yourself.

This pattern of addiction, i.e. first building a tolerance to a pleasurable experience and then doing more of it to get the same pleasure, is what drove human beings to develop themselves, invent things, and enable civilizations.

But as you know, addictions can also backfire.

How Hypnosis Can Help You Quit Smoking

Only about 10 to 12% of the brain is conscious thought, the rest are subconscious. Hypnosis works because it helps you be in control of where you put your attention, and consequently make your own decisions.

Your brain has learned certain things related to smoking - that it is pleasurable, and that you cannot do without it. Hypnosis can help the brain relearn rapidly. You will be able to identify and modify the subconscious motivations that drive you to smoke. You can also do away with the associations that trigger smoking.

You will also learn coping skills to tide through emotional or stressful times without lighting up. Armed with your new skills and attitude, you will be able to get through the first few days of the chemical addiction relatively easily. Then you deal with the psychological addiction in further hypnosis sessions for long-term success.

Hypnosis is not a magic pill, but it is a highly effective tool to break all sorts of addictions. With a little bit of professional help and willingness to work on yourself, you will be able to get rid of your smoking habit for good.

Hypnosis Therapy Clinic is THE Solution-Focused choice to help you Stop Smoking !
Our Quit Smoking Hypnosis Program is provided over
3 sessions.

Whether it is sipping on herbal tea before sleep or meditating for a few minutes, people all over the world are using alternative methods for relaxation and stress relief. Traditional stress medications come with a long list of side effects. So it is no wonder that people are turning to less damaging, but equally effective alternatives.

Hypnosis is a great way to bring about a state of relaxation and relief from stress.

Hypnosis is often seen as a type of relaxation, but they’re not exactly the same. Hypnosis can be a relaxation state, but not necessarily. What hypnosis really is, is a heightened state of attention. It is this heightened state that leads to several physiological and psychological changes that can be used for positive behavioral training. It is similar to the REM or rapid eye movement state during sleep which governs the dreaming experience.

There are certain experiences that can be highly emotionally hypnotic, but not relaxing. Extreme pain, anger, depression, fear, lust etc. are hypnotic states, but they are not relaxation states.

While hypnosis by definition is not relaxation, therapeutic hypnosis can be used to attain states of profound relaxation. By linking the right state of mind to the right activity, hypnosis can get a person to naturally feel happy, confident, and relaxed.

Different Kinds Of Stresses

Life today is very hectic, and brings with it multiple types of stresses. One of the more common types of stress is related to time, that there are not enough hours in the day. You are driven by the external clock, at the cost of neglecting your own sophisticated internal biological clock.

The natural ultradian rhythm, or the switching of dominant brain function from the right hemisphere to the left every 90 min or so, is designed to maintain us in a state of optimum relaxation. If the switching doesn’t happen, then the stress hormones are released. Of course it is not practical to take a power nap every 90 minutes, but if you keep pushing yourself all the time, you will find that you are in a constant state of stress.

The media is also another source of great stress. TV, radio, and newspapers deliberately use great emotion to capture your attention. Food manufacturers use addictive substances to keep you hooked. The news that you see every day on TV can make you feel worried, threatened, and unsafe.

Is it any wonder that people are highly stressed out and really need to relax?

Get Your Joy Back With Relaxation

When you’re able to relax deeply, you get your brain and your joy back. A deep sense of calm will restore your ability for planning, complex learning, and more efficient processing of the world. Relaxation can help you in different ways.

• It will reduce the heart rate and give the heart arrest
• It will reduce the blood pressure
• It increases blood circulation
• It allows the emotional parts of the brain to rest, enabling the thinking brain to work efficiently
• It decreases muscular tension

When you’re relaxed, you will have more energy, improved immunity, better sleep, enhanced concentration, and problem-solving abilities.

Hypnosis Will Make It Work

During hypnosis, you are in a highly suggestible state. A competent hypnotherapist can help you sink into deep relaxation by making you receptive to suggestions about taking life easy, and reducing the amount of fear, pain, and discomfort associated with daily activities.

The impulsive “anxiety reaction” can be replaced with a “relaxation reaction” at the hands of a skillful hypnotherapist. A few sessions of hypnotherapy will teach you how to be calm and happy even in highly stressful situations.

Hypnosis Therapy Clinic is THE Solution-Focused choice to help you overcome your stress and learn to relax !
Our Hypnosis Programs are provided over
3, 6 or 9 sessions.

Did you know that depressed people dream almost 3 times more than they would if they weren’t depressed? This is because of unfulfilled emotional expectations. When you are depressed and anxious about something, you tend to ruminate and this leads to increase in dreams.

Dreaming happens during the REM state of sleep. High levels of REM can lead to exhaustion because of overwhelming orientation responses. Serotonin, a neurotransmitter, is also used up as you dream. Serotonin can affect mood, social behavior, and cognitive functions including learning and memory.

A depressed person will unfortunately wake up really exhausted because of high levels of REM activity, lack of deep restorative sleep, and the associated depletion of serotonin. When you’re exhausted, you’re more inclined to think in black and white. This leads to more negative rumination and consequent overdreaming. Depression is a vicious cycle. If you do not take active measures to combat depression, it can significantly affect the quality of your life.

Treating Depression: What Works?

Research on depression shows that the way you perceive depression, or what you actually think it means, plays a crucial role in the efficacy of the treatments that are undertaken.

Millions of people around the world take antidepressants to treat depression. They’re often the first treatment option that is prescribed by health professionals. But antidepressants treat only the symptom of depression rather than the root cause. This means that antidepressants will be effective only in some cases, and that rate of relapse will be quite high. Also for many people, the side effects of the medicine are more unpleasant than the actual depression itself. This will cause them to discontinue the treatment altogether.

The good news is that it is possible to beat depression through hypnosis, with the help of a competent hypnotherapist.

The conscious mind is only about 10% of our thoughts, the rest are subconscious. During hypnotherapy, you get in touch with the subconscious thoughts that you have. People often have unfinished business with whatever they have lost - a loved one, a home, or a job. A lot of these unresolved feelings, regrets, resentments, guilt, anger, jealousy, blame, and fear are stored in the subconscious mind. They are triggered whenever a stressful event occurs. Hypnotherapy for depression works because it will remove the underlying basis for the depression. It will help complete the unfinished business which would otherwise continue to recycle in your head as self-sabotaging thoughts and corresponding behaviors.

Hypnotherapy will let you access the deepest layer of all the traumatic experiences, emotions, and memories that you have stored in your mind. Once they are released from your mind and body, you will feel your depression lifting. You will be able to stop the compulsive behaviors and thoughts. Hypnosis with the help of a competent hypnotherapist will make you ready to resume living your life again.

Every healing session of hypnotherapy will replace fearful, depressing, and repetitive thoughts that haunt you after traumatic experiences. After these negative thoughts have been successfully released from the mind, positive affirmations will work because of the emotional release that has been accomplished.

Hypnosis is an effective way to enhance an individual’s ability to affect the mind and body. By releasing self-sabotaging thoughts, you can use hypnotic suggestibility to improve the functioning of the body. Hypnosis can help correct restless sleep, chronic pain, headaches, chronic depression, and many other conditions.

If you are suffering from depression, try a hypnosis session today.

Hypnosis Therapy Clinic is THE Solution-Focused choice to help you overcome your depression!
Our Hypnosis For Depression Program is provided over
6 sessions.

Consider a fearful situation that you could possibly be in. Public speaking is one of the most terrifying things for most people. Let’s say you have been invited to speak in front of a hundred people.

Imagine this: you’re in front of a hall full of people. They’re looking at you, waiting for you to say something profound or interesting. You wilt under their intense scrutiny. You forget everything that you had practised. You can hardly read the notes in your hand. You cannot get a single word out of your mouth, and you shamefully exit the stage.

This is what most people would imagine after they accept an invitation for a speech. These thoughts will trigger your imagination and cause a great deal of anxiety.

But when you actually get on the stage, you may end up giving a reasonably good speech. Then why did you get worked up before the actual event? It’s because your imagination can really torment you and make you believe that you’re actually experiencing what you’re thinking.

Fear needs a channel to flow down. If nothing life-threatening is happening when you’re feeling fearful, your imagination will create a channel for the fear to pass through. Even if there is no evidence of any threat, count on your imagination to quickly fabricate something which will justify the sensation of fear.

In a fearful state, all inputs from your imagination are taken as solid evidence. Fear or anxiety will cause you to make up stuff and then actually believe it.

Hypnosis to Relieve Anxiety

Fear is essentially the misuse of imagination, when there is no immediate real danger. This is precisely why hypnosis can help. The best way to access your imagination is through hypnosis.

Fear can be a great motivator. But the thing is, it can actually motivate you away from things that may be good for you. Fear is like a dog that must be trained.

Your instincts will do as you teach them. They learn by what you actually do and the level of emotions that you feel when you’re doing something. They don’t know exactly what they’re supposed to fear. So they will just start fearing the situations that you imagine to be fearful.

If you actually repeatedly and calmly do something that is in fact a life-threatening, then your fear instinct may switch off around that particular activity. This is why people are able to consistently enjoy extreme sports and activities like skydiving. Imagine the sheer terror you would feel the very first time that you jump out of a plane. But if you consistently do that over a long period of time and train yourself to be calm when you do it, you will dissociate the fear instinct from the activity.

But you don’t even have to really do something to bring down your fear levels, you just have to imagine yourself doing it and then feel calm as you are imagining it. This will train your instincts to produce calmness when you really find yourself in the situation. The best way to accomplish this is by accessing your imagination during a hypnotic state. During hypnosis, you can get in touch with your subconscious mind and trying your fear instinct and anxiety.

Hypnosis will help you rehearse fearful situations ahead of time while feeling calm and relaxed. Over a few sessions, your instincts will learn how to remain calm even when fearful situation transpires.

Hypnosis Therapy Clinic is THE Solution-Focused choice to help you overcome your anxiety !
Our Hypnosis For Anxiety Program is provided over
3, 6 or 9 sessions.