Nlp - Can It Make You Lose Weight?

Hypnosis, because of the movies, the very word conjures up the figure of a beady-eyed hypnotherapist swinging a gold watch repeating the words, "You are getting sleepy."

Use any search engine and you will find thousands of pages devoted to the subject. Unfortunately, many websites that sell hypnosis CDs make wild and crazy, unsubstantiated claims. I've been a hypnotist since 1978. So I think that I'm more than qualified to set the record straight on weight loss hypnosis.

First of all, hypnotic suggestion is a tool, just like a scalpel is a tool. Just as all of the various surgeons have different skill levels in the use of a scalpel, different hypnotherapists have varying skill levels in the use of hypnotic suggestion. And to complicate the matter, there are many different forms and types of hypnotic suggestion.

Here are just a couple of the silly claims about weight loss hypnosis that I've read about on the Internet, along with the the real story:

"Self-hypnosis will speed up your metabolism." If you want to know the truth, the fact is that hypnotic suggestion can't directly speed up your metabolism. But it can be very effective at helping to program your unconscious with increased motivation to exercise. And that exercise will increase your metabolism. Similarly, hypnotic suggestion to speed up the metabolism for quick weight loss can be effected by programming the unconscious to motivate the intake of increased amounts of protein, because that intake will step up your metabolism.

"Self-hypnosis will make you become thinner." This is false. But hypnotic suggestion can be used to help get rid of your appetite, so that you eat less. And eating less can help you to become thinner.
The average person's appetite and cravings for food and compulsion to eat are caused by two unconscious programs:

A. When you combine eating with any other behavior, the other behavior will trigger cravings for food and a strong desire to eat. This is called a conditioned response. For example, if you eat when you drive your car, you will get an urge to eat each time you drive your car.

B. When you feel stressed, you feel an urge to put something into your mouth for relaxation and pleasure. This is because of programming that you received as a baby. When you got cranky, your mother put a bottle in your mouth. You got distracted, relaxed, and probably fell asleep. Now when you get cranky (anxious or tense), you feel compelled to put something into your mouth for relaxation and pleasure.

C. There is a third unconscious program that is present for some people. It's called emotional eating. Emotional eating takes place when someone is motivated to make him or herself fat, because by being fat they will protect themselves in some way. For example, if someone gets their heart broken in a relationship, their unconscious can usually motivate them into a behavior that would prevent them from getting their heart broken again. Example: They are motivated to gain weight to keep them out of another relationship, because that will eliminate the possibility of another broken heart.

I've written several articles on this complex topic that are available on my website. These articles illustrate some powerful ways to use hypnotherapy for emotional eating.

So just how can weight loss hypnosis remedy the above mentioned problems?

I will cover them one at a time.

In paragraph "A" above: Conditioned responses can be "wiped out" quickly and easily using a technique that I call the "Flash." The Flash trains the subconscious to setup a new set of triggers and responses. In the above example, the subject had unconsciously associated the picture of food in the hand, with the image of a television. Each time he / she began to watch the television, the unconscious filled in the missing part of the image, it "Flashed" the image of the food in the hand, and the subject felt a craving, and a compulsion to eat.

The Flash is a technique that helps us to program the unconscious to use the picture of the television as a trigger for an image of the self, watching television while not eating. When we lose the mental image of the food, we lose the cravings.

When we momentarily disassociate (see ourselves from the point of view that another individual would), we are not able to feel our feelings (cravings and urges).

When we see ourselves in a behavior (watching television without eating), we feel compelled to generate that behavior. So the subject loses the cravings, and actually gets a strong compulsion to push food away.

In paragraph "B" above: The subject is eating and drinking for relaxation and pleasure. We teach the subject self-hypnosis for weight loss, because the very essence of the hypnotic state is deep relaxation. And we utilize the "Flash" to program the unconscious to use the thoughts and mental pictures that are causing feelings of tension, as triggers for secondary thoughts and images that will create feelings of peace instead. When the subject feels more relaxed overall, oral cravings are drastically reduced.

In paragraph "C" above: We discussed impulsive eating which makes the person overweight. The "behavior" of being overweight then provides some sort of emotional protection. So we use an NLP technique called a six-step reframe, which re-programs the unconscious to assume responsibility for making the person automatically substitute some other more acceptable behavior that will provide the same emotional protection, in place of being overweight. And that reframe will get rid of the compulsion to eat for emotional purposes.

Self-hypnosis for losing weight can be a very effective method. I can only cover the tip of the iceberg in this short article. You will want to see my website for more comprehensive information.