Changing habits

Habits that can be modified using hypnotherapy include:

• Giving up smoking

• Losing weight through healthier eating

• Ceasing nail biting

• Releasing bruxism (grinding teeth)

• Increasing desire to exercise and get fit

• Overcoming addictions to specific substances or behaviours

• Managing anger and other emotional states

• Helping children cease bed-wetting

Habits are behaviour patterns that we repeat over and over again without seeming to choose to do them. When we consistently repeat a behaviour, it's as though our unconscious mind learns the program and we can run the habit on autopilot without even deciding to do it.  Without having to think about it, we set up triggers in our environment that initiate the habit on an unconscious level.  Some of these are useful, for example, cleaning your teeth when you get up in the morning or driving to work without having to think about directions because the route is so familiar.  These things are ingrained into our brains and this makes life easier as we do not have to make decisions to carry out everyday behaviours. 

Unfortunately, other habits are less desirable but equally ingrained such as having a coffee and lighting a cigarette or meeting someone new and biting our fingernails.  Sometimes someone's nails have been bitten down to the quick before they even realise they are biting them.  People sometimes react with frustration or guilt when they find themselves repeating a habit they are trying to avoid.  Actually, this is not useful because the unconscious mind does not react positively to anger or blame and the behaviour continues.

The unconscious mind, however, will react to suggestions that are offered in a hypnotic trance state.  Do you remember the fable about the sun and the wind having a competition to take a man's cloak away from him?  The wind blows a gale but the man just pulls his cloak tighter around him.  Then the sun gently beams down on him and he happily removes his cloak and casts it to the ground.  Dealing with the unconscious mind is like this: persuasion is the key as force will have the opposite effect and cause the habit to become ingrained even more deeply.  No wonder we find it so hard to change when we were taught that berating ourselves and others was the answer.  The hypnotherapist knows how to talk to the unconscious mind in its own language and gently dissolve unwanted behaviours.

Releasing old habits and creating new ones requires changes to take place on an unconscious level and this is why hypnosis is so effective for giving up smoking, reducing the desire for certain foods and modifying other habits.  When the unconscious mind has released its desire for the behaviour or substance, there is no underlying conflict which is why a reputedly addictive substance such as nicotine can be given up without cravings.

In fact, the addiction to the physical substance is the least important aspect.  This is how people can become addicted to non-substance based behaviours such as shopping, biting nails and even watching television!  In each case, the craving to engage in the behaviour is very similar, even where no actual substance is involved.

Most habits can be modified within a few 1 - 1 sessions of hypnosis.  We offer a special smoking cessation package which has an excellent success rate.

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A goal without a date is just a dream

Milton H Erickson