By Warren York
Many issues can be treated using hypnotherapy but it’s important to be careful as some hypnotherapists may claim a lot more than they can deliver.
When choosing your hypnotist always check with your doctor that there is no physical cause of an issue before attending any alternative or complementary practitioner.
Here are some of the issues a good hypnotherapist may be able to help you with:
1. Stress and Anxiety
As our lives get busier, stress and anxiety can build leading to other health problems. Hypnotherapy can help the unconscious mind let go of the unnecessary tension that can build over a period of time without us even noticing until it is at a critical level. Coping strategies and relaxation techniques can lead to some rapid improvements where stress is concerned.
2. Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)
With 8 million sufferers in the UK, this is a more common complaint than most people think and hypnosis can help greatly.
Dr Peter Whorwell has published in the medical journal, The Lancet, on it’s effectiveness.
Hypnotherapy could help in the following ways:
Helping you to relax, easing the symptoms if they are triggered by stress.
Teaching powerful creative visualisation techniques to imagine relief for symptoms.
- Programming in a new, positive reaction to stress triggers.
3. Fears and phobias
We are only born with two fears, loud noises and the fear of falling. All other fears are learned, sometimes in an instant and sometimes over a period of time. Hypnosis can retrain the unconscious mind and “unlearn” the irrational fear.
4. Sports Improvement
Many of the top sports men and women in the world use hypnosis to get to the correct mental state for sporting excellence. Sometimes it’s called Sport’s Psychology but it uses the same visualisation techniques and mental training so that the athlete can perform to their peak ability.
5. Hypnotic Gastric Band
Gastric Band Hypnotherapy is a powerful technique that uses the power of your mind to fit a “virtual” gastric or lap band to your stomach.
As the mind feels that the stomach is fuller more quickly and for longer, this results in a decrease of appetite and food consumption without the expensive operation.
6. Stopping smoking
Out of all the methods to stop smoking, hypnotherapy is probably the most successful.
In a large scale study, on average, hypnosis was over three times as effective as nicotine replacement methods and 15 times as effective as trying to quit using will power.
Usually only one session is required but the client has to want to stop smoking. As with any hypnotherapy, nobody can be made to do anything they don’t want to.
Warren York is a hypnotherapist in Belfast. For more information go to www.warrenyorkhypnotherapy.com