What Is Weight Loss Hypnosis?

Excess body weight can be unhealthy because it leads to some severe health challenges such as high blood pressure, heart problems, diabetes, arthritis, sleep apnea, cancer, among others. Weight loss hypnosis is a weight loss plan in which patients are put in a trance-like state, in which their minds are more open to accepting suggestions and receiving feedback. Weight loss hypnosis basically involves hypnotherapy, which is a procedure through which therapists aim to make patients relax and help them focus better.

Hypnotherapy is beneficial in clinical psychology to help patients control anxiety, change habits, and resolve mood disorders, overcome depression, relieve pain, and quit smoking. Some patients even learn to perform self-hypnosis to help themselves. Medical practitioners are fast embracing hypnosis for weight loss because it has been effective in helping patients identify key areas hindering their weight loss success. As a result, they exercise more regularly, make better food choices, and quit unhealthy habits.

How Does Weight Loss Hypnosis Work?

Some people struggle with believing that hypnosis can work for such a practical activity like weight loss. There’s definitely a scientific explanation for weight loss hypnosis. There are activities that take place in the brain during hypnotism. Some of such activities are decreased activity in the dorsal anterior cingulate that makes the mind stop worrying. There are connections between the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the insula that heighten during hypnosis. All of these and more are crucial to the success of weight loss hypnosis.

Types of Hypnotherapy

There are factors that hypnotists consider to decide on the type of hypnosis that is the most appropriate for a patient to achieve their weight loss goals. Here are the common types of hypnotherapy.

Cognitive Hypnotherapy

Cognitive hypnotherapy helps patients overcome post-traumatic stress and psychological disorders, thereby enabling them to achieve their goals more easily.

Psychodynamic Hypnotherapy

Psychodynamic hypnotherapy studies patients` personalities and their unconscious minds, and how these relate to their decision-making, thereby, seeking to influence their thoughts to enable them to achieve their goals faster.

Solution-Focused Hypnotherapy

With this type of hypnotherapy, patients express their desired goals to their therapists who ask strategic questions to uncover solutions.

Ericksonian Hypnotherapy

This type of hypnotherapy is an indirect process that entails storytelling and some other indirect methods of connecting with the minds of participants.

6 Benefits of Weight Loss Hypnosis

Boosts Self-Esteem

Weight loss hypnosis makes patents feel better about their current state as it helps them achieve their weight loss goals. It imparts higher self-esteem, increases confidence, gives a more assured feeling of satisfaction, a sense of acceptance, and enhances self-control.

Helps Manage Anxiety and Stress

Weight loss hypnosis, and self-hypnosis, in particular, is highly effective for treating anxiety and other stress-related issues that patients may have as a result of their weight.

Helps Treat Diabetes

Weight management is an essential part of treating diabetes. Hypnotherapy regulates weight, improves metabolism, and drastically lowers blood sugar levels. Overweight people who suffer diabetes or are prone to are usually advised to opt for hypnotherapy.

Manages Eating Disorders

Dietary habits have a huge impact on body weight. Cognitive-behavioral hypnotherapy, in particular, is effective in controlling food cravings and discouraging binge-eating. People who undergo weight loss hypnosis, over time, curb their careless food intake and have better control over their diet.

Reinforces Self Control

Obese people generally have issues abstaining from junk and controlling their food cravings. Fortunately, weight loss hypnosis increases self-control and helps participants avoid foods that add extra calories.

Aids In Long-Term Weight Loss

Weight loss hypnosis does not only help one lose weight immediately but also encourages them to maintain it. It is focused on long-term weight loss benefits.

Is Hypnotherapy for Everyone?

Hypnotherapy is usually a supplementary therapeutic process. You are advised to consult your doctor before settling for it. Anybody can participate in hypnotherapy, depending on the reason and requirement. There’s also pediatric hypnosis for children.

If you want to participate in weight loss hypnosis, you are advised to consult medically certified hypnotherapists to get the best results. Your therapist will ask you certain questions before the therapy begins; this will help them determine your hypnotizability, health conditions, duration of the therapy, and the best type of hypnosis for you, among other factors.

How Long Does Weight Loss Hypnosis Take?

The duration of weight loss hypnosis is not fixed — it is case-specific. For some, it can take weeks; for others, months; and some patients might even spend years in the process. Your hypnotherapist will decide the duration of the process and all that you need to do. They could also plan for follow-up sessions and teach you self-hypnosis if necessary. On average, patients have four to six sessions with their hypnotherapists.

6 Side Effects of Hypnosis for Weight Loss

There haven’t been major reports on side effects of hypnosis for weight loss, however, there are potential side effects, according to some studies. Here are some of them:

Visual Modifications

Hypnotic suggestions may cause a modification in the perceived color of objects. Some persons might have issues identifying colors or shades of them after some hypnotherapeutic sessions.

Posthypnotic Amnesia

After hypnotherapy sessions, participants may be at risk of temporary posthypnotic amnesia.

Auditory-Visual Hallucinations

Hypnotic suggestions may cause participants to have visual and auditory-visual hallucinations.

Traumatic Insight

After hypnotherapy sessions, patients may begin to feel an awareness of repressed memories. This can be a terribly challenging adverse effect because it could come with a new set of health conditions.

Excessive Dependency

Some patients may develop a high level of dependency on hypnotherapy or with their hypnotherapist.

Countertransference Issues

This is a side effect that entails the intrusion of unresolved power fantasies and internal challenges that patients may have.

Some Hypnosis Facts

• The word, “hypnosis,” has the root, “hypnos,” which is a word for “sleep” in the original Greek.
• Hypnosis was used in the early 1800s as a form of anesthesia, known as hypnoanesthesia.
• Hypnotherapy creates unconscious change in patients by putting them in a highly suggestible state.
• Hypnotherapy is also used in pregnancy and childbirth. It prepares a mother for birth, and during childbirth, it reduces pain, discomfort, and anxiety.
• Contrary to what many think, hypnosis does not entail magic or mind control.
• People aren’t made to enter hypnosis against their will.
• Hypnosis is a natural experience that happens to almost everyone daily — while reading, driving, watching TV, or at other times.
• All your senses are alert while you’re in a hypnotic state.
• The things you say and do in hypnosis are what you would normally say and do in a fully conscious state.
• During hypnosis, you can return to full consciousness any time you either want to or feel the need to.
• As you enter into hypnosis, you bypass the conscious mind and gain access to the subconscious mind.
• Hypnosis gives you the opportunity to make long-lasting changes.
• The subconscious mind constitutes about 90% of your total mind power and has a mental vision of everything that has happened in your life.
• Hypnotherapists use trance and suggestions to help even healthy people deal with everyday challenges such as coping with their jobs, family issues, and recreational activities.
• Hypnotherapists collaborate with physicians and other health care providers to ensure that patients receive optimal healthcare.