For individuals struggling with weight loss, exploring various options beyond conventional diets is a natural inclination. Hypnosis, a technique often misunderstood and misrepresented in popular culture, has emerged as a potential tool for adjusting one's relationship with food and fitness. While stage hypnosis might conjure images of people barking like dogs or acting out embarrassing scenarios, clinical hypnosis, facilitated by medical professionals, offers a different approach.
Understanding Clinical Hypnosis
Clinical hypnosis differs significantly from stage hypnosis. According to Samantha Gaies, Ph.D., a licensed clinical psychologist, hypnotherapy and stage hypnosis have very little to do with one another. Clinical hypnotherapy aims to guide patients into a relaxed state, often referred to as a trance, using techniques like deep breathing and visualization. This trance state is similar to the one experienced during daydreaming or routine tasks, where the "hamster brain" stops spinning, and focus shifts away from daily stressors.
Once in a trance state, the hypnotherapist guides patients through exercises designed to connect them with their desires for change. Tony Chon, M.D., a certified hypnotherapist, explains that hypnosis motivates the brain to make changes by accessing the subconscious brain, where many behaviors and motivations reside. Amanda Holtzer, M.S., R.D., a dietitian, adds that hypnosis allows modification of behavior by suggestion, potentially serving as the first step in the behavior change required for weight loss.
How Hypnosis Works
When someone is trying to make a major change in their life, like overcoming obesity, there can be a lot to think about: What foods you should be eating, how you should exercise, and where you’ll feel safe enough to exercise, for example. Certain judgements or fears might get in the way of forming long-term habits that could transform a person's health. Dr. Gaies likens the mind to a hamster wheel, with nonstop movement or thinking that doesn't typically lead to impactful changes.
Hypnosis is effective because it allows people the opportunity to slow down the analytical and intellectual chatter in their minds to more easily access and focus on what is deeper down and most important to them. In other words, hypnosis can help people tap into their subconscious brain, which largely influences our habits.
Read also: Exercise for Sleep Apnea
The Role of Hypnosis in Weight Loss
Hypnosis is not a magic bullet for weight loss. It's a tool that can help break patterns of thinking that prevent someone from developing healthier routines. Most people who approach hypnotherapy are already preparing to make lifestyle adjustments, such as altering their food choices or buying a gym membership. Hypnosis can help shift underlying thoughts and feelings to more helpful patterns of thinking, making diet and exercise come more easily.
However, relying solely on hypnosis to achieve weight loss goals may be challenging. To see lasting results, multiple sessions are often recommended. As individuals learn to go more deeply into a trance state, they may feel more in touch with their wants and needs, creating a heightened sense of autonomy and independence.
Limitations of Hypnosis
Hypnosis itself will not induce weight loss, as weight loss is a scientific equation based on caloric intake versus caloric burn. While hypnosis can aid the mental and emotional aspects of weight loss, burning more calories than you take in remains crucial. An attitude of confidence and optimism can be extremely helpful in a weight loss journey, and hypnosis might help embrace those positive thoughts and emotions.
Who Can Benefit from Hypnosis?
While some studies suggest that some people are less "suggestible," Dr. Gaies believes that everyone has the potential to benefit from hypnosis. Individuals who are open to the idea that a deeper state of relaxation is possible and are willing to let go can find hypnosis a fantastic tool. Those who are more creative and score higher on intelligence tests can more readily reach a hypnotic state.
Hypnotherapy can be helpful not only for people who want to those weight, but also for those who want to quit smoking, ease chronic pain, treat mental illness, or overcome phobias.
Read also: Benefits of Sleep Hypnosis for Weight Loss
Dietitians' Perspectives on Hypnosis for Weight Loss
Dietitians suggest that hypnosis might be helpful for weight loss if it's just one of many tools in your toolkit. Research suggests that it might be more effective when associated with psychological therapies, diet, and physical activity. However, the scientific evidence on hypnosis solely and weight loss at this point is inconclusive.
Ultimately, pairing hypnosis with a healthy eating plan and an exercise regimen tailored to your lifestyle is the most effective strategy for weight loss.
Potential Side Effects
For most people, there are no negative side effects to hypnosis. However, some doctors warn that hypnosis can be dangerous for individuals suffering from a serious psychiatric condition. Consulting with a psychiatrist before trying hypnotherapy is recommended for those with psychosis, an organic psychiatric condition, or an antisocial personality disorder.
Scientific Evidence Supporting Hypnosis
Multiple studies suggest that hypnosis has helped people achieve moderate weight loss. A 1996 Oxford study found that patients who received stress reduction hypnotherapy lost more weight than a control group that only received dietary advice. A 2014 Italian study showed that hypnobehavioral and hypnoenergetic therapy improved weight, BMI, and eating behaviors in women suffering from obesity.
However, it's essential to remember that most individuals who made strides incorporated other weight loss strategies like consuming fewer calories.
Read also: Cortisol's Role in Sleep Apnea
Finding a Qualified Hypnotherapist
It is important to be careful in terms of who you are working with. Aim for a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist.
Self-Hypnosis: An Alternative Approach
If hypnotherapy is not accessible, self-hypnosis can be performed at home. While less effective than guided hypnosis, it can still be beneficial. Self-hypnosis involves looking at bad habits, writing out affirmations, and listening to calming soundscapes. Regular practice can help change the chatter in your head and make healthier decisions with less conscious struggle.
Self-hypnosis is a process that involves using certain techniques to enter a hypnotic state. While in a state of intense relaxation, people often try to visualize certain goals. It has its origins in the practice of hypnosis and is typically used to help with stress and insomnia, as well as to try breaking habits such as smoking and drinking alcohol.
The Process of Self-Hypnosis
There is no universally accepted and medically approved procedure for self-hypnosis. However, the process generally involves the following steps:
- Setting and comfort: Creating a quiet, secluded spot and removing technological distractions.
- Setting a goal: Approaching the session with a specific goal in mind, such as reducing stress or improving sleep quality.
- Focus and relaxation: Focusing on a single point and relaxing by breathing slowly and deeply.
- Visualization: Visualizing a happy, peaceful scene and attending to its different aspects.
- Revisiting the goal: Recalling the goal and visualizing a scene that exemplifies it.
- Ending the hypnotic state: Breathing deeply while imagining more energy entering the body.
Self-Hypnosis for Sleep Improvement
Sleep hypnosis is the use of hypnotherapy to address sleeping problems. The goal of sleep hypnosis is not to make a person fall asleep during the hypnosis itself. Hypnosis for sleep may be combined with other types of treatment, such as cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I).
Hypnosis normally starts with a focus on a calming image or thought. Sleep hypnosis follows the same steps as hypnotherapy and involves therapeutic suggestions targeted to sleep. While most studies have focused on in-person hypnosis, there is some evidence that self-hypnosis may be possible using audio recordings, videos, or smartphone apps.
Small studies have identified modest sleep benefits from hypnotherapy. It may reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression, both of which are strongly correlated with sleeping problems.
Limitations of Self-Hypnosis
It is possible to become distracted from the relaxing or goal-directed mental imagery, which can lead to feelings of frustration. Some people may become bored, while others may feel sleepy. It is possible to fall asleep during self-hypnosis.
It is important to remember that self-hypnosis is a skill. With practice, people can become better at self-hypnosis.
Additional Considerations
Habits have a major influence on behavior. Like any medical therapy, hypnosis isn’t always effective. Many sleeping problems can be addressed by upgrading your sleep hygiene.
Recent Research on Hypnosis and Weight Loss
A recent study investigated the use of self-hypnosis within palliative care. The study authors report that people who received hypnotic treatments experienced less pain and anxiety than those who did not. Likewise, a 2021 study found similar pain-relieving effects from self-hypnosis among people with sickle cell disease. This same group of people also benefited from improved sleep due to self-hypnosis. A 2020 study also looked at the effectiveness of self-hypnosis for sleep in people going through menopause. It found that those who used self-hypnosis enjoyed a better quality of sleep than those who did not.
Alongside these individual studies, a few meta-analyses have concluded that hypnotic practices have some medical benefits. For instance, the authors of a 2018 review note a positive effect of hypnosis on sleep, although they also call for more research on this topic. A 2016 review suggests that hypnosis may also be useful for the emotional stress that people can experience during medical interventions.
A Randomized Controlled Trial
A 3-week randomized double-blinded parallel controlled trial among adults who have overweight or obesity was conducted to assess the effect of audiotaped self-hypnosis on the stages and processes of change as defined by the TTM of change using a randomized controlled design. The study concluded that self-hypnosis was not associated with a progression in the TTM’s stages of change or with weight loss after 3 weeks.