Hypnotherapy is a combination of Hypnosis and Therapy, the style of therapy can vary, but can hypnosis alone help and how do hypnosis MP3s work?
At Old Town Hypnotherapy we use Solution Focused Brief Therapy with hypnosis, the therapy is proven to be helpful and hypnosis we know works; used together they are a very powerful combination and accelerate the therapeutic process. But hypnosis alone can achieve amazing results so how do Hypnosis MP3s work?
There are different theories and no one know exactly how hypnosis works because the mind is so complex, but we can surmise two separate things happening when you listen to a hypnosis track, the first should be, but isn’t obvious.
The process of relaxing in a chair, lying down or, best of all, in bed when you’re ready to sleep, you are positioning yourself to relax and by doing so, you are giving your subconscious an instruction to relax. Relaxing the mind can take some practice and at first, especially when anxiety is present, it can be quite difficult, but it isn’t long before your mind recognises the position, sound, music, voice etc and knows what to do and will be happy to go into a trance quickly, welcoming the relaxation.
As you start listening to the track, your mind focuses on the voice, it is a type of active listening where you deliberately tune in to what is being said, following guided visualisation or considering what you’re being asked to consider. This very process distracts your mind from your problems and for that time, you are not thinking about what is causing you anxiety, so your conscious mind finds it easier to switch off.
When you stop focusing on problems or what is worrying you, your mind relaxes and a significant shift takes place. Your intellectual brain can take dominance again. When you have anxiety or depression a different part of your brain, the primitive part, or limbic system is in dominance, this encourages you to focus on problems and creates anxiety and adrenalin. This primitive part, is not an intellect, it cannot work out solution to stuff, it’s not rational and it hijacks your imagination to focus on the worst possible scenario and imagines everything else which could go wrong. When you have anxiety or depression, this is the unhelpful part of your brain which takes control. When you use a relaxation track, guided imagery, hypnosis track etc, with practice, your primitive brain relaxes enough to come off red alert and allow your intellectual, the clever part of the brain to click in, rationalise situations, put things in perspective and start working on solutions.
So the first effect hypnosis alone has, is to allow your intellect to take control and put things in perspective. Then, once you are in a trance, (which is lovely by the way and you are in control all the time, even though it may feel as if you’ve drifted off) something else happens
Shortly after going into a trance, your conscious brain often switches off (feels like sleep) or it wonders off (thinking about something else), this doesn’t matter at all, because when you go into a trance, your subconscious takes precedence and this is the powerful part of your brain where everything happens at an ‘unconscious’ level. For example, your belief systems, what you accept as reality, your map of how the world and your life works, everything you have learned, understood and accepted as well as subconscious thought patterns. Now, some of these things could be a little screwed up or unhelpful in your every day life and need adjusting.
But don’t worry, hypnosis cannot do anything you don’t want. The tracks introduce you to new concepts and different ideas or suggests alternative ways of considering things. Your subconscious will consider these things and decide to either accept or dismiss them.
Basically, what’s happening is gradually, your mind is learning new things. The more you listen, the more your subconscious has a chance to absorb, analyse and accept or reject as appropriate. It will only pick up on words or phrases which are important, relevant and acceptable, it will just reject the rest as not applicable. As it accepts these new things, each time you listen, it strengthens the new networks which are forming in your mind. So when you are using hypnosis MP3s or CDs, it is important to do so repetitively or they can have little or no effect.
But, when you want or need to resolve an issue and your conscious brain can’t get control over that primitive brain alone, which is creating the anxiety or depression, listening to a hypnosis track can be wonderfully beneficial.
Hypnotherapy combines the power of the hypnosis helping you make changes at a subconscious level with the therapy which helps you work out what you want in order to give your subconscious direction but at a conscious level – make sense?
The Health Education Authority has said “Research shows that there is more scientific evidence for hypnotherapy than any other complementary therapy…. by using hypnosis, people can perform prodigious feats of will power and self healing”
Even if we don’t know definitively exactly how it works, we know it does work.
If you would like to try hypnosis for yourself, please feel free to download or play either of these.
