Hypnosis is more than just a party trick, it measurably changes how the brain works, says a UK researcher.

Hypnosis significantly affects the activity in a part of the brain responsible for detecting and responding to errors, says John Gruzelier, a psychologist at Imperial College in London. Using functional brain imaging, he also found that hypnosis affects an area that controls higher level executive functions.

“This explains why, under hypnosis, people can do outrageous things that ordinarily they wouldn’t dream of doing,” says Gruzelier, who presented his study at the British Association for the Advancement of Science Festival in Exeter, UK.

The finding is one of the first to indicate a biological mechanism underpinning the experience of hypnosis. Gruzelier hopes it will also benefit emerging research showing, for example, that hypnosis can help cancer patients deal with painful treatments.
Highly susceptible

Gruzelier and his colleagues studied brain activity using an fMRI while subjects completed a standard cognitive exercise, called the Stroop task.

The team screened subjects before the study and chose 12 that were highly susceptible to hypnosis and 12 with low susceptibility. They all completed the task in the fMRI under normal conditions and then again under hypnosis.

Throughout the study, both groups were consistent in their task results, achieving similar scores regardless of their mental state. During their first task session, before hypnosis, there were no significant differences in brain activity between the groups.

But under hypnosis, Gruzelier found that the highly susceptible subjects showed significantly more brain activity in the anterior cingulate gyrus than the weakly susceptible subjects. This area of the brain has been shown to respond to errors and evaluate emotional outcomes.

The highly susceptible group also showed much greater brain activity on the left side of the prefrontal cortex than the weakly susceptible group. This is an area involved with higher level cognitive processing and behaviour.
Stage hypnotists

Gruzelier concludes that, under hypnosis, these brain areas are having to work much harder to achieve the same cognitive task results. “This is confirming our model of hypnosis with very direct evidence of brain function,” he says.

Peter Naish, at the UK’s Open University, says this moves the understanding of hypnosis away from the popular misconceptions created by showy stage hypnotists.

“We have a technique that has now moved towards evidence-based treatments,” he says. “Gruzelier’s work is showing for sure that the brain is doing quite different things under hypnosis than in normal everyday existence.”

Clinical trials of therapeutic hypnosis are starting to confirm its potential benefits. Christina Liossi, a psychologist at the University of Wales in Swansea, recently conducted a study of 80 cancer patients aged 6 to 16.

She found that those under hypnosis experienced far less pain during treatments than control children, who simply talked to the researchers normally

I want to share a success story about hypnosis for weight loss. There are so many, but this one stands out in my mind and touches my heart. I was working in the summer of 2004 with a young lady named Jen. She was 19 at the time and was scheduled to undergo gastric bypass surgery. This surgery is very drastic and involved stapling the stomach so that the person can no longer eat large meals. She also already had liposuction but regained all of her weight. Her father had died and all her mother wanted was for Jen to be happy.

As they both sat in my office in tears, Jen told me that this was her last attempt to lose weight before killing herself. After her mom left the room, we began the hypnosis session. While in a trance, Jen remembered being abused by her father. It was traumatic for her to recall this, but helpful at the same time. Jen also revealed that she had “built up a protective layer” with the excess weight. She explained while under hypnosis that the weight repelled men and kept her “safe.”

After Jen was out of hypnosis, I invited her mom back into the office. The three of us discussed this unfortunate event. Her mom said that she had suspected that it happened, but never had proof until now. Jen returned the next week and we began working on re-building her self-esteem using hypnosis. This is very easy to do with hypnosis since the messages go directly to the subconscious mind. If you want to do this yourself, just make a tape with positive suggestions that you play in bed each night as you go to sleep.

In the four weeks that followed, I was able to reframe the way she felt about eating right, exercising, and taking care of herself in general. After only six sessions, I told Jen that I had done all the work we needed to do.

Last week, Jen sent me an e-mail with a picture. You see, I had programmed her to continue to eat right, exercise, and take care of herself. Well, the picture she sent looked like a model! Jen had gone from 325 lbs. to 115 lbs! The e-mail was even more inspirational. Here’s what she wrote:

Dear Steve,

It has been a year since our last session. The pounds have been consistently dropping. I eat differently and don’t even try to. I exercise three times a week and love it. Most importantly, my view of life is completely different now. I went from being overweight and suicidal to being thin, sexy, beautiful and totally confident. My mom is happier than ever and so is my husband. That’s right! I am married. He’s 6’4″, an architect, and wants kids. I feel like I’m living the life of my dreams. Hypnosis is amazing. You taught me that I could do ANYTHING that I BELIEVE I can do. You are right. Feel free to share this letter with others. I want the world to know about the power of hypnosis and the power of the human mind!

With much love and respect,

Jen

In my line of work I get to see this happen often. Jen is one of the many people who decided to make a powerful change in her life. Hypnosis helped, but the change was really due to her commitment to herself. I hope that the sharing of Jen’s journey will inspire you to create whatever powerful change you desire in your life. There are no obstacles, except the ones YOU create in your mind. Remove those obstacles, and you will easily live the life of YOUR dreams.

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Steve G. Jones is a board certified Clinical Hypnotherapist. He is a member of the National Guild of Hypnotists, American Board of Hypnotherapy, president of the American Alliance of Hypnotists, on the board of directors of the Los Angeles chapter of the American Lung Association, and director of the California state registered Steve G. Jones School of Hypnotherapy. Learn more about his products by visiting: Self Hypnosis to Change Your Life

I know many of you are hoping that this will be a better year for you but how many of you are going to make the changes necessary to make this year different.

I want you to stop now and really think about what needs to be done to make this year different. Sit down with a pen and paper and write down how you see your life being this time next year. After you do that write down how your life will be in six months, then three months.
Now with your blueprint for the year start to think about what you have to do to make each of these steps a reality.

These first few steps will get you thinking and planning for the year ahead.

This is the starting point of your new life.

For some good quality goal setting information click here

The article explained how a person reacts to messages that are transmitted from the subconscious mind to the consience mind and how, although we may not desire the course of action that our subconcious mind is instructing us to undertake, we are powerless to act against it’s directions.

Self-Hypnosis is one way you can change what is stored in your subconcious mind and reprogram it to send the messages that you desire it to send. It can be of great benefit in overcoming annoying and unhealthy habits, dealing with emotional problems, helping with study skills and sports performance. It can also be of great benefit in pain and quality of life issues related to chronic illness.

Self-Hypnosis is completely safe, it is pleasant and extremely relaxing.

If you believe Self-Hypnosis can be of benefit to you and would like to receive a Free Hypnosis MP3 Sample Click Here!
To read the complete article click here

In the minds of children words can surface in later years, bringing with them scars of horror or bliss and happiness and all the while not knowing there origin.

John Steinbeck’s observation was as he wrote: “These words dropped into my childish mind as if you should accidentally drop a ring into a deep well. I did not think of them much at the time, but there came a day in my life when the ring was fished up out of the well.”

Unquestionable published research, in journals, technical papers and the indisputable proof found in sales and marketing, show that words have tremendous power. Why then do we find it so shocking that the average person has little understanding of how they impact our thinking and actions?

You are about to discover, in this article, the power of words and move beyond popular misconceptions about hypnotic communication.

Deeply embedded in the minds of many people is the notion that hypnotic communication is cleverly concealed in the body language of a person as if they were swinging a magical gold watch to get someone to go into a trance. Unfortunately conceptions or misconceptions are equally among the well-educated as with the uneducated.

Many unsuspecting people are exposed to communication techniques that are clearly structured in the exact same way hypnotists use to put their subjects into an alter state of mind.
For the unwary listener the communication may or may not have the rhythmic sound or monotone a hypnotist would use.

Nevertheless they get charmed into the offering of the communicator. Other factors such as confidence, voice, and body language play a major role in influencing others – however, as you will read, the real power comes from words and how the words are strung together.

As you move beyond the sensationalism, experienced while watching a movie or a television show, you’ll discover that every day words strung together have power – both fascinating and frightening.

Leaving all disagreements to the experts, about the perfect definition of hypnosis, there is little to argue about as to the structure and key components.

You could say that all communication is hypnosis. Arguably however, all hypnosis is communication and communicating a message hypnotically bypasses the listeners’ conscious defenses.

Structure is the key:

Hypnosis is a part of everyday life and is clearly evident in daydreaming or what many would call spacing out. You may best understand it as a silent committee meeting actively going on inside your head (silent self talk).

Master communicators such as politicians, sales and marketing people are highly skilled at mesmerizing others. They can have you falling in love with a product by stringing the right words together – firing off the imagination of that committee meeting in your mind.

Here are several examples of hypnotic communications:

Look closely at the unsuspecting structure of how a sales person would communicate a message that would hypnotically bypass your conscious defenses.

Sales person’s communication may go like this:

• When you own this home you are going to love holding her in you arms, late at night, while sitting by this fireplace. You’ll cherish the wonderful memory for a life time.

• Imagine coming home on a cold winter night and snuggling up in front of the warmth of this fireplace.

• You are going to be very excited about the safe performance of this car and what it can do for you.

Classical Hypnosis may go like this:

• As you relax more deeply on the object you’re on it will begin to feel like you are floating back deeply into a wonderful journey.

• You’ll soon discover that your mind will readily absorb all the positive suggestions that I have given you just like sponge absorbs water.

The structure is the same in the sales communication and classical hypnosis but the content and verbal suggestion is quite different. All the suggestions set up expectations in the mind of the listener.

Our imaginations fill in the blanks as to what the expectations are. The choice of words and the order in which you use them has the power to change how people think and influence their actions taken.

If the sales communication was spoken in this manner:

• After you buy this house the fireplace will be an asset on a cold winter night.

The statement is cold, dry and gives little expectation to the imagination. As a direct verbal suggestion it’s a big drain for the imagination to try and figure out what the salesperson means by asset. Where as in the hypnotic communication above the listener was given several key post hypnotic suggestions. Opening up the imagination with the words such as home, snuggling up, warmth and holding her, allows the mind to spiral off into deeper fanaticism while entrancing the listener.

Direct verbal suggestions are the most commonly used by people but not necessarily the most powerful way to communicate.

Example: Direct Verbal Suggestion

• Get out this week and cast your vote for prop xxx. You will make a difference.

Example: Hypnotic Verbal Suggestion

• When you vote this week, for prop xxx, you’ll be proud of making a positive impact and difference in how your money is spent for the education of children.

The key is to understand the psychology of verbal suggestions.

Plant them well into your communications in a nearly invisible way so that your customer cannot resist their own imagination.

It truly doesn’t matter what you are selling. The most powerful and persuasive words in the world will have little effect if not set up in the proper structure.

About the Author
Don L. Price, Los Angeles, CA
Don L. Price – Coaching Minds To Succeed – Professional Speaker, Sales, Marketing & High Performance Mental Fitness Coach and Author of Secrets of Personal Marketing Power-Strategies for Achieving Greater Personal & Business Success

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