About hypnosis: and how hypnotherapy can work to help you stop smoking
Exploring the myths about hypnosis
It's common to feel apprehensive about a hypnotherapy session especially if it is your first time, however if you would describe yourself as feeling 'scared' then read on to put your mind at rest. Afterwards if you still feel more than just a little apprehensive, it may be worth considering an alternative method, although it is worth remembering, The New Scientist Magazine which reported hypnosis 'as the most effective way of giving up smoking' (October1992 edition).
The misconception and impression that many people who want to stop smoking hold about hypnosis is that it's something magical, mystical and even dangerous. Hypnosis has even been portrayed as a scary form of mind control, where people are made to give up control of themselves. Hypnosis is in fact the complete opposite, as people visit clinical hypnotherapists or utilise self-hypnosis because they want help to gain more control over their lives, to change limiting habits (for example to stop smoking) and behaviours.
The phenomenon of hypnosis is firstly, and most importantly, a natural state of mind, which means that virtually every person has the capacity to respond to hypnosis on some level. Hypnosis is simply a state of physical, mental and emotional relaxation, along with a heightened state of awareness. This change of consciousness is extremely comfortable and relaxing, just like those moments before you fall asleep and as you start to wake up in the morning. You'll feel very relaxed, yet your mind will still be highly focused and aware.
Hypnosis - a familiar sensation
Hypnosis is a means of moving into a perfectly natural state of mind, that people actually move in and out of several times a day. Everyone has experienced this trance like state, although they may not have called it hypnosis. We all go in and out of different levels of consciousness all day. Daydreaming, reading, driving are all examples of every day tasks when we may enter an altered state of awareness.
Have you ever had the experience of driving along the motorway and suddenly realised that you passed your exit several miles back? Or have you ever been so caught up in a TV programme, a book, a film or computer game that you've lost track of time, or not realised that someone has been talking to you?
These changes in our awareness occur when we become so wholly focused on a task to the exclusion of everything else. Our sense of time may become distorted and subjective and we no longer pay attention to outside disturbances.
Hypnosis is just another example of an altered state of awareness. The difference being that it can be utilised for self-change as we are also much more open and responsive to positive suggestion in this state.
So, when a hypnotherapist guides you into hypnosis they are not asking you to experience anything strange that you haven't experienced before. This is why sometimes people come out of trance unsure whether they were actually hypnotised or not, as it is such a familiar feeling.
