Hypnosis for Weight Loss: How to Use It, Feel It, Disadvantages and Advantages

More and more people are turning to the mind control technique to help them make healthier choices and lose weight.

For example, in the case of Georgia, 28, she decided that she needed to lose 15 kilos or more due to her overweight, the veteran in diets resorted to hypnosis.

The mind control technique had helped her overcome the fear of flying in the past, and she hoped it would also help her to have healthy eating habits.

At first, the self-proclaimed enthusiast was surprised by the recommendations of her hypnotherapist.

“I had four simple agreements that I would have to stick to: eat when you’re hungry, listen to your body and eat what you crave, stop when you’re full, eat slowly and enjoy every bite,” Georgia explains. “As such, there was no food out of bounds and I was encouraged to eat everything in moderation. Music for my ears”.

Who should try hypnosis?

Hypnosis is for anyone looking for a gentle way to lose weight and make healthy eating a habit. Who would it not serve? Sure someone interested in a quick solution.

Reframing problematic thoughts about food takes time, Georgia says; “The weight decreased slowly and surely, without major changes in my lifestyle. I still ate several times a week, but in a moderate way. ”

“It’s almost ironic that it was as if I had restarted my love relationship with food, I could only lose weight by doing it,” he says, adding that between appointments he worked hard to maintain his new love relationship with food.

How to use hypnosis to lose weight

Hypnosis is not meant to be a “diet” but rather a tool to help you succeed by eating nutritious foods and exercising, says Traci Stein, an ASCH certified health psychologist in clinical hypnosis and a former director of Integrative Medicine in the Department of Health. Surgery at Columbia University.

“Hypnosis helps people experience in a multisensory way how they feel when they are strong, fit and in control, and to overcome their mental barriers to achieve those goals,” he says.

“Hypnosis can specifically help people solve the underlying psychological problems, causing them to hate exercise, experience intense cravings, eat at night or eat without thinking. It helps them identify the triggers and disarm them. ”

In fact, it’s helpful not to think of hypnosis as a diet at all, says Joshua E. Syna, a certified hypnotherapist at the Houston Hypnosis Center. “It works because it changes their way of thinking about food and allows them to learn to be calmer and more relaxed in their lives.”

“Therefore, instead of food as an emotional solution, it becomes an adequate solution for hunger, and new patterns of behavior are developed that allow the person to deal with emotions and life,” he explains.

“Hypnosis works to lose weight because it allows the person to separate food and eat from their emotional life.”

For people who do not have other mental health problems, Dr. Stein says that the use of self-guided home audio programs produced by a qualified hypnotist is fine.

But be careful with all the new applications in the online market. One study found that most applications have not been tested and often make grand claims about their effectiveness that can not be corroborated.

How does a person feel during a hypnosis?

Forget what you have seen in movies and on stage, therapeutic hypnosis is closer to a therapy session than a circus trick. “Hypnosis is a collaborative experience and the patient must be well informed and comfortable every step of the way,” says Dr. Stein.

And for people concerned about being cheated and instead of helping them do something strange or harmful, add that even under hypnosis, if you really do not want to do something, you will not. “It’s just focused attention,” he explains.

“Everyone goes into light trance states several times a day, think about when they are leaving while a friend shares all the details of their vacation, and hypnosis is simply learning to focus that internal attention in a useful way.”

Dispelling the myth that hypnosis feels strange or frightening on the part of the patient, Georgia says that she always felt very lucid and in control. There were even funny moments, like when he was told to visualize stepping on the scale and seeing his target weight.

“My too creative mind had to imagine first taking off all the clothes, all the jewels, my watch and the hair clip before jumping naked. Does anyone else do that or is it just me? “(No, it’s not just you, Georgia!)

The only drawback of hypnosis to lose weight

It is non-invasive, works well with other treatments to lose weight and does not require pills, powders or other supplements. In the worst case, nothing happens. Then why not?

But Dr. Stein recognizes that there is one drawback: the price. The hourly costs vary according to your location, but they are usually high for therapeutic hypnosis treatments and when you see the therapist once a week or more for a month or two you can add up quickly.

And most insurance companies do not cover hypnosis. However, Dr. Stein says that if used as part of a larger mental health therapy plan you may be covered, so check with your provider.

A surprising advantage of hypnosis for weight loss

Hypnosis is not just a mental issue, there is also a medical component, says Peter LePort, MD, bariatric surgeon and medical director of the Memorial Care Center for Obesity in California.

“You must first deal with any underlying metabolic or biological cause of weight gain, but while doing so, using hypnosis can boost healthy habits,” he says.

And there is another healthy advantage of the use of hypnosis; “The aspect of meditation can really help reduce stress and increase mindfulness, which in turn can help you lose weight,” he adds.

So, does hypnosis really work for weight loss?

There is a surprising amount of scientific research that analyzes the effectiveness of hypnosis to lose weight and much of it is positive.

One of the original studies, conducted in 1986, found that overweight women who used a hypnosis program lost 10 kilos, compared to 2 kilos for women who were told to watch what they ate.

In the 1990s, a meta-analysis of hypnosis weight loss research found that subjects who used hypnosis lost more than twice as much weight as those who did not use hypnosis.

And a 2014 study found that women who used hypnosis improved their weight, eating behavior and even some aspects of body image.

But not all is good news, a Stanford study in 2012 found that about a quarter of people simply can not be hypnotized and, contrary to popular belief, it has nothing to do with their personalities.

Rather, the brain of some people just does not seem to work that way. “If you’re not prone to daydreaming, it’s often hard for you to be absorbed in a book or sit down in a movie, and you do not consider yourself creative, then you can be one of the people for whom hypnosis does not work well,” he says. Dr. Stein.

Georgia is definitely one of the success stories. She says that not only did she help her lose the extra pounds, but it also helped her keep them away.

Six years later, he has successfully maintained his weight loss, and from time to time he returns to consult with his hypnotherapist when he needs to be strengthened.