I thought it might be fun to try something new just for this blog. I decided on self hypnosis. I’ll start today, do it for a week, and report back. You’re welcome to try it along with me and leave your experiences in the comments.

Hypnosis is used for pain management, weight loss, stress relief, sleep issues, to help quit an addiction, and so many other uses. For this week, I’ll try it for weight loss since that’s measurable. My goal will be to get down to my birth weight, but I guess any results would be acceptable.

The best times of the day for self hypnosis are right before bed or right when you wake up in the morning. I’ll do it every night and every morning for the next week. You can do it right from bed. The reason that doing it in bed is ideal is because hypnosis is essentially relaxing yourself, similar to meditation, and your bed is a comfortable place where your body is used to relaxing. If you do it at night and end up falling asleep afterward, more power to you! If you do it in the morning, it could help you wake up feeling great.

Here’s what you’re going to do. Start by knowing what your goal is. It could be increasing sports performance, being more patient, having more energy, anything. Make yourself comfortable without crossing your legs and close your eyes. Hold your hands, palm down, somewhere on your body so that you can press your fingers down onto yourself as of you’re counting. Focus on relaxing and letting go of anything negative on your mind. You may want to think about each body part, one at a time, relaxing and getting heavy. Feel the tension, the stress, and the anxiety flow out of your muscles and into the bed below you. Take a few deep breaths. Visualize any remaining stress in your body leaving through your exhale.

Speaking out loud, quietly to yourself, and pressing a finger down for each number, count yourself deeper 10 times, one for each finger. Say something repetitive and positive such as, “every day, in every way, I get better and better.” While you do this, visualize your goal being 10 “spaces” away, such as feet or yards, and each time you say the statement and press a finger down, keeping track of how many you’ve done, you get a space closer. When you get to 10, you should be standing/laying/floating by your goal. Once you’re there, say your goal statement a few times, I’ll say it 3 times when I do it. This will be specific to what you’re looking to achieve. Keep it positive and about what you’re going to do differently. So for me, it’ll be something along the lines of, “I will make healthy food choices and increase my physical activity.”

Once you’ve said your goal statement as many times as you decide to do so, you can bring yourself back out of the hypnotic state by again using your fingers, again saying, “every day, in every way, I get better and better.”  As you count your way back, visualize yourself with your goal, heading back to consciousness.  So I would see myself going back as thinner and healthier. When you’re back, say something to wake yourself up feeling energized such as, “when I open my eyes, I will be awake and energized.” Open your eyes and say, “I feel great” or something similar because your brain will still be very open to suggestion.

Good luck to any of you who give this a try. Leave a comment, ask a question, and stop by next Monday for a full report on how this went for me!

*pic- opening morning of rifle season, 2017, down by the camper