

You will recognize sweets are too heavy for you and that fresh fruit will make you feel satisfied and nourished.” What does that actually sound like? Wells says an example of a hypnotic suggestion might be: “You will reach for fresh fruit. During hypnosis, all I’m doing is turning the volume up on that inner wisdom and down on the emotional part,” she explains. “That inner voice is the one that keeps us from acting solely on emotion. We all have a healthy subconscious-the gut reaction that keeps you out of danger or guides good decisions. “What I’m doing is helping this person balance the voices in their head,” Wells explains. Wells adds that nothing she does is scripted and, other than the message that food is fuel, the hypnotic suggestions are customized based on this initial conversation.Īfter the chat, you move into the hypnosis session, which lasts about 20 to 25 minutes. “The suggestions I then make under hypnosis will cater to this,” Wells explains. No, there’s no watch-waving, no “You are getting very sleepy.” Wells explains that her typical session looks like this: The patient and hypnotherapist have a conversation about what the patient’s goals are, what their triggers are, what food plans do and don’t work for them, and what their body type is. “We want to re-integrate the idea that food is fuel.” (Speed up your progress towards your weight-loss goals with Women's Health's Look Better Naked DVD.) The goal of hypnotherapy is to rewrite this association. “People who see me for weight loss, food has taken the wrong place in their mind,” Wells explains. This is key, because the heart of why hypnosis works is because it teaches you to have more willpower. They just don’t have the willpower to follow it.” “They know what they should and shouldn’t eat. “By the time a patient comes to me, they’ve usually tried every weight-loss plan on the planet,” says Wells. Who Should Try It?Įmotional and unconscious eaters are prime candidates for hypnotherapy-the therapeutic use of clinical hypnosis.
Weight loss hypnosis full#
Meanwhile, a meta-analysis by British researchers found hypnosis can actually help regulate the release of peptides that control how hungry and full you feel. A study in International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis found women who underwent hypnobehavioral therapy lost weight, improved their eating habits, and improved their body image. Early studies found that people who used hypnosis lost more than twice as much weight as those who dieted without the therapy.

“Hypnotherapy is really just you telling yourself how you want you to be, whether it’s to sleep better, to lose weight, to drive on a highway at full speed between two trucks.”Īnd while research is scarce, what we do have says hypnosis works surprisingly well. “You won’t turn into a zombie or cluck like a chicken,” says Valorie Wells, Ph.D., a clinical hypnosis practitioner in Kansas City, MO. That’s because Hollywood has given us a very specific, and very inaccurate, portrait of what a hypnotist does and is capable of doing.
Weight loss hypnosis professional#
But there may be another professional you’re overlooking-one who holds the key to keeping your weaknesses from winning: a hypnotist. You’ve hired trainers, doctors, nutritionists.

You’ve tried dieting, along with every form of exercise that even remotely breaks a sweat, but still can’t ditch the weight.
