Take a deep breath and relax your body.

You're feeling sleepy; very sleepy.
When I count to three, you’ll learn about hypnosis and its benefits.

One...
Two...
Three.

What the heck is it?

Have you ever been mowing the lawn or washing the dishes, completely unaware of your surroundings, only to look up fifteen minutes later with no memory of what happened?

Congratulations, you’ve experienced hypnosis.

Similar to the effects of meditation, hypnotic states block out external stimuli and conscious thought and focus on the subconscious. While in this trance, subjects are extremely suggestible, relaxed, uninhibited and imaginative. Hypnotists (people who hypnotize subjects for a living, typically as a comedic act) can take advantage of this suggestible and uninhibited state, which is why even shy adults will do the funky-chicken on stage in front of their colleagues. However, in order for hypnosis to work, the subject must be fully willing to be hypnotized. Subjects are aware that the feelings and sensations they’re experiencing are imaginary and have the ability to resist the hypnotist's suggestions if they want to.

How can we use this power for good?

Hypnosis has been around for centuries, but scientists didn’t begin studying its potential as a treatment until the 1700s. Today, hypnotherapy is considered a legitimate way to to treat all kinds of things, such as: mental illness, bad habits or physical pain.

Hypnotherapy uses a hypnotic trance to treat underlying psychological issues that are trapped in the subconscious. Much like traditional therapy, it gets to the unconscious issue that informs a person’s negative habits, and attempts to treat that issue directly.

The benefit of hypnotherapy is that while their patients are in a hypnotic trance, the hypnotherapist can replace these negative beliefs or issues with positive ones, so the patient's entire subconscious is altered. Hypnotherapy has been used to treat anxiety, depression and addiction, and it has also helped people with physical problems like quitting smoking and losing weight. Some people have even said it has positive effects for childbirth by helping the delivery and recovery time go faster and making the mother feel more calm and confident.

Unfortunately, scientists don’t know exactly how hypnosis works in the same way we don’t know exactly how the human mind works. All we know for sure is hypnosis can be far more powerful than a cool party trick.

Now, when I count to one you will like and share this post with your friends.

Three…
Two…
One.

For more information, check out the links below:

What It's Really Like to Have a Hypnobirth

The Science of Hypnosis

A conventional girl on an unconventional blog, Sophie’s been curious about alternate lifestyles since she first stumbled across an episode of Oprah exploring polygamy. A second year Professional Writing student at Algonquin College, Sophie loves reading, writing, and learning about different people and cultures.