If you have had success with using hypnosis for addictions or habits that had previously bothered you or you are considering using this fascinating mind tool, then you are probably very interested in learning how hypnosis works.
It basically influences your brain to use self-imaging and control so that you are better able to function, reducing stress and negativity in your life.
An interesting fact about hypnosis that surprised researchers is that your brain, under hypnosis, looks as though it is ignoring some parts that it generally is communicative with.
Hypnosis produces positive changes in the parts of your brain that control attentiveness and focus.
You may be surprised to learn the many ways that hypnosis can help you.
If you have seen hypnosis in movies or on television, you probably saw someone seemingly stripped of control.
In fact, when you are in a hypnotic trance, you are hyper-alert and focused.
You are not controlled by someone who hypnotizes you - you focus on following their voice and their suggestions.
It can empower you.
There are many misconceptions about the way hypnosis works.
For instance, some people believe that if you are under hypnosis, you are experiencing a loss of consciousness, like being asleep.
But hypnosis is not the same as sleep.
It is a state of mind where you are physically relaxed and your attention is actually heightened.
Another common myth about hypnosis is that you will hear only your hypnotist's voice and you'll be in a type of altered mental state.
Not so.
Hypnosis does not take you into a psychedelic or crazy state.
You can hear everything going on around you and you can react in an emergency.
Researchers have discovered that hypnosis possibly enhances the mental processes it needs to, in order that the suggestions be acted on, but it doesn't act directly on motor inhibition.
Some people believe that you won't remember what your hypnotist has told you.
In fact, you usually will remember everything said to you while you are under hypnosis.
And you are in control during the process.
If anything is suggested to you that isn't related to the self-improvement you seek, your conscious and subconscious mind will reject it.
Just because you can be hypnotized doesn't mean that your mind is weak, or that you are gullible.
Anyone with an average intelligence who is willing can be hypnotized and they can follow the instructions given while under hypnosis.
You have inside you the attitudes, resources and beliefs that will allow you to accomplish the goals you set out for yourself.
Those beliefs can be suppressed, however, by a negative environment or conditioning that is negative in nature.
Hypnosis reinforces the positive attitudes and beliefs you hold inside, and this helps you in accomplishing your goals.
In the same way that exercise will help to condition your body and build up your muscles, hypnosis will enable you to condition and develop the "muscles" of your mind.
This will then help you to accomplish the goals you have set out for yourself.
That is how hypnosis can be beneficial to you, in losing negative beliefs and reinforcing positive behaviors.