For many of us, food is an unconscious response to stress. The habit of overindulgence and overeating forms through repetition and becomes an automatic response to certain stimuli or environments. Stress, and emotional eating is a prime example. Our mind develops many associations that adversely impact our relationship with food.

Here are some examples of the associations that prevent weight loss:

• Thinking of food as acomfort blanket which can be used in times of sadness or stress
• Using food as a way to distract ourselves from feelings of anxiety, anger or sadness
• Sugary, unhealthy foods are a reward
• Using food to entertain ourselves when we’re bored.

Habit patterns like these are exactly why weight loss is such a challenge for many of us. It’s vital to assess, understand, and reframe these root causes in order to achieve long-term weight loss – and that is where hypnosis comes in.

Hypnosis: How it Motivates You to Overcome Food Addiction

The most prominent advantage of hypnosis for weight loss is that it helps you identify the reasons you aren’t achieving your goals. How? Well, it starts with the hypnotherapist asking you questions that are related to your weight loss – i.e. your exercise and eating habits. Gathering this information helps in isolating the things you might need help working on.

After that, you’ll be guided through an induction, which is a process to relax the body and mind so it can enter the state of hypnosis. When you’re hypnotized, you shed your conscious, critical mind. Your mind becomes extremely suggestible, allowing the hypnotherapist to directly speak to your unconscious thoughts.

The hypnotherapist will then provide you with affirmations, positive suggestions before asking you to visualize these changes. The positive suggestions provided during weight loss hypnosis may include:

Enhancing Confidence

Your feelings of confidence will be empowered through encouraging language.

Visualizing Success

In order to motivate you, your hypnotherapist may ask you to visualize how you would feel if you succeeded with your weight loss goals.

Overcoming Fear

The positive suggestions provided during hypnosis can help you overcome the fear of failing to achieve your weight loss targets. Fear is the primary reason why many people never even get started in the first place.

Helping Develop New Coping Mechanisms

Your hypnotherapist will help you establish healthier ways to deal with emotions, relationships, and stress. For instance, they may ask you to visualize a stressful situation and then visualize yourself using a healthy snack to cope with it.

Hypnosis for Weight Loss: What Research Says

So, does hypnotherapy for weight loss actually work? Well, this is a question that has kept researchers busy for decades. There’s a multitude of clinical studies that support hypnosis’s efficacy as a tool to achieve long-term weight loss. Here are a couple of examples:

• In a study conducted in 2014, the participants who received hypnosis not only reduced their BMI, but also improved their eating habit and their body image.
• Research conducted in 1986 studied 60 women who were 20% overweight. After 6 months, the women who received hypnotherapy had lost 17 pounds, while the group that hadn’t lost justhalf a pound.

Wish to lose weight healthily and effectively? Rekha Shrivastava at Blossom Hypnosis can help you with this! She offers subconscious mind therapyusing hypnosis for treating anxiety, overcoming phobias, and implementing self-confidence strategies.

Book a free consultation at our office in Rochester, NY. Rekha also offers Skype sessions for clients not residing in Rochester, NY.

Not ready to book an appointment? Learn how self-hypnosis can help you recover from PTSD and depression.