Quieter living: Simple living with hypnosis

Dec. 11, 2024

We don't have it easy in the Netherlands. It is busy, it is modern, we have a rich club life, family ties, and we are a nation that uses the Internet an awful lot. No ingredients that make a quieter life easier.

But we're going to give it some attention in this blog article anyway.

From busy life to simple life

That modern society, with the Internet and all the apps on your phone, is unfortunately also one of the reasons why your life can feel busy and heavy. This is because the time you spend online is not spent in real life with your social circle. This can make you feel like you have no one to actually support you [1].

Complaining on Omegle to strangers is ultimately going to help you less than to friends who can actually reach out a hand to help you.

As a result, spending a lot of time online can lead to increased feelings of stress, anxiety, and depression.

It’s not just social media that can make you feel worse. Processed foods are also becoming more prevalent, and it’s just so easy to pop into a fast-food chain[2]. However, that doesn’t provide your body with the nutrients it needs to feel better. Instead, in addition to feeling mentally weighed down, you can also literally gain weight.

Even the modern way of working creates more stress. Few permanent contracts are given. Flexible working is incredibly "hot right now," but it is not something that helps to be sustainably employable.

There are an awful lot of self-employed people out there, creating a lot of uncertainty on whether you will still have the job you do now in a few years[3].

There is also often still a work-life imbalance that can be very stressful.

Beliefs about materialism

You may also have been instilled with materialistic values from home, such as the importance of having a car of certain brands, expensive clothes, jewelry that is at least Swarovski and definitely not from HEMA.

Chinese research even shows that a materialistic mindset can make you depressed and prevent you from feeling good[4].

Instead, you need social connections that suit you, autonomy and the feeling that you can do something to feel happy. That ability to do something may result in you being able to buy nice things, but that focus on it may in turn prevent you from having time to meet friends or something similar.

So if you want to live a calmer life, take a moment to reflect on your beliefs about the things you think you need. Do you really need the latest smartphone? Or would a refurbished phone—or even a basic phone for a few tens—be good enough?

Should you have jewelry worth a few hundred dollars? Or is jewelry of a few tens also nice to have?

If you find it hard to let go of tangible expensive things, hypnosis techniques can help you figure out why it feels that way.

For example, you might feel that if you can’t afford certain things, you’re not successful, or that other people don’t think you’re good enough.

Of course, that makes no sense at all, but knowing that rationally and feeling that subjectively can be two different things.

With hypnotherapy, you can change beliefs about materialism and self-esteem so that you feel good enough even without expensive stuff. At least that saves all the stress of having to earn that money just to buy that stuff.

Beliefs about social ties

Staying with modern society for a moment. More and more people live in relatively large cities, where you can live very anonymously. This is because then there is no social cohesion. For example, you don't even know your neighbor's name, or at least the one next to it.

In smaller villages, everyone knows each other, and that often provides social support when life throws you a curveball (the downside is that there’s also more gossip ).

But the Netherlands simply doesn't have that many very small villages anymore.

Research shows that the very people who have a lot of social support, who really feel part of a group of people, are the happiest[5].

In addition, you can also have beliefs about some kind of social ladder. That you have a certain position and to determine that position you compare yourself to other people. Everyone does this to some extent, but as you get older you really have to let go of this.

There is always someone better at something than you. Research shows that students who were unhappy had their mood set by students who were doing better and worse. While happy students only cared about fellow students who were doing worse[6].

So by all means, don't compare yourself to someone who is doing much better than you, if that doesn't help you live more peacefully.

Then you can have beliefs about how many friends you should have and what parties you should be at.

After all, there’s always something going on in a city, and the “Fear of Missing Out” can make you feel bummed if you happen to miss an event. Especially when all those fun posts about it start popping up on social media afterward.

Or you might think you need to have a certain number of friends, but if you can’t connect with them on your level, this can still lead to feelings of loneliness.

With hypnosis, you can look at your beliefs about what a social life is "supposed" to look like and whether or not those beliefs are getting in the way of your happiness.

Overcoming social anxiety

Continuing that more and more people are living in cities. If you grew up in the city (urban environment), brain is developed differently than someone who grew up in the countryside.

For example, you are more likely to suffer from social stress[7].

Fortunately, there is much you can do to improve these dings. For example, research shows that hypnosis combined with NLP can do a lot against social anxiety. In a session that lasted 3 hours, the problem was largely solved[8].

In another case study, hypnotherapy was also used against social anxiety and to improve self-confidence. In this case, self-hypnosis was also used to overcome social anxiety[9]. Four sessions and self-hypnosis as homework worked well.

Tips the transformation from a busy life to a peaceful one

Hypnosis can therefore do a great deal to make your life less burdensome. This is because it helps you focus more on yourself; it can eliminate limiting beliefs that make life feel difficult; and it can help reduce social anxiety, which can be a bigger problem when you live in a city or urban area than when you live in the countryside.

Tip 1: Gratitude for feeling calmer

Maybe everything feels busy right now because you have so many goals and things to accomplish, but don't forget ... you've already accomplished a lot, too.

By taking a moment daily to reflect on things you are grateful for, you ensure that you are less rushed by the feeling of everything you still want to accomplish. You also become happier with what you already have.

For example, you can create a mood board with pictures and text of everything you are grateful for.

Tip 2: Determine important values

What do you think is important in life? Make a list of that and yourself on that list (and at least in the top 3). This is actually an intermediate step for the third tip, but to give you some inspiration. These are values that most people find important:

Me
Good family relationships
Rest
Health
Social Life
Freedom

Etc.

You may make your own list which is as long as you can think of, maybe you have 5, maybe you have 25 it doesn't matter. As long as you have a (vague) idea of values you think are important.

Tip 3: Set priorities that fit your 3 most important values

Next, go through those top 3 and determine which priorities fit here. For example:

Myself > Regular me-time, eating what I like/healthy, doing things I enjoy.

Good family relationships > 15 minutes of full attention to one of my family members every day, visiting parents, siblings once a week or 2 weeks.

Health > Eating a healthy diet, having time to exercise, having time to relax.

See what's happening? Work doesn't even factor into this list of priorities. Sure, your work is important to pay your bills, but not so important that you have to put in 60 hours a week and half your weekend for it.