Improve health: Hypnosis helps yourself and others

Being happy with your body, having energy, being slimmer, being happier, there are all kinds of reasons why improving health can be a goal of yours.

Or even more fun, you want to help other people improve their health.

It's always helpful to start leading by example and, therefore, to be healthy yourself. After all, would you go to a personal trainer, or someone who helps you lose weight who is overweight himself?

Improve physical health

To improve your physical health, it's good to know where you are now. For example, how healthy is your current diet? How much do you exercise now? And also, aren't you doing too much?

For example, did you know that endurance athletes suffer more from arteriosclerosis than people who exercise in other ways[1]?

For example, if you don't exercise enough now, using apps can help you become more conscious about exercise[2]. A pedometer on your smartwatch or smartphone can already do an awful lot.

Prefer not to be tracked while moving? Then you can also track in your calendar whether you have walked for 30 minutes daily, for example.

You can also keep an eye on whether you are sitting too much. For example, do you have a sedentary job? Then set a timer every hour and every time it goes off, take a moment to stretch or do some exercises, such as squats or pushups.

In doing so, you can also pay attention to reducing eating manufactured foods and improving your eating of fruits and vegetables, if you are currently not doing enough.

Making healthier choices

In the process, you can also let go of the idea of an electric bicycle. Have you ever noticed that people on an electric bike tend to be just a little taller anyway? It works the same way as those bikes from the past that had a motor, only now it's silent.

Enjoying the fresh air, but not "real" exercise. Getting back on a normal bike also ensures that you are moving more "really" anyway, instead of fapping yourself with your electric bike.

In the process, you also tend to fall less hard from a normal bike than from an electric bike, because you just don't go as fast.

Other choices you can make include taking the stairs instead of the elevator if you need to be in a taller building. Or that if you go somewhere by car you park it not near the entrance, but rather a little further away[3].

Haven't had anything fun on TV in a long time? Challenge yourself to do something other than watch television at night. Playing a fun game with your family can be much more active, and it's the little things that can make big differences.

Improve mental health

In addition to your body, there is, of course, your mental health. Your thoughts and influence on your emotions.

Stress, for example, is really a silent killer that can secretly have a lot of negative impact. For example, stress can cause blood pressure to get too high, you can suffer more from arteriosclerosis, and it can lead to emotion eating resulting in all sorts of health issues.

Sometimes whole steps can do much to reduce stress, such as taking seven deep breaths during stressful moments or before bedtime[4].

There are also a number of other practical steps you can take to improve your mental health.

Meeting with people, for example, is important to combat feelings of loneliness. Loneliness can increase your risk of premature death[5]. So social support is very important to improve your health.

Sufficient sleep can prevent you from suffering from depression[6]. Therefore, always try to get 7 to 9 hours of sleep per night.

Helping others improve their health

As can be seen, there are all kinds of choices people can make to improve their health, but sometimes there is something that prevents people from making the healthy choice.

Or people make "too" healthy choices and therefore go just a little too extreme with good intentions.

For example, people with sports addiction cannot stop playing sports, even if they suffer from an injury. Playing sports is often used to deal with certain emotions. As a result, they may also suffer from withdrawal symptoms if they do not exercise[7].

It is also often a problem that accompanies other problems, such as depression, eating disorders or ocd [8].

When healthy behaviors are used in the extreme to deal with negative emotions, for example, hypnotherapy can be used correctly. For example, hypnotherapy works just as well against depression as standard cognitive behavioral therapy[9].

So if you exercise too little or exercise too much due to depressive symptoms, hypnosis helps.

Increase sports motivation

If you want to live healthier lives yourself or help others, it is important to know that hypnosis can improve your motivation to exercise.

One way this is done is with visualizations. A hypnotherapist can help people with a guided visualization about exercising, and people can visualize themselves exercising with self-hypnosis.

This helps to improve their performance and increase motivation[10].

Helping people eat healthy

Hypnosis can also help for habits with food. For overweight adults who eat very impulsively, Ericksonian hypnosis can help them gain more control over their eating behavior.

A study involving adults with a BMI of between 30 and 40 found that it helped them be more in control. To do this, they received 8 hypnotherapy sessions and learned self-hypnosis [11].

Another study shows that hypnotherapy with post-hypnotic suggestions can change people's food preferences. Thus, this can make you prefer healthier foods[12].

Improve Sleep

The advice to sleep 7 to 9 hours a night is easier said than done for some people. Hypnotherapy also helps with sleep problems.

For example, if you have trouble sleeping through the night, hypnotherapy can help reduce this[13].

Overcoming social anxiety

Fight loneliness, strengthen ties with family and friends. It sounds very simple, but it's not for everyone. For example, you may suffer from anxiety disorders, such as being afraid of other people, or of going somewhere to meet new people.

Then it is good to know that hypnotherapy can help people overcome fears, including social fears[14].

How does hypnotherapy help improve health?

As mentioned, improving your health is all about making healthy choices. Studies show that hypnotherapy helps people make healthier choices.

This is because during hypnotherapy, people can double-check their beliefs about themselves and health. Beliefs that prevent people from buying vegetables, joining a gym or meeting with people, for example, can be examined.

Because people receive many beliefs in childhood, some beliefs do not always make sense. Yet these are in their subconscious. With certain techniques, a hypnotherapist can help others find those beliefs.

Like with a regression. Then, for example, you go back in your mind to the first moment when you just really didn't like vegetables and didn't want to eat them anymore.

Then you can do something with that moment in your mind. Even the taste perception of vegetables can be changed. So that the belief gets an "update" and you do get to enjoy vegetables and therefore make healthier choices.

The same goes for fears. Going back to the first moment when you had a particular fear. Do something with that moment that changes your belief and suddenly someone does dare to meet with new people.

In the case of sleep problems, people have often become alert to something. Something that makes them unconsciously feel it is unsafe to go to sleep. In that case, beliefs about what might happen while sleeping need to change.

This problem also often involves going back to when the insomnia started.