Improve health: Hypnosis helps yourself and others

Aug. 25, 2024

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 important to know where you stand right now. For example, how healthy is your current diet? How much do you exercise? And also, are you overdoing it?

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.

You can also focus on reducing your intake of processed foods and increasing your consumption of fruits and vegetables , if you’re not currently eating enough of them.

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 truly a silent killer that can secretly have a huge negative impact. For instance, stress can cause blood pressure to rise, increase the risk of atherosclerosis, and lead to emotional eating, resulting in all sorts of health problems.

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.

For example, spending time with others is important for combating feelings of loneliness. Loneliness can increase your risk of premature death[5]. Social support is therefore very important for improving 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 co-occurs with other issues, such as depression, eating disorders, or OCD [8].

When healthy behaviors are taken to extremes—for example, to cope with negative emotions—hypnotherapy can be an effective solution. For instance, hypnotherapy is just as effective in treating 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 a healthier life yourself or help others, it’s important to know that hypnosis can boost 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 using post-hypnotic suggestions can change people’s food preferences. This can help you develop a preference for healthier foods[12].

Improve Sleep

For some people, the recommendation to sleep 7 to 9 hours a night is easier said than done. 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.

It’s good to know that hypnotherapy can help people overcome fears, including social anxiety[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 re-examine their beliefs about themselves and their health. Beliefs that prevent people from, for example, buying vegetables, joining a gym, or socializing with others can be explored.

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.

Take regression, for example. In this process, you mentally go back to the first moment when you simply stopped liking vegetables and no longer wanted to eat them.

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.