Hypnosis Against Stress

Stress is incredibly annoying, especially when it is no longer interspersed with relaxation and therefore becomes chronic. This is because it has all kinds of effects on your body. Your immune system weakens and you may suffer from higher blood pressure, with all sorts of unpleasant consequences[1].

You may also suffer from depressive symptoms with chronic stress, for example.

So it is incredibly important to do something about stress. That's when you can think about hypnosis.

What is stress?

Stress is the body's response to stimuli that cause your body to go into fight, flight or freeze mode. You can get stressed if you have a lot of work on your plate and you fear losing your job if you don't get it done in time.

You may also experience stress from more personal circumstances, such as when you are sick or when a loved one of yours is ill.

Relationships can also cause stress. For example, if your partner is cheating or if there are other relationship problems.

You then often feel anxious and your body produces more cortisol[2]. This is a stress hormone that causes your body to be ready to fight. In actually dangerous situations, such as when you are attacked, this is helpful.

But with modern problems, where actually running or fighting is not convenient, this physical response is awkward and harmful.

Is hypnosis better than medication?

If you suffer from chronic stress, despite paying attention to your diet and exercising regularly, there are several ways you can be treated. For example, you can get medication for the stress[1].

If chronic stress causes you to develop depressive symptoms, you can get antidepressants or tranquilizers in the form of benzodiazepines. Only medications can have side effects. For example, benzodiazepines can make you dependent, which means you actually have to take that medication for the rest of your life.

On top of that, benzos can give you memory problems. If you use it for more than three months, you are also more likely to suffer from Alzheimer's or dementia[3][4]. When these diseases are just beginning, this again causes a lot of stress, so eventually taking medication is then useless.

When you use hypnotherapy for stress, you don't suffer these kinds of side effects at all because you simply aren't taking medication. With hypnosis, you assume that your body and mind have what it takes to solve your problems or reactions to stressful moments.

Medication is also regularly prescribed for the effects of stress, such as high blood pressure. Those medications, in turn, often have side effects. Research shows that hypnosis against stress helps lower blood pressure in older people[5]. The study helped people who suffered from stress due to physical pain, outside factors, family problems and/or economic problems.

Hypnosis for stress or still go to the psychologist?

Now you might think that you might as well go to the psychologist then, and of course you can. But the psychologist in the Netherlands is bound by certain procedures, which must be followed. For example, a psychologist is really only allowed to give cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).

I understood this from a friend who went to a psychologist for a problem and asked if he could also apply hypnosis in conjunction with CBT. He then indicated that this was not allowed and would not be reimbursed by the health insurance company.

In fact, the combination of hypnosis and CBT works incredibly well against stress and is therefore attractive[6]. For this, however, you will need to see a hypnotherapist who can also apply CBT.

In addition, hypnotherapy allows you to use other techniques that may work even faster. Generally, three sessions are enough to help people get rid of certain problems.

Hypnotherapy alone is also sufficient to reduce stress[7].

If you think that the problems causing stress cannot be solved, hypnosis is also a better alternative than other psychotherapy. This is because in the state of hypnosis you are more open to suggestions about how to look at the problem in a different way than when you are not in hypnosis. Hypnosis then helps you think less negatively about your problem and you get a more functional mental state. That helps you solve the problem, eliminating the stress[8].

In what ways does hypnosis help with stress?

There are several techniques a hypnotherapist can use to reduce stress. Whether you experience stress often depends on personal factors. For example, it depends on the beliefs you have about things like your job, your relationship or your health. Beliefs about who you are and how you can or cannot do something also affect whether you experience stress.

Hypnosis helps you change beliefs that cause you to experience stress, so that certain stressful situations are no longer experienced that way after therapy. You then often have more confidence that you have it in you to make everything come together.

So there are multiple ways. Initially, you are put into hypnosis. Depending on your hypnotizability, this may be faster or somewhat slower. The hypnotherapist will perform an induction that suits you.

Hypnosis and cognitive behavioral therapy

When you are in hypnosis, the treatment will actually take place. Among other things, you can receive cognitive behavioral therapy while in hypnosis. That's kind of the talk therapy. Because you are in hypnosis, you can name unconscious beliefs faster and you take advice from the therapist faster. This is one of the reasons why hypnosis and CBT are a good combination.

Hypnosis and regression

But other techniques can also be used. For example, you can use regression to find out where and when in your life a belief that is now causing stress arose.

You may have the belief that you can't say "no" to your boss or that you have to do anything for your partner that they ask. This is very inconvenient if you want to have a life of your own.

With regression, you will get the suggestion from the hypnotherapist to go back to the first moment when you felt it worked that way. Then a memory will immediately reveal itself to you and that is often the moment.

Then, with the help of the hypnotherapist, you start to look at this moment in a different way. This is because often these are moments from your childhood and you have looked at this moment with the knowledge of the time and with the knowledge you had a lesson from it at the time.

Now you are wiser and can revisit this moment, giving it a different meaning. This alone can cause you to experience much less stress. For example, because you find it easier to state your boundaries, that alone can save quite a bit of stress.

Hypnosis and guided visualization

Visualizations are widely used in hypnotherapy. It can even be part of the induction of therapy. In fact, it helps you relax. You are usually asked to imagine a place where you feel completely safe[9].

If something physical is causing stress, you can even get a guided visualization on how your body heals itself with healing energy, a pleasant liquid or even a vacuum cleaner that causes all the stress to be sucked out of your body.

Self-hypnosis against stress

In addition to taking hypnosis sessions with a hypnotherapist, you can also be given homework in the form of recordings of the hypnosis session or affirmations to repeat to yourself.

Research shows that self-hypnosis at least helps reduce feelings of stress[10].

These can include affirmations such as:

My body does everything it can to protect me from stress.
I am strong.
It's okay to state my limits.

These are just examples. Depending on your sources of stress, you may receive - to combat stress - other suggestions from your hypnotherapist.

In addition to these techniques, there are many others that can also be used.

Want to learn more about how hypnosis works? Then come to the Hypnosis Institute Netherlands' free online master class.

Want to learn hypnosis yourself to help yourself or others? Then enroll in one of our training courses. The trainings are also conducted online from a professional studio.

Also pin this handy infographic:

hypnosis against stress