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 can also experience stress due to more personal circumstances, such as when you are sick or when a loved one is sick.

Relationships can also cause stress. For example, when your partner cheats on you or when 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, even though you watch your diet and exercise regularly, there are several ways you can be treated. For example, you can be prescribed medication for stress [1].

If chronic stress causes you to experience depressive symptoms, you may be prescribed antidepressants or sedatives such as benzodiazepines. However, medications can have side effects. For example, you can become dependent on benzodiazepines, which means you’ll 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 frequently prescribed for the effects of stress, such as high blood pressure. That medication, in turn, often has side effects. Research shows that hypnosis for stress helps older adults lower their blood pressure[5]. The study helped people who were experiencing stress due to physical pain, external factors, family problems, and/or financial difficulties.

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 learned this from a friend who went to a psychologist for a problem and asked if he could also use hypnosis in combination with CBT. He explained that this was not permitted and that it is not covered by health insurance.

The combination of hypnosis and CBT works incredibly well against stress and is therefore appealing[6]. For this, you’ll 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 the problems causing your stress are unsolvable, hypnosis is also a better alternative than other forms of psychotherapy. This is because, in a state of hypnosis, you are more open to suggestions about how to view the problem differently than when you are not under hypnosis. Hypnosis then helps you think less negatively about your problem and achieve a more functional mental state. This helps you solve the problem, so you no longer suffer from 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 hold about things like your job, your relationship, or your health. Beliefs about who you are and what you can or cannot do also influence how 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, through regression, you can determine where and when in your life a belief that is currently causing stress first 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 commonly used in hypnotherapy. This can even be part of the therapy’s induction process, as 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.

Would you like to learn more about how hypnosis works? Then join the Hypnosis Institute of the Netherlands’ free online masterclass.

Would you like to learn hypnosis to help yourself or others? Then sign up for one of our courses. The courses are also taught online from a professional studio.

Also pin this handy infographic:

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2568977/

[2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/psychological-stress

[3] https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/appi.ajp.2020.20040375

[4] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13311-019-00801-9

[5] http://www.ijnms.net/index.php/ijnms/article/view/8

[6] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0005796705002159

[7] https://journals.lww.com/addictiondisorders/Abstract/2018/12000/The_Effectiveness_of_Hypnotherapy_in_Reducing.6.aspx

[8] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00029157.2017.1312261

[9] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3969677/

[10] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12906-017-1806-0