So What's the Deal with Hypnosis?

For those who have known me for a while, perhaps associating me with practicing or teaching yoga or yoga therapy doesn’t seem like a huge stretch. Yoga has become conventionally popular, so it’s also become easier to grasp.

While yoga therapy is less known, I do hope that my previous posts have shed some light on what it is and how it helps. Yoga therapy is yoga adapted to the whole person, with well-being as its main focus. It’s particularly helpful as support for health issues that are complex, systemic, chronic, invisible, or psychosomatic. (Read more here: “Holistic and Conventional Care Are Better Together”).

I’m a big supporter of yoga therapy and yoga styles that allow healing/wellness themes to shine, simply because:

1. I’ve personally experienced what it’s like to have health issues where conventional healthcare has fallen short.
2. I’ve experienced benefits in my own body, mind, and spirit from applying yoga therapeutically; benefits that conventional healthcare wouldn’t have been able to give me alone.

But what’s the deal with hypnosis? And energy healing? And sound therapy? And tarot? How does all of that fit into the picture? Make it all make sense please!

Sure thing! Stick with me, and I’ll get to them one at a time.😊

Today I’ll share:

• Why I got into hypnosis
• How hypnosis works on the mental level
• Three final words about hypnosis

Next time, I’ll explain the threads between mindfulness, guided meditation, Yoga Nidra, and hypnosis.

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My interest in hypnosis was fairly recent; I got into hypnosis about a year ago, and it really happened because I connected two things:

One of my classmates in a course I was taking was looking for volunteers to do some market research for her hypnosis practice. I was curious and happy to help, so we connected on Zoom. On that call, I also was able to experience a bit of hypnosis for myself and ask questions. This opened a door to learning more about hypnosis and practicing self-hypnosis. I do self-hypnosis almost daily, as a form of deep relaxation and mindset training.

My understanding and personal experience with hypnosis distilled into one sentence is this: Hypnosis is a form of deep guided relaxation that facilitates mindset shifts, which in turn, shifts actions and behaviors, resulting in tangible, real-life results.

A few months later, I attended a module on restorative yoga therapy, Yoga Nidra (I’ll get into this next time), and pranayama (breathwork). During that module, I learned that Yoga Nidra can induce the hypnagogic state, a deeply relaxed and restful state. This also happens to be the same state that hypnosis can induce.

The hypnagogic state is the transitory state between wakefulness and sleep, where we’re deeply  physically and mentally relaxed. It’s a state where we’re still awake, but not alert, deeply relaxed and just on the cusp of sleep, but not asleep. In Yoga Nidra, this state is referred to as “yogic sleep“ or “psychic sleep”.

If we’re speaking of brain waves, the hypnagogic state is one where we’re moving from predominantly alpha to theta waves. Brain waves are measurable by electroencephalography (EEG), and measurable brainwave changes do occur with meditation, Yoga Nidra, hypnosis, and  sound healing. (I’ll write about sound healing in a future post).

However, hypnosis is something that would be out of scope of practice for a yoga teacher or yoga  therapist, unless they were otherwise qualified.

The most important insights I pieced together from these two experiences:

1. Hypnosis helps us make change – first on the subconscious level, which then carries over on the conscious level. It’s a way to align the subconscious mind with the conscious mind.
2. Both Yoga Nidra (whether as a stand-alone yoga class, or as an element of yoga therapy), and hypnosis induce the same state.
3. Yoga therapy involves a nuanced and detailed understanding of the whole person, which means I have a lot of information to work with.
4. Many of us would like to change something in our lives, but at times we struggle.
5.  Given 1-4, why would I NOT take the extra step and get trained in hypnosis, so that I can make change easier, faster, and more sustainable for all of us, myself included?

It would be such a wasted opportunity to guide a client into a hypnagogic state, and not help them further, especially when the client has expressed things they'd like to change or a goal they'd like to achieve.

So it was a no-brainer for me to explore further and be trained to deliver hypnosis. I opted for integrative hypnosis because it incorporates a variety of approaches. I also add in energy work and somatic elements to make it all the more effective. If you’ve happened to read my prior posts, you likely have a sense of how much I care about both breadth and depth of knowledge, as well as synergy (1+1=3). I don’t like to stick with simply one tradition or model for the sake of its own preservation. I’m also a curious person who enjoys a challenge – it makes life all the more interesting and rewarding. 

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How Hypnosis Works: Two Neuroscience Concepts Related to Hypnosis

So what exactly happens in hypnosis on the mental level? Below I’ll cover two neuroscience concepts related to hypnosis. Again, please know that I’m simplifying for the sake of explanation, these are very broad brushstrokes.

1. Neuroplasticity. You may have heard of the phrase, “neurons that wire together, fire together.” The ones that fire together can be helpful – these are the ones that reinforce our learning and memory. The ones that aren’t helpful are the thought loops or patterns that keep us stuck, or result in repeated circumstances or a pattern of behavior that we perceive as problematic.

For example, relationships where we seem to be with a different partner, but we seem to experience the same dynamic over and over again (e.g. someone who tends to be a rescuer), a long-term habit we’d like to kick (e.g. smoking), or our relationship with sensations or mental states (e.g. pain or anxiety). Consciously, we may want to make a change, but the neurons that are wired together may be one reason we're stuck in the same thought patterns. Same thoughts, same actions, same results.

(Side note: There are other aspects at play as well, such as neurotransmitters and our brains’ reward systems, which I’m skipping over. There’s also a yogic term that relates to these mental impressions or habitual tendencies called samskara. There’s more to samskara than that, but I’m mentioning it briefly to highlight the overlap with yogic philosophy as well).

Hypnosis influences both brain activity and connectivity (University of Stanford School of Medicine). To help facilitate new connections, I get to know how you think of your problem, what you’d like to achieve, and what relationship you have with the issue, so that when I guide you into hypnosis, I can weave in elements to help – with guided imagery, symbolism, phrasing, and so on. Repetition builds neural pathways, so we reinforce the new connections that are beneficial and untangle the ones that aren’t. Our initial conversations are a highly valuable part of the session.

2. The Reticular Activating System (RAS). The RAS is a bundle of nerves in the brainstem. It has various functions, but one function is similar to that of a gatekeeper. It decides if something is important enough for our conscious mind to pay attention to, or whether it should be ignored. This is what’s at work to get us to pay attention when someone calls our name in a crowded room, or when we decide we want to buy something and suddenly start to notice it everywhere.

Hypnosis changes brain activity and modulates the RAS. In the hypnagogic state, we get to present new ideas to the subconscious mind for the RAS to focus on. This helps our brain prioritize whatever it is we’d like to experience or achieve on the conscious level. To facilitate this in hypnosis, I present statements or ideas to direct the focus of the conscious brain. This is a way to align the subconscious mind with the conscious mind.

3 Final Words About Hypnosis:

1. With hypnosis, our judging, analyzing part of our brain gets to rest, and the receptive, creative part of our brain gets to play. This is where the untangling, rewiring, and shifting of focus can most effectively take place. We don't force anything to happen. We simply create the best conditions and allow shifts to occur, or our inner desires to grow firmer roots. I find this aspect so freeing. We don't strive, force, or brute strength our way into anything - there's enough of that happening in our daily lives, don't you think? 

2. Hypnosis can help train the mind, in a gentle and restful way. We condition our bodies, but I think its safe to say that a lot of us don’t really give much thought to conditioning for a mindset that helps us be who we truly are, or the person we deeply desire to become.  As I mentioned, this conditioning doesn't have to be intense or forceful either. 

I wish this concept is taught to us and our children in our education system, so that we are all better equipped to look inward. All tangible results are rooted in our self-concept, our being. When we shift our self-concept, we act differently. It's those different actions that lead to different results. 

Real change - healing, wellness, growth, fulfillment - happens when we’re able to think and see something differently, and as a result, open our mind to other possibilities. 

3. How we think and feel about ourselves and the world is everything. These are the invisible glasses we wear every day. Mindset shapes how we view ourselves and the world. If we shift our mindset, changes that once seemed impossible become possible. In some cases, mental shifts are incremental. In other cases, it can be a lightbulb or lightning strike moment. If you don’t like what you’re seeing, perhaps it's time we clean the lenses, or try on different glasses. I can help you do that.

Let’s go on a gently guided, supportive, and playful exploration together, using an approach that resonates and feels safe for you. Hypnosis is one way in, but so are all the other modalities I use. Your healing and wellness journey is uniquely yours, but not one you have to go on alone.