“Go into a deep sleep,” the hypnotherapist said quickly, snapping his fingers. Immediately I collapsed on the couch and entered a hypnotic state.
This was the first time I had ever been hypnotized. I have been undergoing various types of therapy for over 15 years to treat acute anxiety and depression. Although I have always been open to alternative treatments, I have never had the opportunity to receive this treatment. Until this moment, my only exposure to hypnosis was in the context of a play where people danced like reluctant chickens and barked at their friends.
So when The Ritz-Carlton, New York, Central Park offered to share the hotel’s new hypnotherapy wellness experience, I jumped at the chance to try it out. As I was contemplating a major change in my life, I was experiencing increased stress. Doubt and anxiety were running through my body 24/7, and no amount of meditation apps or deep breathing could change it.
Two weeks after I emailed the Ritz, I was sitting on a cream-colored couch in a suite facing Central Park. I was hoping for a solution to the darkness that was eating away at my mind, but I was skeptical that hypnosis would bring anything. After all, I’ve been through all kinds of therapy for a long time, but how much can a 90 minute session do? actually do?
The day before my session, I had a 10-minute phone call with Ginger Gibson, a New Jersey-based holistic health practitioner and certified hypnotherapist with the Hypnosis Motivation Institute. During the call, we discussed how I was feeling and what I wanted to get out of the session.
“I want to find purpose and reconcile who I am and what I want to do,” I said half-heartedly, as if such a desire was ridiculous. I had some ideas in mind about how to change my life, but was finding it difficult to synchronize my mood with what I wanted. “I’m nervous and scared. I want to be confident in my decisions, peaceful and relaxed, and happy.”
Gibson took notes and explained what we do and what hypnotherapy is. First, I experience a trance-like feeling, similar to an intermediate stage between being awake and still asleep. There was never a moment when I felt like I couldn’t control my mind.
Consciousness is divided into five brain waves: beta, alpha, theta, delta, and gamma. Hypnosis occurs with theta waves, which put you in a deeply relaxed state. Here, hypnosis opens your mind and makes you more open to suggestions that can help you change.In beta waves (which refers to the wavelengths when we are awake and conscious), we tend to fall into patterns based on past experiences.
At a primal level, Gibson explains, our instinct is to survive. For people who are trying to make changes in their lives, convincing their conscious mind to undergo change can be very difficult. Because your instincts remind you that no matter how logically positive this change is, you can survive the moment. . The subconscious mind tells the conscious mind not to change or creates strong hesitation. Because you already know you can survive the situation you’re currently living in, but you don’t know if you can survive the new situation. As people trying to make a change, Gibson and I were going to work on it so that our subconscious minds wouldn’t shy away from it.
A full body massage was part of the Ritz-Carlton’s hypnotherapy wellness experience, so I was able to relax my body thanks to a 90-minute massage before meeting with Gibson. I had a few bumps in my upper and lower back, which relieved a lot of the tension in my body. I started breathing.
I have spent half my life in fight or flight mode. I fought and worked hard in every aspect of my life, but my efforts went unappreciated or ignored. That wasn’t enough. I lost motivation and became nervous. The level of burnout I felt every day weighed heavily on my chest, as if someone was stepping on my chest and slowly digging their heel into the cavity between my ribs. I was sick the day of the hypnosis, but Ms. Gibson said she wasn’t surprised because of her weight I was carrying. This treatment couldn’t have come at a better time.
She explained that hypnotherapy is a combination of cognitive conversation therapy and hypnosis. So, she spent the first 45 minutes of the session discussing my behavioral patterns and what I wanted to get out of the session. During our 10-minute phone call, I repeated much of what I said, but she took notes along the way. (Later she explained that this was to use my own words when doing the hypnotherapy, so that my subconscious mind would be better able to accept it.) We then started talking about the session. We moved on to the hypnosis part.
She first asked me a series of 36 questions to test my suggestibility, or how prone I was to accepting and acting on suggestions. “Do you prefer reading fiction to non-fiction?” “Have you ever walked while sleeping as an adult?” “Holding hands or hugging someone you’re dating in front of other people?” Are you comfortable doing that?” I answered each question by nodding or shaking my head.
As I sat on the couch in my hotel suite, Gibson instructed me to place my left arm on the armrest, my feet flat on the floor, my back relaxed, and my eyes closed. She slowly started telling me how light my fingers and wrists felt. “The hand lifts and continues to rise higher and higher, as light as a feather flutters with each breath,” she continued. At one point during the interaction, I did feel how my left wrist was being supported and my arm started to inch up as she guided my movements. “And go into a deep sleep,” she said the moment my fingers touched her cheek. Hypnosis was in progress.
The first few minutes included a lot of visualization. My negative emotions became birds that I released. I could see the light and warmth traveling through all the veins of my body. Then I saw myself falling into a white billowing cloud. At that time, I started coughing.
“Oh, damn,” I thought. “I ruined it.”
Gibson encouraged me to catch my breath and drink some water. I was sure I had ruined something good. After all, it took me so much time to reach this calm and peaceful state. I wasn’t sure if I would be able to move that far after feeling like I was coughing up all my lungs. When I felt better, I closed my eyes and counted back from five.
“Sleep well,” she said, snapping her fingers.
That’s when I first realized the power of hypnosis. Although I still felt in control of my mind, I automatically returned to the couch and fell into a hypnotic state. “Oh my god,” I thought. “This is legal.”
We went back to visualization for a moment and then she said she was going to start talking to my subconscious. This is where hypnosis actually takes place. This is what I came here for.
Using the words I spoke during the talk therapy portion of the session, she began nudging my subconscious mind to make the changes I was feeling anxious about. “You’re making progress and moving toward what you really want to do here, what you really want, and who you really are,” she said. Every word resonated with what I was working on and every sentence was spoken with great care. I never wanted it to stop.
Of course it had to be. At the end of the 90-minute session, Gibson quietly left the room. He was encouraged to take his time and ease back into the day and even take a nap. The rest of the day I felt light, calm, and rested, as if I had slept well every night for the past ten years. I don’t remember ever feeling so peaceful.
Although worth the experience in itself, the benefits of hypnotherapy continued to emerge over time. When I started thinking about the changes I wanted to make, instead of feeling anxious and sad that a chapter was about to end, I was able to appreciate the past and move confidently into the future. Reminders of things you left behind no longer trigger negative reactions. When I thought about the next chapter of my life, I knew in my gut that I would be successful. I didn’t have an ounce of the impostor syndrome I’ve spent most of my life battling.
Physical changes were also observed. First, the cough that had been bothering me for over a month completely disappeared within a few days. After that, the pimples that plagued my face completely disappeared. (Who needs prescription acne medication when you can get hypnotherapy instead?) Until the end, board-certified dermatologist and self-help advisor Manju Dawkins, M.D. It explains that stress and anxiety increase levels of both cortisol and catecholamines. As a result, sebum production increases and inflammation occurs. “Chronic stress disrupts skin function,” she explains. “When anxiety is controlled, the skin is able to perform its best job of retaining moisture and protecting itself from harmful bacteria.”
It’s been two months since I had my hypnotherapy session and I’m still feeling the effects. As a result of the confidence it instilled, I have gone through huge changes in my life without ever doubting myself. I have a clearer vision of what my purpose is and it has made me a much happier person. People close to me have commented on how much calmer I look and sound, and I completely agree with them.I feel It gets exponentially better.
In one session, I was able to accomplish with hypnosis what I had not been able to accomplish in years of therapy. That’s no coincidence; Gibson shared a prominent study comparing cognitive behavioral therapy, psychotherapy, and hypnotherapy. As a result, about 600 hours of traditional psychotherapy resulted in an improvement rate of about 38% for each currently occurring problem, behavioral therapy expected an improvement rate of 72% after 22 sessions, and hypnosis. The therapy was found to have a promising recovery rate of 93% after six sessions.
Consider me a firm believer.