San Francisco Hypnotherapy Center

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Hypnotherapy is one of the worlds oldest methods for improving and maintaining physical health and emotional well-being. Archaeological evidence proves that hypnosis was commonly used by health practitioners thousands of years ago in Ancient Egypt.
Hypnosis is as old as the pyramids and every bit as enduring and reliable, too. While its nothing more than a product of the imaginationyour imaginationits effects are quite real.
Its powerful, effective, and completely safe because it comes from your own mind.
Commonly perceived as a type of sleep or a method for controlling others, hypnosis is seen by many as a kind of magic act or side-show, little more than cheap entertainment based on deception and trickery.
How unfortunate that such an important and valuable resource continues to be so misunderstood andat least in this countrylargely ignored.

The Truth Is Far More Fascinating
For just a moment, forget what you think you know about hypnosis. For one thing, its not about going to sleep, controlling someone else, or giving up control.
Hypnosis is a state of mind, nothing more. It happens in your own heada place only you can access. No one ever hypnotizes anyone else. That would be like trying to make someone else dream.
You can try to make someone else comfortable and even help them to relax, but you cannot make someone dream. Thats why all hypnosis is self-hypnosis.
Self-hypnosis, or autohypnosis, is the act of intentionally and consciously causing yourself to experience whats called hypnotic trance. So what, exactly, is that?
A trance is a state of mind very much like daydreaming. When you daydream, youre not asleep. In fact, youre wide awake. But youre so focused on whatever youre imagining that you forget to pay attention to much of anything else.
Children daydream a lot. Remember? Youre sitting at your desk, thinking about what youre going to do when schools out, thenfrom out of nowherethe teacher shouts your name and says Pay attention!
Most of us daydream by accident. You start thinking about something and, before you know it, youve stopped doing whatever it was you were doing. If youre sitting down, you might even close your eyes so you can focus on what youre imagining.
Hypnotic trance is different. For one thing, its not accidental. Whether you do it all by yourself or a professional hypnotherapist helps you, achieving hypnotic trance is something you do on purpose.
And, yes, anyoneincluding youcan do it.
Hypnosis is a natural processa state of mind we all experience every day, usually without ever realizing it. Cant remember being in a trance?
When hypnosis is used for making positive changes, achieving better physical health and emotional well-being, or enabling self-improvement and personal growth, it becomes hypnotherapy.
The Mind-Body Connection
We know which part of the brain controls breathing and makes the heart beat. We know where memories are stored and which areas are responsible for interpreting odors, sounds, and everything we see with our eyes.
Those are some things our brains do automatically. Without thinking about it.
Imagine what would happen if you had to remember everything. Remember to take a breath. Then make your heart beat. And while youre at it, keep your body temperature steady. Regulate your blood pressure. Exhale. Tell your stomach to digest dinner. Make more blood cells. Heal that cut. Tense one leg muscle while you relax another so you can walk across the room.
You just cant do it.
But a huge part of your brain can and does, everyday. Like an enormous, ultra-complicated computer in your head, it takes care of all the millions and millions of things your body needs to do in order for you to liveunconsciously. And it never sleeps.
It controls everything our bodies do and it usually does a terrific job. But it also controls two other things. It controls what you do and it controls your perspective or point of viewlike how you feel about yourself and the world around you.
Your unconscious mind is controlling you. Sounds funny, doesnt it? Well, think of all the things your brain has to do. There isnt much time leftover for things like deciding or evaluating or even thinking.
So many things to do, so many orders to give. If it works, it just keeps doing it that way, over and over and over. No time to think, just keep going.
When you do something again and again, it becomes a habit. Make something a habit and you never have to think about it again. But what happens if you want to change that habit? Like eating too much or smoking cigarettes? What happens if you want to improve your self-esteem or stop feeling so anxious all the time?
Thats where hypnotherapy comes in. You may know consciously that smoking can be fatal, but you keep doing it even though you want to stop. You know too much sugar and fat can add unwanted pounds, but you cant seem to stay away from fattening foods or muster up the motivation to exercise.
Why? Because your Unconscious Mind got the wrong message a long time ago and its only doing what you told it to do in the first place.
Can you give it new instructions? Yes. How? By speaking in the language it understands. A conversation of symbols and metaphor, imagination and dreams, in a place where you and your Unconscious Mind can meet on common grounda place thats somewhere in betweena state of mind called hypnotic trance.