Stop Smoking, Lose Weight, Cease Nail Biting

Den Clare

What do they all have in common?

Let me enlighten you. Think of the little new born baby, being cuddled, starting to feed, feeling happy. Contentment, warm and cosy and after a while, satisfied! So, what’s going on here.

The mind is divided into two parts, the conscious every day communicating mind and the subconscious, that amazing computer which stores everything that we experience as we grow. A lot of which, it must be said, is not readily available to the conscious level. The deeper mind holds our programmes of behaviour, everything we learn, habits that we repeat, even without thinking. When we  drive, so much is performed at a memory level, even when we clean our teeth or get dressed, so much is repeated in the same order. Habits.

When the baby is fed a message of well being is associated with the action and before long, the mouth becomes recognised as an area of pleasure, known as oral gratification.

So, you are tired, anxious, bored, what do you do, reach for a cigarette, piece of cake, sweets and the glorious chocolate bar! Hoping to relax, bur nicotine is a stimulant of which you will probably need more, sugar the same affect. You are being controlled by the comfort pattern, the conscious mind often unable to intervene! Any programme that is repeated becomes stronger and the first rule of the mind kicks in, “That which is expected, tends to be realised!”. You tell yourself,          “I need a cigarette” “Look for the chocolate” or even without realising it, bite your nails! Stimulation by the mouth, resolution broken.

Hypnotherapy relaxes the conscious mind, in the most pleasant way, and reduces its ability to accept or reject suggestion. Then new suggestions can be given, which, if in accordance with the person’s needs or wants, will be acted upon to “delete” the old programme and strengthen will power. Sometimes a deeper investigation may be required into the causes of stress encouraging the actions, this analytical approach taking a little more time.

This is to some extent the simplification of the processes involved but my experience over the last 40 years applying Hypnotherapy, backs this up with the many weight loss successes and hundreds of smoking cessations, one person even smoking 100 a day and still smoke free after 20 something years.     Den Clare