Changing Bad Habits |
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You can "unlearn" bad habits with hypnosis because we utilise the part of the mind that manages the habit. |
Extended information about hypnosis and habit control.
If you ask most people the question "What is the job of the mind?" most of them will answer that the job of the mind is to think. However, in reality, it is only the part of the mind that thinks that actually thinks that.
What does that really mean? It means that the mind has many varying roles and processes and that thinking is only one of them. The mind manages our autonomic nervous system and regulates our heart rate, metaboloism, body temperature etc. It generates and monitors our emotions, it learns and grows as well as managing habitual behaviour. In fact there is a whole realm of activity that the human mind takes care of apart from thinking.
Being able to develop and maintain a habit is a really important part of the mind's purpose. By developing habits we can learn to do things like walk, ride a bike, write our name and even talk without having to re-learn them again and again. Once we learn certain things we tend to keep that skill. We've all heard the saying "Its like learning to ride a bike, once you learn it you never forget it."
The thing about the mind is that it doesn't seem to be naturally wired to "unlearn" things by itself. I for one am very happy about that. I enjoy going to bed each night with the knowledge that what I learnt yesterday will still be there in the morning. However there are some things that we sometimes teach ourselves that we would like to "unlearn." Some people bite their nails, some drink too much alcohol, some gamble or procrastinate or regularly demonstrate some other form of habitual behaviour that makes their experience of life less satisfactory than they would like.
This is where hypnosis becomes useful. When we unwittingly teach ourselves a bad habit our subconscious mind applies the same diligence to managing and maintaining it as it applys to any other thing that we learn. This is why we can't seem to think our way out of bad habits. They are not maintained by the part of the brain that thinks and therefore can not be unlearned by that part of the brain.
Hypnosis provides an opportunity to focus the attention of the part of the mind that maintains the habit. The habit can then be unlearned just as easily as it was learned in the first place. As far as I am concerned most bad habits do not represent some deep unmet need but are simply a particular behaviour that has become habitual. If there is some other issue that needs to be dealt with we will come across it in due course and deal with it appropriately.
Hypnosis is a very practical therapy and I personally always go for the simplest result first. Often the changing or dropping of a habit is all that is needed in its own right. If more complex work needs to be done then we do it as is needed. Hypnosis is also very effective for this deeper work if needed. Most people are delighted and pleasantly surprised at the ease with which long standing habits can be changed via the use of hypnosis.
