Mind & Body Magazine
November 2023 Issue
By Leonie Garner

I can never decide whether those myths around hypnosis are useful or not when I say what I do for a living.

As a Clinical Hypnotherapist, it often feels akin to stating I am the neighbourhood witch, given the responses at social events or school gate. I see many a raised eyebrow, followed by the inevitable question, ‘but does it actually work?’

Stage hypnotists are fun and memorable, and I suppose they do show that hypnosis is a powerful psychological tool.  I cringe inwardly to watch it being used for spectacle though, as a rather unwieldy and blunt instrument, rather than with the beautiful precision I know it to possess.

It’s also, if you’ll pardon the pun, really missing a trick. There is so much more to hypnosis and hypnotherapy to benefit from, and potential to be further embraced within the world of health and wellbeing.

So, I will say now that I have never made anyone fall in love with an inanimate object, bark like a dog, or eat a raw onion like an apple. I don’t own a pocket watch or use the phrase ‘look into my eyes’.

But does it actually work? And how?

Therapeutic hypnosis is as far from those strange cultural images and ideas around mind control as it is possible to be. It brings much more control over your own mind and instinctive behaviours, with the potential to make positive, measurable changes to your mental, emotional, and physical wellbeing.

Most of my clinical time is spent treating anxiety, which has many emotional forms but manifests physically in the body . I help clients combat physical ailments such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and migraine far more often than just helping people stop smoking or dismantling phobias about flying (although I can do that too).

Hypnosis in the hands of a skilled and qualified Hypnotherapist is applied with precision and care, and importantly, with integrity.

We make good use of the body’s own natural deep relaxation response in a calm therapeutic space, but it can at times feel transformative and ‘like magic.’ Hypnotherapy can create profound change in how people think about and respond to their world, and crucially, how they feel.

The ability to respond to suggestion varies from person to person, but even those who believe themselves very much non-suggestible can still find it very helpful.

Ironically, and much to their surprise, these are often the people who benefit most.
As a clinician, this makes them wonderfully rewarding to treat.

If you are sceptical but curious about how hypnosis feels, just think about the novel you became engrossed in on holiday, that film, or TV series you’re currently watching that feels really absorbing.

As involved as you are in the character narratives and stories, they’re not controlling you. You engage with these things willingly because it feels so good to be fully immersed, enjoying paying close attention to them. They ignite imagination and we suspend belief, naturally becoming invested and engrossed.


This is at the core of how hypnosis feels, and works, by switching on a focused state of attention, reducing critical barriers and in doing so, finding the mind’s learning ‘mode’.

You may be surprised to know that you’re likely to be in a form of light hypnosis while reading this even now, because your awareness is slightly narrowed, and attention is focused. Your brain is screening out many distracting background sounds, movements, and details from the environment but you’re still awake enough to respond to others’ words or cues. You may even be hearing the internal ‘voice’ you use to think with, to yourself, as you read. Can you hear that?

In observing that inner voice, even just for a moment, you’ve been able to step outside of and notice your thoughts from a slightly different angle. You have practised a little bit of mindfulness, too.

Historic references to hypnosis go as far back as ancient Greece and Egypt. Hypnosis is even documented within the beginnings and teachings of Chinese medicine, as early as 2,600BC.

Trance-like, focused states of awareness have been used throughout human existence to still the mind, seek wisdom and insight, and improve health and wellbeing through meditation, yoga, breathwork and chanting. They are woven through the fabric of most religious ceremonies and practices in some form or another, particularly prayer.

The concept of neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to adapt its circuitry, is even beautifully captured within a Buddhist saying,

“The mind takes the shape of what it rests upon”.

This glittering little gem of ancient wisdom is now supported by modern research.

Neuroscience shows us that the human brain has amazing plasticity. It is flexible, continuously learning, forming, changing, and reinforcing networks of connections between billions of nerve cells, called neurons, in response to your thoughts, feelings and experiences. You may have heard the phrase ‘what fires together, wires together’ in relation to neuroplasticity.

This, and a phenomenon known as the Quantum Zeno effect within neuroscience shows that whatever you continuously focus on creates observable changes within the brain.

That which you place your awareness on, becomes amplified.
In other words, how you use your brain changes what your brain can do - and the body responds accordingly.

So what does hypnosis have to do with this?

Hypnotic states slow our brainwaves down (through Alpha to Theta) mimicking the brain’s dreaming and learning modes, allowing it to rehearse and accept change more readily, becoming more open to suggestion.

When we understand this, we can find the true potential and purpose of this amazing psychological tool: to improve health and wellbeing and overcome thoughts, fears and habits that can limit us. We gain the ability to better manage our own mental health and resilience, consciously defend against stress-related illness and build healthier brain practices into daily life that can help us thrive.

For example, imagine the changes you could make in how you approach food and exercise if you truly felt differently about them?

What if you focused mental energy on nourishing your body really well, rather than criticising it? What if it felt weird to have a week go by without a hike, swim, or yoga class?

How could fundamentally changing those old, well-worn, autopilot thoughts change your life for the better?  
What could you do that you weren’t able to before?
Who would that allow you to be? 

I recently completed some additional training in Positive Psychology.
Evidence for this approach in treating all kinds of emotional and mental illness, is substantial. I was struck by how Hypnotherapy is, in so many ways, a way of applying positive psychology in its purest form i.e. when we habitually place our focus on solutions, strengths and resources, positive emotions, perspectives and strategies, rather than fear and weakness, it builds physically healthier, more resilient minds. In turn we build healthier, more resilient bodies.

Put simply, Hypnotherapy asks the question, ‘how would you like to be instead?’ then plots the route for your mind and body to follow. 

But we can go beyond this too, and into the mental and physical benefits of lifting trauma. Research into the nature of memory, and memory consolidation shows that within hypnosis we can shift and update emotional states encoded within our memories, calming down emotions attached to the past, so that the brain consolidates – rewrites and re-saves – those memories with much healthier emotional content and a more regulated, updated emotional blueprint.

Because of the mind-body connection we all have, it makes sense that, alongside psychological change, hypnotic techniques can play a role in recovery from physical illness too.

Whilst hypnosis should never be claimed to be the miracle cure-all, the use of profoundly deep levels of relaxation involved, and careful guidance of certain body processes means we can positively influence how we experience our minds and bodies.

Hypnosis has been shown to reduce stress hormones like adrenalin and cortisol, to lower blood pressure, speed up healing, boost immunity, to shift the perception of and management of pain, and reduce inflammation – often most helpfully within the digestive system (amongst others).

Inflammatory and auto-immune conditions are known to be exacerbated by stress (often triggered by illness itself, creating a feedback loop). Memory difficulties can be linked to high levels of cortisol. Stress has an impact on some of the mechanisms underlying dementia.

So, in the interests of longevity, and proactively staying well into old age, learning to use tools such as self-hypnosis to reduce physical effects of stress can be of tangible benefit.

As humans we evolved to live in hunter-gatherer groups, to act on gut instincts, be supported by and connected with one another, and intrinsically synced with our natural environment. Our brains and bodies haven’t evolved much beyond this. Our internal operating systems haven’t had an upgrade in the last few thousand years, to keep up with the pace and demands of modern life.

Our primal stress response to this clash of worlds, when triggered by a traffic jam, email, or even daily family life, powers down non-essential bodily functions like digestion and immunity, diverting energy and resources to systems that will enable us to survive short term danger. Not a problem when occasionally outrunning a predator, or enemy tribe, but if this becomes regular or prolonged, these systems understandably suffer. Modern life can mean our minds and bodies become switched into this Fight or Flight mode for hours, days, sometimes weeks and months at a time.

So while we can’t really change modern lifestyles that normalise the opposite of our instincts and earlier existence, i.e., stress, materialism, individualism, and constantly bombarded with information, we can adapt all the better by regulating our minds and bodies.

Hypnotic guided deep relaxation can be the antidote to states of stress, returning the nervous system back into Rest and Digest  mode, reducing inflammation, and supporting and activating natural healing mechanisms within the body.

For this reason many studies have shown hypnosis to be an effective tool in treating irritable bowel syndrome, reducing debilitating symptoms and preventing relapse long term, without potential side effects of medication. Gut-directed hypnotherapy is recommended by the NHS for people who don’t respond to traditional pharmacological treatment.

Hypnosis can also help with conditions such as insomnia, not only speeding the transition into falling asleep, but by adjusting the frequency of REM dream-sleep cycles, to improve quality of that sleep.  If you’re familiar with the feeling of waking up, even after a full 8 or 10 hours of sleep, still feeling exhausted, you might be over-dreaming. A stressed brain dreams up to three times more than normal and can feel almost as busy as being awake all night. Stress and worry disrupt sleep cycles, skewing the balance towards more busy dreaming (REM) cycles, and less restful, slow-wave, deeper sleep. 

Using guided hypnotic imagery or self-hypnosis at bedtime can help de-stress the mind and body before going to sleep, engaging the imagination better, halting worry, and creating calm distance from those things that might not be so easily resolved in real life (but certainly cannot be solved at 3am). This helps the brain relinquish those emotional puzzles and thought loops from going round and round overnight, and sleep becomes restorative.

 So, hypnosis is so much more useful to wellbeing than those ‘mind control’ parlour tricks and illusions.

In the right hands it can help reduce post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depressive illness, anxiety, insomnia, IBS and chronic pain. Hypnotherapy is recognised by the NHS as an established complementary therapy that can supplement conventional medical treatments, it can be used alongside antidepressants, and make other therapies such as cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) even more effective.

But is it helpful for everyone?

Hypnosis is not suitable for people experiencing psychosis, and The Royal College of Psychiatrists recommends sharing any existing health conditions with your therapist or GP before receiving hypnotherapy.

It is of course important to find a practitioner from an accredited register, such as the Professional Standards Authority or National Hypnotherapy Society.

Other than that, studies have shown that hypnosis within hypnotherapy can provide help for many people experiencing a whole range of difficulties, and it can super-charge the wellbeing of most. Without a swinging watch in sight.