Weight-loss and Hypnosis for Children

Who does not want to lose weight?  Whenever we look at ourselves in a mirror how we wish we could shed some pounds.  The same would be with our children.  One of the methods being used nowadays is hypnotism for children to help them lose some weight.

Obesity and complications and diseases brought by being overweight are some of the common problems that not only adults are facing.  Statistics are showing that approximately 22 million of children worldwide with the age of 5 and below re considered obese. 

Adults are also not safe from the statistics.  There are 58 million people considered to be overweight,40 million are obese and 3 million are  very much obese. Based on this gloomy data is that we are suffering from our disregard of our health.  There is relatively 76 percent increase of patients who have Type II diabetes.

Actually most people are gaining weight by simply not paying attention to what is being ingested by the body.  Actually, losing weight is no miracle.  It has to be worked on and the regimen should be strictly followed. 

Actually, experts do not see eye to eye on what is the best and fastest way to lose weight. This is why before attempting any weight loss regimen it is important to consult with your doctor first. 

Using hypnosis in losing weight, you do only focus on losing the symptoms of being fat but the focus is on the goal.  Hypnotherapy totally changes what you think about gaining weight and losing weight.  It does not simply dictate you to lose weight but this change your perception and thoughts about gaining weight. 

How do you use hypnosis in helping children and parent, alike to lose weight?

- To lose weight the reason for being overweight should be addressed.  And you should not think that losing weight can be done over and over again.  Since in hypnosis, it is said that the mind or the subconscious reacts to what we feed to it.   So if we think that we are not going to lose weight ever again, it means that we are not going to gain weight again. We are getting rid of the excess weight permanently

- Approach your relationship with food with a different perspective,  you are totally removing the old habit you have and shifting into a new “relationship”.

- Patience is important.  Imagine, that it took time before you ere able to build-up all the fats you have stocked in your body.  It would be a while before you can shed the excess fat. 

- Do not deprive yourself.  Once or twice a month of guilty eating would not make your fat.

The discipline you need to follow to make this weight loss program succeed relies on self-hypnosis.  If you are doing hypnotherapy with a hypnotherapist, make sure you are open to the suggestions.  Most suggestions would be about previous experiences, how you cam change perception and sensation.  It could even have an effect to the emotion, thought and behaviour. 

Using hypnosis for weight loss, you too can learn just how good it feels to take back control over your diet and yourself and to enjoy eating foods that are good for you and help your body to perform at its best every day.  The benefit of hypnosis with weight loss, that it can be used by different ages.  Hypnosis can be used with children and adults alike.  When you try this method, you do not have anything to lose anyway, just the pounds. 

Positive Parenting and the Use of Hypnosis for Children

The use of hypnosis for children is starting to be a common method in dealing with children who are having difficulties in advancing into adulthood.  Aside from using hypnosis to deal with different behavioural and health problems, hypnosis parenting or using hypnosis with your children at home is also starting to get known.

Hypnosis parenting, experts claim, is a method o positive parenting.  What are ideas behind this parenting and how do they work? 

Hypnosis is not ordering or becoming authoritative to other people.  This is something that we should understand and be clear about.  Hypnosis, unlike what we commonly know, is not about making people do something which they would not remember or stop doing.  Hypnosis is about suggestions. 

Experts said that our children are already suggestible from their parents. Almost all parents are familiar with their baby’s emotions and facial expressions.  Actually, if we smile in a baby and make eye contact it is highly possible that would be smiling back. Children learn from the parents through the parents’ actions and expressions.  If a parent want to teach something to their children, it is important to show an example that we are also following these rules that were set out for them.

Hypnosis parenting is not only applicable when you want your children to do their homework or do household chores.  You can only use hypnosis to help them with difficulty in sleeping or nervousness and tension before exams, school presentation or a game.

How to do this?

You can start by talking to them before they go to sleep.  Make sure that they are comfortable and make them close their eyes.  You could start telling a story which would show  the protagonist succeeding in the challenges that he faced.  Use positive images when telling a story.  This would help your child ease the tension.  Aside from helping your child ease out the tension, the parent and the child also got the chance to spent some bonding moment together.

What the parent say have an impact on how children feel about themselves.  An example would be the behaviour they show.  If the child is refuses to follow certain rules in the house, and you get a heated discussion over it, more probably that the child would still be the same.

You could replace the heated discussion with random positive statements, like saying that the child are improving much on their behaviour and acknowledging their efforts to behave.  The child will feel better and eventually will believe that he is indeed behaving well.  Soon enough, the child will change his behaviour for the better.

These simple suggestions helped the children’s mind or its subconscious to accept and believe in them.  So if the statements made or the statements that a child can hear are all negative, the subconscious would believe it and the child will follow it in real life. 

But if positive statements are heard by the child, even if they are randomly dropped statements, the subconscious perceive this as the truth and would eventually translate into their actions.

Hypnosis for children can even be used in encouraging them to do household chores.  All you want to do is look at them straight into the eyes and ask them to do the household chores.  A little bobbing of the head, would encourage your child to agree to do the job delegated to them. 

Pain Treatment and Hypnosis for Children

The word hypnosis seems to conjure bad images for a number of people.  I’m sure we have watched something, whether it is a movie or an animation, about people falling or doing evil things because of being hypnotized. So when you say, hypnosis for children, parents tend to be overprotective.

Actually, hypnotism is not bad at all. Studies have showed hypnotism helping children and adults deal with chronic pain, insomnia, stress, depression, weight gain and fears or phobia.  Currently, hypnosis is being used in pain management. 

Unlike the deep sleep that we know, people under  hypnotism or hypnotherapy are conscious on what they are doing and what they can hear and understand.  Hypnotism can be used to treat diseases and disorder, it is called hypnotherapy.  Hypnotherapy is used in pain management.

There are three strategies in using hypnosis in pain management:

Physical relaxation – focusing on relaxation while feeling the pain, reduces the pain to vibrate and escalate. When tension is mixed pain, this heightens the pain. Muscle tension tends to pull on the muscles where it is hurting.

Sensory alteration – this strategy changes how we perceive the pain. Focusing to a different feeling will eventually filter out the hurt that you are experiencing.

Distraction – focus is shifted to other things to remove any attention to the body part feeling the pain.

Actually there are studies showing how effective hypnosis is in pain reliving. Hypnosis with combined with other alternative form of medication like acupuncture can relieve chronic pain patients.  This can also be used to help children who are in the hospital undergoing painful treatments. Self-hypnosis against pain can be learned and be performed by children.  There are studies showing children who can do self- hypnotism recorded less migraine occurrence than those children who are thinking medication. 

Using hypnosis for children would show complications once the hypnosis lifted or removed.  Some side-effects would include confusion, fainting, dizziness, nausea, fatigue and anxiety.  Most of the side-effects are short-termed but there are some patients who experience stupor, psychological problems, and some patients even display recurring episodes of the previous shock.  Based on these experiences, it is imperative to investigate on the background on profile of the patient and screen those who are susceptible to the mentioned side-effects.

A problem may also occur when the hypnotherapist forget to lift the hypnosis.  The patient may sustain serious injury or any complication without the patient even knowing or feeling it at all.

Over the course of applying hypnotherapy to children, studies and practices  showed that children find it easier to face painful medical procedures like bone marrow aspiration, cancer patients, postoperative pain, chronic headache and remove anxiety tin children who would undergo surgery. 

Actually, if hypnosis history is traced, it would show that during early period, hypnosis is used to help patients who would be undergoing agonizing surgeries before anaesthetics were discovered.  When anaesthesia was discovered in the middle of 19th century, chemical induced  painless surgeries were favoured over tradition hypnosis.  When chemicals and anaesthesia is useless or not enough in relieving the pain, this is when self-hypnosis is used. 

Studies have showed that hypnosis for children was able to help them remove any pain and help them undergo medical procedures or simply just live their life.  But more importantly, we must identify that it is really, well sometimes, just in the mind.

Other Side of the Coin

Hypnosis for children to resolve or address some issues or problems regarding behaviour or health is called hypnotherapy.  In hypnotherapy, children use their daydreams to change their behaviours, sensations and other symptoms.  Not everybody can be a hypnotherapist.  A trained health and psychiatric profession is needed to put children, also adults, into hypnosis. 

Hypnotherapy or using hypnosis for treatments used to be unthinkable.  Most people and patients alike, tend to think that hypnotherapists would require their patient to walk, cluck like chickens when hypnotized.  One major disadvantage of this treatment, is the lack of support it has endured as an alternative treatment. 

But currently, things are starting to shape up for hypnotic treatment.  There are medical groups who are starting to recognize the potential of hypnotherapy in treating illnesses and dealing with disorders. 

In 1958, the American Medical Association, already recognized hypnosis as a form of treatment.  The American Psychological Association has acknowledged hypnosis as treatment years ago.  The National Institute of Health expressed it support for hypnotherapy as a method of relieving pain for cancer patients in 1995. 

But still regardless of the medical endorsements, there is still a prevailing outlook that hypnosis as a treatment is negative and images of funny people on hypnotic state conjures up to our mind. 

Another disadvantage of hypnotherapy is that there are children or people who cannot be hypnotized at all.  Children who show psychotic symptoms are not compatible with hypnotic treatment.  While children or teen-agers using drugs or alcohol also prove to be poor hypnotic patients. 

Hypnotherapy is best recommended for children ages 5 and above.  Children, unlike adults, are more in touch with their imaginative side.  This could be either beneficial or detrimental in the hypnosis process.  That is why different approaches should be used based on different age and characteristics. 

Hypnotherapy can also be done by parents to their children.  Experts say that children with ages seven to eight are in the hypnotic state most of the time even when there is no hypnotist around.  On these ages, children take in suggestion very seriously.  Parents who tend not to be too sensitive with what they say to their children  may say some remarks which can be both hurtful and have some effect on their self-esteem. 

This is why  children who are undergoing hypnotherapy tends to be sensitive to what is around them remember that hypnotherapy and its positive effects can be turned into rubble when negative energy surrounds the child.  Parents should be sensitive with what they say and suggest to their children. 

Sometimes a hypnotherapist may forget to remove the suggestions of the hypnotic sessions.  If a child is undergoing therapy for pain management, this could pose a problem.  When under these kind of treatment, children may run into accidents or serious problem which may cause serious injury and not get any proper treatment.  It is important for parents to take note of these when sessions for hypnosis of children is done. 

It is important to remember that these disadvantages of using hypnosis for children is more of a social prejudice.  There are some people who regard hypnosis as control or manipulation of one’s mind and body which is completely untrue.  Hypnotherapy when properly done could render positive and massive results.  Most of our fear about hypnotherapy is rooted on how it was viewed in the past, which is mostly myths.

What is Hypnosis for Children

Hypnotherapy is the process of using hypnosis to treat any disease, addiction or disorders.  Currently, hypnosis are used for children to overcome any anxiety, fear or other issues that can affect them as they grow.  Most of children, respond to hypnotherapy pretty well, which is why this technique is pretty much getting attention and used by experts to resolve juvenile concerns.

Hypnotherapy is attributed on resolving bedwetting, thumb sucking, eating problems and other problems.  It is even attributed in releasing stress and pressure children experienced.  They say that children can be hypnotized as early as 3, but children above age 5 are found to be more responsive to hypnosis. 

Actually all people can benefit from hypnosis. There are pregnant women suing this to reduce early morning sickness and nausea.  It can even be used during labor so that the pain would not be that painful. 

A hypnotherapy technique mostly used for children would be the “blow away” technique.  In this technique or method, the children are induced into a hypnotic state asking to blow away any negative feelings.  Other techniques would include relaxation and mental images which is somehow related to a daydream or a child’s fantasy. 

The number of sessions needed by a child depends on the development and progress that can be seen.  But on the average, 4 to 8 session are needed to make positive changes.  The changes brought by hypnotherapy can be permanent.  Not until, there are negative forces or influences that the child can feel. This would bring the effects of the session to rubble.   If this cases or situations ever occur, then there would be reinforcement or back up sessions to help the child strengthen the positive traits that were built-up in the past.

Children with the following problems can be helped by hypnosis:

- Children in pain, like those who are undergoing treatment for cancer. 
- Children who is often anxious and breathes quickly and shows faster heart rate. 
- Children who have been wetting their bed at night time. 
- Children with asthma. 
- Children with different problems or disorders like ADHD or parents who are undergoing separation or divorce.

Not giving attention to the children’s difficulties eventually led the students to fail in their schoolwork, lack if focus and ability to concentrate and social withdrawal.  How they relate with the family members and the friends also change.  These behavioural problems, like fear and anxieties, tend to show through their mannerisms.  It could manifest with twitching, hair pulling, nail biting, asthma attacks, etc.

Most people had the impression that when somebody undergoes hypnosis they do not know what they are doing.  When children undergo hypnotherapy sessions, the expert hypnotists make sure that the children know what they are saying to them and what they are going to do is actually for their benefit.

Hypnosis is also effective because it uses three elements that reverberate on the individual. The three most important elements of hypnosis are relaxation, increased concentration and focus on the goal.  When all of these elements worked together, the results can be very positive. 

Although it is still not that popular among pediatricians, it is starting to gain trust.  According to a study written by Michael Castleman, it cited that Johns Hopkins is recognizing  hypnosis for children something valuable for addressing problems like migraines or headaches, anxiousness, bed-wetting and pain.

Myths on Hypnosis for Children

Hypnosis for children is done to help children combat cases of pain, insomnia, depression brought about by divorce or death.  It can also be used to fight excessive weight, night mares and even lessen asthma attacks.  There are significant advantages or contributions that hypnosis can do for children. 

Unfortunately, amidst all these gains and benefits, there are still some people who believe in hypnotic myths.  The following are some of the myths on hypnosis and what we can say about them. 

Myth1.  The person under hypnosis has no control over his mind and actions.

Hypnosis is induced in a tie when the person is still conscious and able to take and understand suggestions.  Children who are undergoing hypnotherapy can comprehensively talk with the hypnotherapist.  Hypnotherapy is done when the person is in deep relaxation and not in deep slumber.  Things are said as a suggestion and not as an authoritative command.  People who have undergone hypnosis would definitely remember what transpired during the session.

Myth2. Hypnosis is an evil act.  It can be compared to voodoo in some levels.

Hypnosis is not at all connected to any evil or Satanic acts.  Hypnotism intends to help people of their emotional, mental and physical problems not injure them with any satanic and demonic ritual.  Actually, hypnosis is a natural state that people undergo in different times a day. 

Myth3.  Hypnosis only affects those who are weak in personality. 

Hypnosis is something which happens naturally to our lives.  Actually, children ages 7 to 8 are said to be more prone to lapse into hypnotic stages.  Their mind is more creative and more imaginative.  This enables them to enter into a daydream or deep relaxation even during class or any time of the day.  Anybody can induce into a moment of self-hypnotic state.

Myth4.  You can get stuck in a hypnotic state.

Hypnosis is not a limbo where souls get stuck and unable to go to the next realm. Hypnosis is a state of awareness and consciousness.  Getting into the hypnotic state enables the children and adults, as well, to get to know their deeper feelings and thoughts. 

Myth5.  Hypnosis can be used as a truth serum, extracting the truth from other people.

A person could not go into hypnotic state if that person would not allow the hypnotherapist to.  Before children undergo any hypnotism, therapist would talk to them and explain what it is that they would do and how it would help them.  Upon hypnotism, if a suggestion is in contrast with the principles of the client, they would not accept the suggestion.  So if the person being investigated would not give the answer to the question, then hypnosis could not do anything about it. 

Myth6.  Hypnosis is not accepted by the medical community. 

A History

Nobody can say for sure when hypnosis started. But historians seem to agree that his has been used for more than a thousand years. Remember witch doctors or spiritual priests entering into a trance talking to the supernatural and the spirits in order to save people from diseases or misfortune.

Ancient Egyptians has been using hypnosis to relieve pain and cure diseases. They would have healing temples which are called Temples of Sleep. Those who are sick are given suggestions while induced to sleep. This suggestions are to direct their mind that they would be healed of their illnesses. Ancient Egyptians, aside from healing through sleep, has also used hypnosis to endure prolonged physical pain. They used this as we use anaesthesia right now.

Hundreds of years later, in 1765, Franz Anton Mesmer introduced animal magnetism. He stated that man could influence a magnetic fluid which could help in the healing process. His thought became an influential school. There were salons were he would apply magnets in people’s afflicted body parts.

After a few years, Le Marquis de Puysegur, believed the magnetic power the Mesmer is talking abour is actually present in his own mind and transferred through fingers to the person sick. He discovered that you could induce a very deep sleep where the person who is sleeping will follow the command. This is referred to as the perfect crisis or the profound sleep.

During this time hypnosis was referred to as mesmerism. In 1837, Dr. John Elliotson cited that hypnosis can be associated to voluntary and involuntary movement which he claims to be linked to the mesmerism theory. Dr Elliotson claimed that there is a doctor in India who has been amputating legs with the aid of hypnosis. The doctor saving lives if India is named Dr. James Esdail. And upon on his departure from India, it was said that he able to perform 300 operations and 19 of them is amputation.

Dr. James Baird saw a French man named La Fontaine in his mesmerism demonstration. After experiencing this, he put it into practice and were able to put the patients into a deep sleep that would make them accept any medical suggestion made by the doctors.

Actually during World War I, hypnosis was used by the Germans to make sure that their soldiers were able to recover from shell- shock. This would enable them to return immediately to their trenches.

Hypnosis started to gain interest among practitioners in the medical field. Sigmund Freud was said to be the firs proponent of hypnotherapy. Originally, Freud started studying hypnotherapy in late 1890s until he shifted into a new practice or method on 1905. Freud stated that suggestion can be made in an attempt make treatment speedy.

Dr. Milton Erickson is one of the few people who greatly influenced hypnotherapists. He has accomplished a lot of books and research about hypnotherapy. Dr. Erickson’s study became the foundation of NLP or the neuro-linguistic programming which became widely used in trading and marketing.

Currently, hypnotherapy are used on only on adults but also with children. Hypnosis for children were proven to have resolved some issues concerning behaviour and health disorders. Hypnotherapy was formally endorsed by the British Medical Association in 1955. Three years after, the American Medical Association did the same. They endorsed hypnotherapy as a form of treatment.

Enduring Divorce and Separation

Divorce is one of the most stressful events that could happen to a person. When a child is involved in the split. Many problems could happen, its effects on the child could be huge. Sometimes, children with low esteem can be attributed with the parent’s divorce. Hypnosis for children is one of the few methods being used nowadays to help children cope with a stressful event.

Younger children do not really understand divorce and most of the times decide not to thinks or act about it. In most cases, the older children or adolescents also show composure upon the announcement of divorce.

But still there are some children who think that the relationship is falling out because of his behaviour. This is the perspective of a child. He would foster this feeling, developing an image that he is unlovable and cannot have the ability to also love.

Children will develop this feeling upon seeing that their parents are having emotional difficulties. They are not used to seeing their parents stressed out and emotional like this. When parents are preoccupied with their own emotional problems, they tend to forget to provide the comfort, guidance and protection that they need to give to their own children. Psychologists refer to this as the stage of “diminished parental capacity.”

Another problem children encounter would be the sense of loyalty the child is forced to reckon with. The child feels that he or she is expressing disloyalty when he loves both parents. Children of divorced parents often feel that their parents resent them because they came or are a product of both of them. In subconscious level, when parents show dislike or venomous reaction to each other, the children feel that they are also disliked.

Hypnotherapy would be able to help children cope in quickest, most successful and drug-free on the complications of the parent’s slip. Hypnosis is valuable for helping children picture himself as an individual who can be loved and accepted. The great thing about children is that they have wide imagination which can be used to visualize that they are lovable and acceptable.

Sometimes children are put into a position where they fill the void that was emptied out by the spouse. Sometimes the spouse will fill the child with troubles or talk about work, while some single parents would take their children out to adult dinners. Although the child seems to enjoy these moments that they share with the parents, it is important to remember that they are children and should not be concerned with adult problems.

Hypnotherapy enables children to relax and fin their inner peace. This helps the children to become children again and experience their childhood rather than be affected by adult problems.

By undergoing hypnotherapy, the children are put into deep relaxation or daydream. All the fears, anxiety, depression, grief, weight, bad feelings and resentment are all “blown away”, making the child free from negative thoughts and emotions.

There are also hypnosis recordings to which your child can listen to. There are different CD compilations talking about divorce that will help children go through the difficult time. Aside from addressing the negative feelings, there are also hypnosis recordings and methods that would address self-esteem and self-confidence building. Hypnosis for children is not the only thing that would help your children get through with the difficult moment, but it is the support, understanding and love that you extend to them that would matter.

Hypnosis for Children

How many times have we herd some rustling coming from the children’s bedroom only to find-out that our kids are having sleeping problems or are wetting the bed. Fortunately for us, these issues can be addressed by using hypnosis for children.

There are more and more children who are feeling the effects of insomnia. In a 1997 survey, it showed results that there are 11 percent of children with ages 5 to 12 who cannot sleep well at night, 7 percent would wake up at the middle of the night, 17 percent would have difficulties waking up the next day and another 17 percent would feel extremely exhausted.

Insomnia among children is attributed mainly to night time fears and anxious dreams. These may be an effect of several factors like environmental aspects, consumption of alcohol or caffeine, or sometimes inadequate parental supervision. Children who sleep late of course tends to wake up late.

Hypnosis for children is used to help children relax or calm down before bedtime. In contrast of what is widely known, you do not have to be asleep to be affected by hypnosis. You should be unconscious but into deep state of relaxation. The subconscious would be more receptive to suggestion during this period. There are programs where the hypnotherapists would give your suggestions which would eliminate stress and other negative energy preventing you to get a restful street.

After entering a deep relaxed state, it is important to address the reason behind restlessness at night. Resolving insomnia with hypnosis also involves you to look into your habits and change your nightly ritual which would help you to quickly fall asleep soundly.

There are also visualization in which the mind can be trained to flush out all thoughts and feeling that brings anxiety and stress preventing you to be at peace and at ease when on your own bed. There are also hypnosis insomnia which encourage patients to listen to CD or watch DVD.

About bedwetting, one out of three children wet the bed at age six. While there are about 2 to 10 percent of teenagers who still wet the bed from time to time. Unresolved, bedwetting can even lead to more severe problems as they grow older.

Hypnosis can also be used to resolve bedwetting problems. There are several CDs where children could listen to stories especially befitting their situations. Some parents discover that aside from removing bed wetting problems, children also started to have:

- Appreciate themselves more

- Discover unique abilities

- Deal with sadness in a healthier manner

- Handle criticisms very well

- Achieve a feeling of well being and in control