How Effective is Hypnosis for Anxiety?

Many lay individuals as well as medical professionals have successfully used hypnosis for anxiety treatment. Years of hypnotherapy research has proven that the practice of altering one’s consciousness brings about greater relaxation, eases stress and reduces nervousness. Whether practicing self-hypnosis or visiting a practitioner to access more advanced methods, hypnosis for anxiety is an effective strategy for restoring calm and preventing future anxiety attacks.

In any strategy for treating anxiety, the primary goal is to help a person maintain a calm and rational state of mind. Hypnosis for anxiety is effective primarily because, during hypnosis, the mind undergoes a sort of retraining process. Positive suggestions are made during hypnosis while the mind is in a heightened state of awareness, which help a person become more alert and maintain a greater level of control over future reactions and psychological tension. After treating anxiety with hypnosis, mental patterns that were once unfocused and that triggered poor emotional responses are replaced with new patterns and behaviors.

Hypnosis for anxiety is commonly used in dentistry, psychology and a variety of medical disciplines including, but not limited to, oncology, podiatry and pediatrics. Doctors and nurses with advanced hypnosis training often suggest it for pain management, particularly during post-operative care. Many dentists and pediatric doctors also use hypnosis for anxiety when patients become nervous or fearful about certain procedures.

Often, individuals are trained to use hypnosis for anxiety when alone or when faced with painful or stressful situations during daily life. Using self-hypnosis techniques, such as imagining being atop a 10-step staircase while slowly descending the staircase and relaxing parts of the body with each step, research has shown that people who previously experienced severe anxiety attack symptoms and extreme nervousness are able to experience deep levels of relaxation, instead. With practice, people have found that using hypnosis for anxiety not only calms them when on the verge of an anxiety attack, but that self-hypnosis creates a mental level of awareness that strengthens the mind in such a way that individuals are able to maintain a constant level of calm that was never experienced before hypnosis.

Hypnosis for anxiety is commonly used by psychotherapists in treating phobias, addictions, insomnia and psychosomatic conditions, which are those created in a patient’s mind and manifested in the body. With the use of hypnotherapy, guided imagery and other mind-body treatments, doctors have been able to help patients resolve longstanding disorders. Widely accepted in mainstream medicine and even taught in most medical schools, hypnosis is considered to be a very effective natural stress reliever.