Step by Step Self Hypnosis Instructions:

1 ) Find a quiet place where you can sit or lay down and not be disturbed.

2 ) Say OUT LOUD how long you want the trance to last. ie: “I am going into trance for 20 minutes”.

3 ) State OUT LOUD the purpose of going into trance. ie: “I am going into trance so that my unconscious mind can find new ways to help feel more relaxed every day”.

4 ) State OUT LOUD “when I awaken I will be wide awake, alert and refreshed”, or if going to sleep soon, “when I awaken I will be relaxed and ready for a wonderful night’s sleep”.

5 ) Make sure your hands and feet are not touching each other (this can make trance difficult).

6 ) Pick a spot on the ceiling or wall just above your natural line of site (so your eyes have to look in a slightly upwards direction in order to focus on the object). If you are outside then perhaps you can pick a spot on a tree or a single bright star if it is in the evening.

7 ) Fix your eyes on the object you are looking at and begin to notice everything about how the object looks. Notice the colour, the shape, how the light reflects off it, focus on it an notice everything about how it looks.

8 ) Close your eyes and continue to imagine you can still see the object (if you lose focus, open your eyes and look at the object until you are ready to close your eyes and continue to imagine or visualize it).

9 ) Stay focused on the image of the object in your minds’ eye as you begin notice all of the sounds around you. Notice each sound, notice the volume, the pitch and even notice the sounds within the sounds or the silence in between the sounds.

10 ) As you keep noticing the object and the sounds, also notice how your body is being supported, how you hands feel, the temperature of the air, notice how comfortable you are and then allow yourself to become even more comfortable by allowing your muscles to relax..

11 ) As you continue to focus on all of these things, you will push your conscious ability to keep track of them to the limit. Since we can consciously only focus on 5-9 things at any given time (for NLPers 7+-2) pushing the conscious awareness beyond this causes trance to occur.

12 ) Now you can notice more internal things such as your breathing and your internal thoughts as you just let it all go… after all it is far to much trouble to keep track of all those things….

After just a few minutes you will find yourself in a dream like state that feels really nice. Your senses will be heightened not hindered and you will be aware of everything around you even though you won’t care about any of it. Of course, should anything happen that disturbs you or requires your attention, you can end the process at any time.

When doing this the first few times, you can set a cell phone alarm or something to make sure you don’t stay in trace too long. Doing this will help you to not pre-judge whether or not it’s time to come back to the surface. It’s amazing how accurate your internal clock is. If you trust your unconscious mind, you will come out of trance at the time you stated. Beginners may find that they consciously wonder if it’s time yet… but just trust the REAL you to know when.

Self Hypnosis is great for de-stressing, relaxation, improving performance, helping with weight loss, increasing optimism and helping you fall asleep. However, for more serious issues, you may wish to enlist the services of a Certified Hypnotist/Psychotherapist or Psychologist that uses Hypnosis.

Listening to Hypnosis Recordings are a great way to learn how to go into a trance. Once your unconscious mind learns how to go there, it’s amazing how quickly and easily to can acheive this state on your own, virtually anywhere.

Pay attention. Concentrate. Focus. The voice that demands that we focus is usually tense. Especially when that voice is our own, it pulls us back from distraction by sheer force of will. Concentration takes power.

What if focus could be easy and natural? That kind of focus might actually loosen the tension in your jaw, and relax the muscles in your shoulders. That kind of focus might make more energy available for the task at hand. That kind of focus is available to you.

Watch a small child at play with a cardboard box. Context drifts away and the child disappears into a world of her own making. She is entirely focused, entirely in flow. Her concentration is a form of play, natural and productive.

Your best state for solving problems and creating opportunities is the same state of relaxing into focus. When you do it naturally, you lose track of the need to concentrate: you simply engage all of your attention into just one activity.

The question becomes, how can you practice moving into a state of relaxed focus quickly, easily and effectively?

One answer is to practice going into trance. Trance is a state of relaxed focus which can be used to apply your best thinking to a specific issue or opportunity. When you enter trance, you allow your mind to follow just one out of the many threads available to it. You concentrate all of your attention on just one thing.

All hypnosis is self-hypnosis: the person in trance is always the person in control of the trance. Most people find that trance is also a state that is easily learned – like many places, it is more complicated to find the first time you go there. After you’ve been there a few times, it becomes steadily easier to go back into trance.

Trance is inherently healthy and enjoyable. It is the natural state in which the human mind plays with ideas to identify new choices or make decisions. Slowing down in trance allows you to speed up the actions and changes that result when you have the information you need. You come out of trance relaxed and ready to act.

Any experience of hypnosis will begin to teach you how to deliberately enter trance when you need to concentrate your thoughts and abilities. Any training in leading other people into trance will also allow you to become familiar with how you go into trance.

Training in hypnosis is not useful because it allows you to take control of other people’s minds. It is useful because it allows you to relax and focus the thoughts of just one mind: your own. When you train as a hypnotist, you condition yourself to relax and focus.

How much more would you accomplish this week if you were entirely relaxed as you concentrated all of your thoughts and efforts? You can learn to enter the state that produces your best thinking. Your most intense thinking can be a chance to relax, recharge and prepare for action.

All it takes is the ability to enter trance – a natural state of focus, relaxation and great new ideas.

About the author: Linda Ferguson, Ph.D. is a senior partner with NLP Canada Training Inc.,Toronto, Canada. NLP Canada provides intensive training in the practices and principles of NLP. Drawing on fields from the arts to business to neuroscience. Learn more at www.nlpcanada.com

Insomnia or difficulty falling asleep

Hypnosis provides a quick and easy solution for many people who suffer from insomnia.  The structure of the language patterns used by Hypnotists causes the listener to attach their own meaning to certain statements that the practitioner is making, thereby occupying the conscious mind while suggestions are given to help the listener enter into a state of physical relaxation.  It’s not long before you just find yourself deeply relaxed and drifting along as you listen to all the positive suggestions the Hypnotist is providing.

Some people who have never experienced Hypnosis may not consider it a viable option because they have seen Hypnotists at stage shows or on TV that seem to have control over peoples actions.  The fact is that all Hypnosis is Self Hypnosis and it is the listener that actually has control over the experience.  When you are in Hypnosis, you can stop or pop out of the experience any time you wish. 

In our Hypnosis recordings, we also provide suggestions that will “break the insomnia cycle”.  On of the ways to achieve this is by teaching the unconscious mind to respond in a desired way to a specific phrase.  For example, once the listener is in a very deep state of physical relaxation,  the phrase “sleep now” can be associated to the state so that in the future the listener need only say or think that statement 3 times in order to return to the restful state.  This is referred to as anchoring because it “anchors” a physical or mental state (in this case deep relaxation) to a specific phrase or action.  Best of all, once the unconscious mind learns this, getting to sleep gets easier and easier.

So don’t be afraid to give Hypnosis a try if you suffer from insomnia, it really can help and you may just find yourself sleeping better that you have in a very long time.

About the author:  Alan Crossley, C.Ht is a Master Hypnotist and NLP Practitioner.  He is a certified member of the NGH and provides hypnosis downloads through his site at  www.hypnosisdownloads.org