What is the Science of Reprogramming in Hypnotherapy?
During your Hypnotherapy session, you can safely explore how to utilise your brain’s instinctive programming function to create a much healthier and happier way of living.
Neuroscientists describe the brain as ‘plastic’ because it is shaped by our experiences, rather than being hardwired with fixed ways of working. Research has shown that repeatedly doing an activity will eventually change the structure of your brain, so you can do the activity on autopilot. Fascinatingly, the brain can’t tell the difference between our imagined experiences and our real experiences. Ultimately, this means that we can visualise the experiences to shape our brain to work how we want it to. An example of neuroplasticity is learning to drive. When we embark on our first driving lesson, whilst we may feel excitement, this is often mixed with feelings of anxiety and nervousness. In the first few driving lessons, you find that you need to concentrate very hard to process a lot of technical information about the driving pedals, gear stick and dashboard controls. Each initial movement can feel unnatural, which can lead us to stall during our first few sessions with the Driving Instructor sometimes taking control. However, after repeated practice, you learn to master this skill and driving quickly becomes a technical activity that you do in a ‘trance’ or on autopilot.
Repeated experiences, emotions and thoughts trigger the same neuron pathways in the brain. Neurons fire messages to each other and repeating an activity will eventually change the structure of your brain, so you can perform the activity on autopilot. For example, daily activities from showering to tying our shoelaces to driving to work. We often operate in autopilot or ‘trance’ to enable space in our brains for activities that are more challenging or unfamiliar to us.
How does Emotional Repair & Reprogramming work in Hypnotherapy?
Our emotions work in the same way as outlined above. Any repeated experiences which evoke the same emotion, trigger a particular pathway of neurons in the brain. Over time, our brains will develop a fixed expectation that we will feel a particular way when we do this activity, which then automatically releases the relevant emotion. The programming part of the brain doesn’t differentiate between what is good or bad for us, so it can be very easy to establish unhelpful and unhealthy patterns of behaviour. For example, smoking, drinking to excess, constantly checking social media and overeating. It can be very challenging to change something that we have learned to do on autopilot and whilst in trance because it means we have to establish a new network of neural pathways and connections in our brains. As humans we are mainly creatures of habit and our brains do not always welcome change, so it often feels safer to continue with the established emotional patters and behaviours. However, change is possible and simply takes focus, motivation and positive visualisation to create new and lasting healthy habits.
How does Solution Focused Hypnotherapy work?
I work closely with you to enable you to reset and reprogramme your neural pathways using goal setting and hypnosis as a therapeutic tool. You are provided with a hypnosis download which I encourage you to play once a day for at least two weeks, to continue to prime your brain consistently for positive changes after your hypnotherapy session. Change is absolutely achievable and possible.