The American medical association recognized hypnosis in 1958 and for the last 47 years hypnosis has been used and recommended by the medical community as a valid therapy for weight loss and smoking cessation.

But for most Americans hypnosis remains shrouded in mystery. My goal here is to de-mystify hypnosis and make it useable and accessible by anyone that has the need or desire to lose weight, so before we experience hypnosis I'd like to talk a little bit about what it is and what it isn't.

You've probably heard it said that we use less than ten percent of our brain. That ten percent is what we call your "conscious mind". This is the part of the mind that is responsible for analytical thought, memories, everything that you know, or at least think that you know resides in this part of the brain.
The conscious mind is the repository of every bit of information that you can “re-call” or bring to mind. Another way you might look at it is, anything you are aware of has been brought into consciousness.

Some people say that this is where all “learned” behavior resides, but that’s not really the case. You see, when you’re learning anything new, you are focused on the new information at first. Then any actions that support the new information are practiced and all of this is done at the conscious level. But once you’ve learned it thoroughly it passes out of your consciousness and becomes a part of what we call unconscious process.

Anything that you do really well you do at this unconscious level. If you play a musical instrument, or dance, or are good at a sport of some kind you probably know what I mean.

At first you practiced it and focused intently on how to do it. But then, once you really had it down and you knew it. You didn’t have to focus and concentrate on every little movement any longer. In fact you probably didn’t even have to think about it at all. It became something you could do automatically, without even thinking about it.

That knowledge had become an unconscious resource. And you don’t have to hold all the details in consciousness any longer Do you remember the first time you tried to ride a bike? First you fell, then you fell some more, then you wobbled for a while before you fell, but then you started to only wobble for the first few feet and once you were in motion you were fine. Then suddenly you stopped wobbling all together. That’s when you knew you had it. Something sort of clicked in your mind and you had balance.

The funny thing is, once you’ve got it you have it forever. Even if you hadn’t rode a bike in five years, do you think you could still ride? Sure you could, once something is learned at the unconscious level it becomes a part of your natural behavior and you don’t have to think about it any more.
Just like a habit. Habits are learned behaviors that have been practiced so much that your conscious mind doesn’t have to focus on the behavior in order for you to perform it. You simply do it unconsciously.

It’s pretty easy to see that learning a behavior might require help from your conscious mind, but once a behavior is truly learned it settles in to become an unconscious resource.

A modern analogy might be to think of the different areas of mind like a computer. Depending on what you do, you probably store hundreds, if not millions of bits of information in your computer. But your monitor can only display a small amount of that at any one time. The amount that you need to focus on is brought to your attention by pulling it up on your monitor screen.

With millions of pieces of information stored in your hard drive, you monitor is how you determine where to focus your attention, or maybe I should say what you place your attention on.

Your conscious mind acts just like that monitor. The only difference is that there are billions of bits of information stored in your unconscious programs, and most of them will never become present in your conscious “viewing screen”.
Researchers believe that ninety percent of your total resources and abilities lie in your unconscious mind. Like the hard drive on your computer the programs here are working round the clock weather they are present on your conscious monitor or not.

This is the part of your brain that keeps your heart beating, over 27 thousand times a day your heart beats and you don’t even have to think about it, you continue to breath without any conscious effort. In fact you take over 15,000 breaths a day all regulated from within your unconscious mind.
I would dare to say that if you had to rely on your conscious mind to do for you all the things that your un-conscious mind does for you each and every day, 24/7 everyday of your life, starting the very moment you were born, and continuing to this moment.

If you had to rely on your conscious mind, with all your mental energy completely focused to do these things for you, for just five minutes, you’d die.
The ninety percent that is your unconscious mind is where hypnosis sows the seeds of success. It is there, in that part of your mind that is accustomed to doing things automatically that new behaviors are established and it is behavior that is the cause of weight gain, and weight loss.
There is simply nothing known to mankind that changes behaviors faster or easier than hypnosis.

What do you think would happen if your sweet tooth, or your desire for fats and fried foods just disappeared?
And how about if tomorrow morning you got up and went for a walk, just because you felt like it? What do you think would happen if you continued to do that every day? Do you think you’d lose weight?

Simple behaviors are the key to permanent weight loss and isn’t that what you really want this time, real, measurable, permanent weight loss?
It’s true that no one can guarantee that any weight loss will be permanent, but don’t you think that your absolute best chance to see that happen lies in behavioral change and not some fad diet?

Once a behavior is installed in your unconscious mind it becomes habituated, and just like that “sense” of balance, it becomes permanent.
It doesn't matter if you're a master hypnotist or if you've never been hypnotized in your life, what you learn in the next few minutes will help you to make the most of your hypnotic experience.
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First, hypnosis is fun so go ahead and enjoy the experience. Don't worry if your mind wanders off from time to time, that's a natural response for most people. Sure there are some people that will relax themselves into an extremely deep hypnotic state and they will easily be able tune out all outside sounds and all outside influences, but everybody won't have that experience. Only about 30% of you will have that experience the very first time you get hypnotized so don't worry about depth of hypnosis, or wonder "did I go deep enough". We'll take care of that, as we get deeper into the program.

The facts are that it doesn't really matter how deep you go. In hypnosis you should be awake, alert, and aware the entire time. It is more fun when you go a little deeper, and you probably will go a little deeper every time you use hypnosis.
What you won't find here is what I like to call TV hypnosis. Have you ever seen a hypnotist on TV? Look deeply into my eyes, you’re getting drowsy. OOPS that wasn't a hypnotist, that was Bella Lagosi (he's an actor) and that line "you're getting drowsy" was from a move called Dracula. Do you believe in Dracula? Better yet do you believe that Bella Lagosi was Dracula? Of course not, yet when people see a hypnotist on TV, and he's making people quack like a duck or cluck like a chicken they think OH THAT'S HYPNOSIS.

As little children we often believe what we see on TV, but by now you probably know that what happens on TV is fantasy. It's made up for entertainment purposes and that's exactly what TV or stage hypnosis is. It's made and designed for entertainment, and stage hypnotists are great entertainers.
What you're going to experience here is clinical hypnosis. In clinical hypnosis you're awake alert and aware the entire time, did you know that? Most people don't know that. Most people think that hypnosis is like some kind of mind control experiment where they go into a deep trance, experience past lives, then get their brains washed so when they wake up they won't remember anything that happened AND suddenly, they'll be skinny, all because of what they have seen on TV.

In hypnosis nobody can make you do anything that you are morally or spiritually opposed to. If I, or any other person tried to get you to do anything that was in any way aversive or un-natural to you, you'd simply open your eyes and walk away.

So let me clear of this up once and for all. In hypnosis you'll be awake, alert and aware the entire time. Hypnosis is not a diminished state of awareness it's a heightened state of awareness where you become selectively aware and focused.

It is when you become selectively aware that your unconscious mind becomes receptive to suggestion.

Nobody can hypnotize you against your will. In order to become hypnotized you have to want it to happen, you have to follow my suggestions and try to make it happen, then you have to just let it happen.
You see if you don’t want to be hypnotized you’ll find yourself analyzing every word I say instead of simply doing what I say. If you don’t do what I say you won’t benefit from the process. It’s like physical exercise. Knowing how to exercise, and understanding why exercise works, won’t get you healthier. It’s doing the exercise that creates the desired effect.

Then you have to let go of any pre-conceived notions and allow yourself to experience hypnosis physically and mentally.

When I say let go what I mean is LET GO! Let go of the voices in your head, you know, the ones that you use to analyze or judge experiences.
If you hear a car go by, or a noise from the other room don’t start talking to yourself about it, or wondering if your not hypnotized because you were able to be distracted. You’re not supposed to be deaf when you’re in hypnosis, if you were you’d never be able to hear what I was saying.

Let go with your physical body, Let yourself go, and relax your body completely. If you start to slide off your chair, you’re in the wrong chair. If your chair is too hard, put a pillow on it, or lie down just make sure you’re in a comfortable position when you start so you can forget about needing to support your body.
Use your imagination without questioning if you’re doing it right. The only way you can possibly do it wrong is to go through the experience as if you were watching it from a distance, or as if you were on the outside looking in.

You need to be in the experience as if it were real and you were experiencing it happening with all your senses right now. Smelling the smells, hearing the sounds or voices, feeling the feelings both physically and internally or emotionally. That’s what it means to just let it happen.

You have the amazing opportunity to set yourself up for success right here, right now. Unlike most people who have to try to make the best of whatever hypnosis they can find. Weather it’s in a crowded hotel room, or having to experience the nervousness of being in unfamiliar surroundings in some ones office.
You have the opportunity to be in complete control of your surroundings, your physical position, even the volume of my voice will be under your control.
So get yourself prepared for the next step. If I can make a few quick suggestions before you listen to the next section where you’ll experience what it’s like to become hypnotized.

First take a quick bathroom break. There are very few things that are more distracting than a full bladder.

Second have a glass of water and a few tissues handy. It’s perfectly ok to move while your hypnotized so if your throat gets dry, take a sip of water.
It’s common for your tear ducts to become more active when you’re hypnotized. It’s not like you’re crying, but tears might flow out the sides of your closed eyes, it’s OK when that happens and it’s ok to dry your eyes with the tissues.

You might want to make sure that you are undisturbed and unplug the phones, and if you have headphones please wear them during the next process.
Headphones give you much more control over the ability to eliminate distractions and they drastically improve the vocal quality of your hypnotic experience.

Hypnosis works amazingly well and it only takes three things to be hypnotized. Relax, follow the instructions, and USE YOUR IMAGINATION.
Follow these three rules and you can’t go wrong.