How to Stop Overthinking at Night: A Hypnotherapist Explains What Actually Works

And is there a way or a cue for our brain that we can hypnotize ourself?

Yeah, absolutely.

So a lot of that starts with awareness.

What story are you are holding onto? What's the meaning there? Why is it important to hold onto it? And how can you, and I'm saying you, but I mean you in general, but how can you start to create a new story? What elements can you change? And so when we're talking about hypnotherapy in the subconscious mind, we go back to symbols.

We go back to all of the background stuff.

You might have a strong mental association with a certain scent or a certain place or a certain kind of personality.

These are all shortcuts the mind has created.

Oh, this is this kind of person.

Yeah, I will put them into the box of other people that I've met like them.

And rather than being curious, I will... form a snap judgment because that's easier.

That requires less cognitive load.

We do that.

That's how we're not overloaded all the time about how to do things.

That's all sitting in the subconscious mind.

But when we now want to change some of those stories, stories that contain people and places and feelings and meaning, we have to first of all be aware of what we want

to change.

How can we use hypnosis as a therapy to rewire that part of our memory? So how

do you change that in hypnotherapy? Good question.

I mean, really what we're doing in hypnotherapy is dialing down the emotion attached with that memory because it's the emotion that's screwing you over.

It's the emotion that's making it bigger and dancing around in your head like this is important, this is important, this is important, this thing that happened five years ago or ten years ago, even though it's painful.

So the first thing I would do is to look at reducing the emotional charge, taking the bee sting out of that memory so that the memory can feel neutral.

And when it feels neutral, the mind won't be so busy with it.

Like, do we remember what we ate, you know, two Tuesdays ago at lunch? Probably not, unless it was eventful with a lot of emotion attached to it.

So that's how we work with these sorts of problematic memories that may...

in and of themselves, stop us from doing certain things today and tomorrow.

And is there a way or a cue for our brain that we can hypnotize ourself?

Yeah, absolutely.

So a lot of that starts with awareness.

What story are you are holding onto? What's the meaning there? Why is it important to hold onto it? And how can you, and I'm saying you, but I mean you in general, but how can you start to create a new story? What elements can you change? And so when we're talking about hypnotherapy in the subconscious mind, we go back to symbols.

We go back to all of the background stuff.

You might have a strong mental association with a certain scent or a certain place or a certain kind of personality.

These are all shortcuts the mind has created.

Oh, this is this kind of person.

Yeah, I will put them into the box of other people that I've met like them.

And rather than being curious, I will... form a snap judgment because that's easier.

That requires less cognitive load.

We do that.

That's how we're not overloaded all the time about how to do things.

That's all sitting in the subconscious mind.

But when we now want to change some of those stories, stories that contain people and places and feelings and meaning, we have to first of all be aware of what we want

to change.

How can we use hypnosis as a therapy to rewire that part of our memory? So how

do you change that in hypnotherapy? Good question.

I mean, really what we're doing in hypnotherapy is dialing down the emotion attached with that memory because it's the emotion that's screwing you over.

It's the emotion that's making it bigger and dancing around in your head like this is important, this is important, this is important, this thing that happened five years ago or ten years ago, even though it's painful.

So the first thing I would do is to look at reducing the emotional charge, taking the bee sting out of that memory so that the memory can feel neutral.

And when it feels neutral, the mind won't be so busy with it.

Like, do we remember what we ate, you know, two Tuesdays ago at lunch? Probably not, unless it was eventful with a lot of emotion attached to it.

So that's how we work with these sorts of problematic memories that may...

in and of themselves, stop us from doing certain things today and tomorrow.