Self-Hypnosis and Stress

I’m not sure if others share this same issue, but I find January to be a very stressful time.

First of all, I seem to have a lot on my plate lately. Lots of different projects underway. Some with very real deadlines, some with just the deadlines that I have imposed on myself (usually the toughest of all of them actually).

But I have always found January to be a particularly hard month in any event. I’m not sure why. Maybe it is because it has the flavor of “starting out”, a new beginning—or worse—maybe “being at the beginning”, which is quite a bit different. It has that “huge mountain to climb right in front of you” aspect to it.

And for some reason, quite a bit of the bad news in my life has happened, or has been received, in January. So I always go into January full of negative anticipation, waiting for that proverbial “other shoe to drop”.

It just isn’t pleasant.

In any event, the end result is stress.

And if you know anything about me, you know that I am no stranger to stress.

I know—none of us are. But I can tell you that I am particularly sensitive to the issue of stress.

And so, during this time I am almost religious about practicing self-hypnosis to deal with these issues. And it helps, a lot.

In fact I probably am not really aware of how much it does help me—most of that which occurs does so deep within me, within my subconscious, and the results are not something I really “feel”—although sometimes I do.

But the important results are the things that I don’t feel—for example, with the assistance of self-hypnosis I don’t feel anxiety, or at least not as much as I would otherwise find myself feeling.

Actually it is amazing—when I am in a self-induced hypnotic trance I can “instruct” myself that I will be free of worry or anxiety for the rest of the day—and it works! And the more I use this technique, the better I get at it—or at least, the better the results are.

I actually get to a point where I am reasonably free of worry and anxiety. Not forever, but for a significant period of time—for a day is no problem, for instance. And then I have to sort of “renew” the instruction.

What I am unsure of, however, is whether this is merely a mask over those feelings—like a pain-killer for example—where the underlying problem still remains, but you just aren’t feeling its effects? Which is probably not a good thing, at least in that instance.

But, having said that, I’m not sure it matters here.

We now know that you really can “trick” your body. We know that our body doesn’t know the difference between what we imagine we experience, and what we actually physically experience.

I have already written about this somewhat in my Gratitude Trumps Stress and Smiling Brings Happiness posts. It is amazing really (and this idea offers so much potential)!

So, if you don’t feel anxiety—for whatever reason—then your body is not reacting—it is not kicking in with its “fight or flight” response, and you are saving yourself from the physical ravages of stress.

And that is real—that is a real effect that is worthy of pursuing.

So does it matter how you got there?

I encourage you to give it a try.

I’ll keep you posted.