I have taken extensive training in Hypnotherapy.

Self-hypnosis does work -but if you have an internal dialogue to set it up -you will inevitably fall asleep. Its a great way to relax your body and fall asleep though.

If you are working for a specific goal -its better to pre-record your own voice session and then have a session that way.

I think it is much different than meditation. With hypnosis there is a goal and guidance. Even if that goal is relaxation -there is a set path for getting there.

With meditation its more a free-form and goal-less .

During meditation, I get really frustrated and antsy. I don't know where my mind should go and I rail against the forced inactivity. I am more of a 'meditation in motion' kind of gal. When I am out hiking, my mind wanders -I think big thoughts and feel calm. That's meditation for me.

Depends on how you define "works" in "Does it work."

With that proviso, I have found self-hypnosis and meditation to be effective tools for relaxation and insight. The two practices have a great deal in common. For one thing, both are inner-directed. By contrast, normal waking consciousness is typically outer directed.

Next time you find yourself experiencing physical pain, try using the pain as the object of awareness, whether you call the practice meditation or self-hypnosis. Simply notice the sensations you call "pain." As you breathe into the sensation, notice how it changes. "Pain" is not a solid, static thing. Pain is a changing, dynamic experience. Very often it is resistance to pain that "makes pain painful."

This is not to say extreme, acute physical pain is child's play, or simply something nominal (in name only). "Pain" does require awareness, sentience. Change awareness, and the pain changes.

Google "hypnosis and pain relief," especially the work of the Ernest R. Hilgard, Hypnosis in the Relief of Pain.

Good luck.

All hypnosis is "self-hypnosis", so yes it works. It does, however, help to be walked into a hypnotic state the first few times by someone with some training. Personally I love being in a hypnotic trance (or meditative state, or post yoga 'relaxation')...it is very restful, yet you are completely aware. Some pretty powerful things can happen when you are that open and aware...good stuff!

Go for it!

Bronson,

I think when it comes to things like this, think outside the box, and find what works for you. Personally, I've not done this, but I do practice a form of meditation / mindfulness, to remind myself that I am in the present moment. More relevant for a paleo mindset, I also remind myself that I am alive, healthy, and vital. An affirmation of health, I believe, is part of the crucial mind-body connection that so many people lack.

In my own experience, re-establishing that connection is part of holistic paleo health. So if self-hypnosis works for you, go for it. Just be healthy, and eat whole foods. If you strengthen the body, you edify the mind.

Hopefully this helps. Good luck in all of your endeavors.

Meditation means the capacity to be joyously alone, the capacity to be happy with yourself. To be with yourself is meditation. There is no need for the other in meditation; the joy of aloneness, not the misery of loneliness, is meditation.

In my experience there is a different view of meditation in the Eastern cultures versus what is understood in the West. In the West, meditation means contemplation: meditating on God, meditating on truth, meditating on love.

Meditation in the East means no object in the mind, no content in the mind; not meditating upon something but dropping everything; neither this nor that. Meditation is emptying yourself of all content. When there is no thought moving inside you there is stillness; that stillness is meditation.

Not even a ripple arises in the lake of your consciousness; that silent lake, absolutely still, that is meditation. And in that meditation you will know what truth is, you will know what love is, you will know what godliness is.

To give an example, how can you meditate on God? You don’t know anything about God. All your meditation is going to be just imagination, an exercise of imagination. You don’t know truth about God – what are you going to meditate upon? – some idea given by others, some belief, some concept. It is not going to help.

So what happens in real in self hypnosis or in real meditation: surrender happens – surrender to the whole. Not to any idea, not to any idol, but to the whole. Not surrender to Mohamed or Christ, but to the whole of existence. Nothing is excluded; everything is included in it, from the rocks to the stars, from a blade of grass to the sun. Everything is included: this whole organic, ecstatic celebration which we call the universe.

It is real Paleo.

I think it depends on who you are and what you're using it for. Personally, I'm naturally a very skeptical person, so I don't think behavior change self-hypnosis would really work for me because I couldn't get into it. However, I know I have a VERY powerful tendency to deny that I'm in pain (i.e. I walked on a broken foot for 3 days before getting it x-rayed), and so when I was pregnant with my son I used a self hypnosis program for childbirth. For various reasons I was scared to have an epidural, and I knew I could tap into my innate power of denial for a few hours. It worked great... I wouldn't say I had no pain, but the discomfort was manageable up until about the last 2 hours of labor, which isn't very long in the scheme of things.

So start by knowing thyself, and move on from there.