Habit-Breaking with Self-Hypnosis

Hypnosis is the technique of choice when it comes to breaking troublesome personal habits. I wanted to break a habit of mine, skin-picking, especially on my right thumb, because every winter it leads to ongoing skin-splitting which lasts all season. I followed the recommended self-hypnosis format of doing total relaxation and slow breathing to get me into the desired altered state of body and mind, then affirmed “I am an ex-skin-picker” a few times while envisioning how my thumb would look after the problem was solved. The whole ‘process of mind’ lasted under four minutes, and the results have been good. I recommend daily, short self-hypnosis sessions until the old habit is eliminated.

What follows here is the insight I got and the advice I can now pass on to those who are frustrated in not being able to change an unhealthy, irksome habit. These realizations can be generalized to many other issues such as smoking, overeating, inneffective responses to stressful situations, nailbiting … and a host of other negative personal habits that interfere with the quality of our lives. Before trying to change a denigrating habit, even something as apparently simple as skin-picking, you must have sufficient motivation (for example, realizing the positive outcome that skin-splitting will diminish as a consequence.) You have to go beyond the mindset of “I’ve done everything I can, and nothing really works anymore.” You want to be able to honestly say to yourself, “I can change this habit of mine with self-hypnosis because by accessing the power of my subconscious mind, I will be able to reprogram this habit into something healthy.” Built into this step is the acceptance of your own responsibility for making the habit change. No more thinking, “I’m just a victim in this.” No more catching yourself saying, “There’s nothing I can do.” You also want to be monitoring your progress as time goes by. “How am I doing?” is a good question to be asking your conscious mind and also your subconscious mind when you do more self-hypnosis to reinforce your progress. You want to repeat to yourself frequently, “I am an ex-_______” (skin-picker in my case).

When you are in the process of breaking or changing a habit, you have to improve your awareness about what you think, say, and do. Most importantly, you have to think differently. Your thoughts have to be positive. You understand how strong your imagination is. Einstein said imagination is more important than knowledge. You imagine how things will be better after you’ve solved this problem by using the principles of hypnosis because all hypnosis is self-hypnosis. By accessing the power of your subconscious mind, you are bringing a healthy change into your life, and you are achieving your goal.

Look at your bad habit with a critical mind, whether your habit is overeating, smoking, nailbiting, skin-picking … and have conversations with yourself. Say to yourself, “I am stopping this now. I am an ex-overeater, -smoker, -nailbiter, -skin-picker…. Using this thought-changing process frequently during the day keeps your goal foremost in your mind, and helps to prevent unconscious habit slippage. By changing your mind, you can change your behavior.

Your self-motivation is a critical step. You not only have to think in a positive mode; you have to be positive. You tell yourself you are making progress each day. You tell yourself you are aware of what your body is doing. You are especially aware of what your hands are doing, because your hand is the part of your body that puts more food into your mouth. It is your hand that reaches for that cigarette. It is your hand that goes to your mouth to bite your nails. It is your hand that starts picking at the skin on your other hand. In self-hypnosis, you can tell yourself that your awareness of what your hands are doing will increase 100 percent, so any initial movement of your hand towards repeating that bad habit will be ‘caught’ by your conscious awareness – and from that point on it’s a matter of choice – your choice. It’s not a matter of personal victimization anymore. In self-hypnosis, you can task your subconscious to cause that hand to relax in a reflex action, so that you have really established a new habit. Use a lot of reinforcement for this new habit to be learned. Do a fist clench, then let your hand relax as you feel (and imagine feeling) all the discrete sensations of that relaxation response. Relaxation trumps tension, and it can be used successfully to interrupt old habits. You can teach that ‘misbehaving’ hand to respond by relaxing rather than by reinforcing the old habit you’re in the process of eliminating.

Increased conscious awareness is the antidote to the mindlessness of bad habit reinforcement. All habits are established by repetition, repeating the good or bad action, the healthy or unhealthy behavior, over and over again without you being conscious of it until it is done without your awareness, without thought most of the time. Unhealthy habits are themselves reinforced when they are repeated without thinking, with that repetition not even reaching a conscious level. As your old habit diminishes, there will be fewer and fewer times you’ll catch yourself saying, “I didn’t realize I did that again.”

When those negative impulses surface, learn how to put your mind and body into a healthy focus, a healthy state, in order to stabilize yourself. Remember to relax completely, breathe slowly and deeply, affirm, and visualize. Put yourself into a calm, positive mindset with the healthy, strong part of your mind giving good advice, good guidance, to the threatened part of you – and this will get you through.

Learn how to use delay and distraction as tools in countering negative impulses. Delay lighting up that cigarette for another five minutes. Maybe you’ll be so busy then that you won’t have a chance to have that cigarette after all. Distract yourself with another interest or activity. Make it difficult for yourself in a healthy way to resort to that habit you’re in the process of breaking. Take positive half measures in the early stage of changing a habit. Take half a bite of that chocolate; eat only half of that steak; throw away half of your pack of cigarettes; smoke only half of your cigarette. Half-way measures do work. Be extra aware of and avoid the triggers that bring on or signal the onset of an unhealthy habit response. Take the steps to minimize and eliminate the triggers and temptations that ‘feed’ your bad habit. For example, if you’re a nail biter, keep you fingernails trimmed closely. In self-hypnosis, task your subconscious mind to help you create a new and better habit when you are threatened with the recurrence of your old, unhealthy one.

Don’t waste the opportunities that occur twice in a 24-hour cycle, those natural ‘twilight’ times when you can access your subconscious mind. When you are dropping off to sleep, say to yourself to reaffirm your goal, “I am an ex- _________.” Saying this to yourself as your last conscious thought of the day effectively plants the seeds for lasting positive change. When waking up in the morning, be alert for your first thoughts. This is the time you are likely to receive messages from your subconscious mind. You can train yourself rather easily to ask your inner self, “Any messages?” Also, when your first conscious thought of a new day is the affirmation, “I am an ex-_________,” then you are using a very powerful tool to bring permanent change into your life.

If you don’t perceive that you have a problem with an unhealthy habit, then you will not see the need to make any change. How many times do our loved ones point out habits of ours that need changing? This is a good place to start. Change has its own momentum, and once you start making changes in a healthy direction, you set yourself up for personal empowerment and even more success.

All habits are learned responses; they are reactive. You can successfully counter your unhealthy habits with proactive techniques reinforced by self-hypnosis. To recap, use these constructive techniques: relaxation, breathing, affirming, visualizing, increasing your awareness, changing your mind, giving advice to yourself, using the methods of delaying and distraction, taking positive halfway measures, and most important of all, accessing your subconscious mind. As you are successful in changing one negative habit of yours because you learned the techniques of how to do it, this empowers you to make even more positive changes in your life.