taken from RealAge.com

The easiest way to get your mind off that hot fudge sundae is to picture this instead: a white sandy beach in Tahiti.

Or a scene from your favorite movie. Or a slow dance with your honey under a starry sky. Just picture something — anything — delightfully pleasant that isn’t food related. Research suggests that doing so can help stop a craving, fast.

Just Imagine . . .
In a recent study, college students were asked to vividly picture themselves engaged in a well-loved activity every time a food craving came up and to maintain the alternate image until the craving faded. Compared with control groups using other craving-quelling techniques like distraction or mentally challenging tasks, the daydreamers experienced a much more dramatic nosedive in both the strength and vividness of their food cravings. Researchers suspect that because the students employed their senses — like sight, sound, and smell — when imaging the enjoyable activity, it took the edge off their food urges and made the craved item seem less real. (Related:Find out how your TV remote can help you crush cravings for junk food.)

Click here to read the rest Kill Cravings  http://bit.ly/u8y9AB

Happy Holidays Everyone!

Here’s to YOUR success…

Susan French

http://www.hypno4success.com/programs/lose-weight/

All questions and comments welcome

888-333-3688

NOTABLE  QUOTABLE

Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue.

                                     – David Brent

——————————————

How many more days did you say there were before [insert preferred Holiday

Life changes constantly.  Sometimes it’s hard to keep up.  Other times, you are the statue!

What can I say?  Keep on truckin.’

In keeping with  the Time-Suck Pie philosophy of daily living, there are exactly 25 days until Christmas.  That’s counting from today and stopping Christmas Eve, when we hope that everything is done that needs to be done.  There are 4 weekends, if you’re a nine-to-fiver.

As for me, I prefer to count the number of days until the holidays are officially over, which is January 2nd.  Then it’s my birthday, January 3rd.  That is my official,” holiday’s are over. Time to count my “poor little money” as an ex-BF’s mother used to say.

Happy “Before the Holidays.”  Try to remember that no matter what, Christmas (or whatever you celebrate) comes and goes each year, right on schedule.  It doesn’t matter if gifts are bought and wrapped or you’re sitting on the floor sucking on your thumb.

The holiday comes for one day and then it’s over until next year.  That thought is the only thing that keeps me sane: no matter what, ready or not, it comes and then it’s over.  You don’t die or go to jail for everything that ISN”T done.  Fuggeddaboudit!

Stay warm.  Stay well. Stay sane.  Don’t drink and drive.

Count your blessings

Here’s to your success…

Susan French, M.A., Cht.

http://www.hypno4success.com

888-333-3688

What1?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Hypnosis and weight-loss are words that go together like salt & pepper, Mutt & Jeff, Cagney & Lacey.  Well, not entirely.  But a lot.  Right there next to hypnosis and quitting smoking.

How does hypnosis work?  Think about it this way:  positive suggestion changes your self-talk.  Positive self-talk changes your behavior.  What is a hypnosis suggestion anyhow?  It’s really a replacement for the self-limiting and self-limiting self-talk that persuades you that you “can’t.”  For instance, if your self-talk is negative (i.e., I’m a loser; I’ll never succeed at XYZ), you follow that direction.  If your self-talk changes to positive (i.e., this is easy; I’ve succeeded before, I can succeed this time, if others can do it, I can do it too, etc.) your behavior changes to be in alignment with this new view.

A note for you hardcore NLP-ers: “self-talk” can be in any modality.  You can see yourself as a failure or a success.  You can hear yourself mocking your failures or encouraging your successes.  You can feel the feeling of failure or the feeling of success.  For the sake if this discussion, “self-talk” applies to any modality.

With that idea in mind, let’s see how it applies to physical hunger for food.  If your self-talk is “I’m full” your body responds by feeling “full,” then you eat less.  If your self-talk is “I can’t live without my chocolate fix,” you can’t live without your chocolate fix.

Interestingly, the process is thought to be: thought/idea >>>emotion/response>>>behavior/action.  If you “think” you are comfortable, your body will supply the oppoid neurochemicals to block pain.  If you think/imagine you’re swimming, the exact same areas in your brain lights up as if you are really swimming.  This is an established and proven fact through the use of functional MRI studies.

  Think about what this means in terms of our behavior and responses.  If you think the girl in the next cubicle hates you, you will filter every perception through that filter.

Your brain/body/mind/spirit will provide the behavior that will prove your belief to yourself.  So if she frowns, it won’t occur to you that she might have gas or a headache.  It will likely be interpreted as a scowl proving that she hates you.  See how it works?

The physicists of today are working feverishly on what reality really is in our entire Universe.  So, doesn’t it seem reasonable that your mind/brain/body could create such phenomena in our perceptions?

There has  been a lot of research done on the “placebo effect,” both negatively and positively.  You can “think” yourself sick and you can “think” yourself well.  (Not 100%, but significantly).  You can “think” yourself happy or depressed.  You can “think” yourself in pain or painfree.  Amazing, isn’t it?

There is a significant amount of research being done on the subject of your “thoughts’ ” ability to  bring you money, clients, wellness, a perfect mate.  Nothing has been proven scientifically but there sure are a lot of unexplained phenomena.  Believe it or not! At your own risk, too!

Back to the perception of being physically hungry or physically full.  Your brain/body/mind/spirit will provide you the necessary neurotransmitters to make that your (perceived and experienced) reality.

You might wonder then, if you ‘believe’ that you can live without food, water or oxygen, if it will remain alive?  That is a question for Stephen Hawking or  Bruce Lipton.  I’m far too impressed with the possibilities suggested by  the theories of quantum mechanics and quantum physics to give you an objective answer.  Miracles (things that happen with no known explanation) happen all the time.  I am the wrong person to ask.

           Back to physical hunger.  If you feed your body enough to survive but your ‘thoughts’ block your perceptions of being hungry, losing weight should be easy.  And it is totally easy if the suggestion for satiety that is given is accepted unconditionally by your brain/mind/body/spirit.

When a hypnotist suggests that you are completely comfortable on five hundred calories, and it is accepted into your self-talk, your body will provide whatever is needed biochemically to support that belief.  A five-hundred-calorie-a-day intake may not be the best for your body but the jury’s still out on most facts about calorie deprivation.

Let’s return to our beginning statement “Hypnosis – Perceptions of Hunger.” If you imagine and believe that you are totally full and satisfied, that is exactly what you will experience, despite all of the “reality” that defies that idea.

If you’re still with me, you should now have a reasonable sense of why and how hypnosis works to help your overweight struggles. If you want proof, talk to Stephen  Hawking or Bruce Lipton.  All I know is that it works for hundreds of people will to submit to perception-changing suggestions through hypnosis.  Yes, I love that sweet refrain in my own ears: “you are blissfully full, ecstatically satiated.”

  How about you?  Are you sick of carrying that same ten, twenty, fifty, two-hundred pounds?  Hypnosis works.  Maybe it’s time to give hypnosis a test drive.  If you think so, give me a call or send me an email.  Set up a free consultation.  I will happily answer any questions you have.

Here’s to your success…

Susan French, M.A., CHt

888-333-3688

http://www.hypno4success.com/programs/lose-weight/

http://bit.ly/vM2sRN

I am reposting this from an article in Psychology Today by Alison Bonds Shapiro, MBA, PhD.  Don’t miss it!

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/healing-possibility/201111/habits-mind-the-flavors-our-experience

“My friend and teacher, Frank, talked to me the other day about habits of mind and the underlying tone they give to whatever we are doing. It’s a fascinating thing to understand and notice. We don’t generally pay attention at this level. Habits of mind are subtle.

Glass of iced tea

They are like lemon juice flavoring a glass of tea. We might not see the lemon juice when we look at the glass, but it’s there and its presence changes the flavor of our experience of drinking tea. Habits of mind do exactly the same thing. They change the flavor of the moments of our lives.

When we wait in a grocery store line, there is an experience. We are upright. Our bodies are relatively still since we are not moving significant distances. We are probably warm and dry. There is a level of ambient noise – talking, cash registers, packages rustling, maybe music. There are odors – food, floor wax, other people. We may see people and equipment and windows and doors and shelves of goods. Maybe we have taken a taste of something we are about to buy and have that sensation in our mouths. That’s our experience. It’s complex, full of sensations, but it is neither good nor bad. It is simply our experience until we filter our experience through one of our habits of mind. Then it acquires a flavor…”

Great excerpt.  Don’t miss it.  http://bit.ly/v5uGcF

 

Hypnosis for Your Success

From years of experience in helping clients succeed in reaching their goals, I’ve observed that a significant amount of time is spent thinking about goals we think would make our lives better if we could only achieve them.

A huge amount of all marketing in the United States promises some form of self-improvement: quit smoking, lose weight, improve your sexual performance, sleep better, cure headaches, improve your golf game.

The difficulty, not unexpectedly, is usually found between the “dreaming” part and the “done” part of our success plans. I’ll bet you already knew that. How do you get from dreaming to done? Why is the motivation to do whatever is required to reach your goals so very strong at inception and so very, very weak, most of the time, when it comes time to take productive action.

           More importantly, how do you maintain that initial level of motivation  when you hit the obstacles and difficulties that have been in your way since the first time you decided to: lose weight, quit smoking, make more money, get better grades, exercise more, or love-the-skin-you’re-in?

          Research suggests that there are many components involved in the failure to carry out the intended actions. Sometimes people can’t figure out where to start, or how to make a plan that they can follow. Others become easily overwhelmed and give up before they experience too much fear or frustration.

          Some people decide that the effort required isn’t worth the value of the outcome. Or, more importantly, the effort doesn’t SEEM to be worth the outcome when the going gets tough. Many people have trouble delaying gratification. Others become paralyzed by the need to be perfect, or better than perfect.

          The ability to delay gratification long enough to reach a desired outcome is a life skill that needs to be developed early in life. It is considered to be a major marker of maturity. Weakness in this area will prevent you from accomplishing much of anything you want to achieve in life. That’s why it is important to be aware of how well you do in delaying gratification.

          Then there is the problem of having such meager self-worth or self-confidence that the sufferer doesn’t believe that he has what it takes to stick it out to completion and success. This is rarely true but the idea that “belief equals reality” is an important area for exploration.

          Any or all of these human weaknesses (and others) can throw so many obstacles in our paths that we give up. When we can identify the specific behavior that prevents our success, we can take the small, incremental steps required to acquire the missing skills that keep us from reaching our goals.

          It is important to identify the missing skill-set and to develop that skill-set or you’ll never get from dreaming to done. When we seek help in achieving goals, we should expect that our counselor, mentor, life coach or hypnotherapist will help us to identify the missing pieces and help us to develop them.

          The most important message here is that whenever you find yourself unable to achieve a goal, it is time to evaluate your plan of action to find that one tiny little missing skill-set that keeps you from achieving your goal. In other words: you are never a failure. You are always simply a person who doesn’t understand a step in the process.

           At least, that is the assumption I bring into my work as an hypnosis practitioner.  As the wonderfully wise author and philosopher, Maya Angelou, once suggested (I just spent two hours looking for the exact quote, so I’m paraphrasing): “…but at that time you did not know better; now that you know better, you do better.”

          Don’t give up on your dreams and goals and never call yourself a failure. Find someone who can help you see where or why you’re stuck. “When you know better, you’ll do better…”

          Hypnosis provides a wonderful format for discovery as well as for successful action. If you’re having difficulty going from “dreaming” to “done,” it might be time to try hypnosis.  Hypnosis works when all else has failed.

Here’s to your success…

Susan French

888-333-3688

End Pain Today Using Hypnosis

         Hypnosis for pain relief is one of the most under-used treatments available. While the effect of hypnosis for pain relief is still not understood, there is much clinical evidence demonstrating its effect.

          More than 25 percent of adult Americans, (ages 20 and above), reported pain lasting more than 24 hours according to National Center for Health Statistics Report, 2006.  

           A 2006 survey done by the American Pain Foundation found that fifty-nine percent of the patients could benefit from the use of hypnosis for pain relief, both from pain itself and for a number of psychological problems.

           More than three quarters of pain patients reported feeling depressed. Seventy percent said they have trouble concentrating. Seventy-five percent said their energy level was impacted. Eight-six percent reported sleep disturbance.   Six out of ten patients (60%) said they experience breakthrough pain one or more times daily, severely impacting their quality of life and overall well-being.

           In fact, pain affects more Americans than diabetes, heart disease and cancer combined accordings to statistics.

          It is easy to see that many could benefit from using hypnosis for pain relief. In addition to the problems caused by the pain itself, the statistics on patients who use, abuse or die from prescription medications show that using hypnosis for pain relief would have many side benefits.

          While no one would suggest that we deny patients relief from pain, the problems involved with prescription pain medications is astronomical. Opiates are the second-most abused drug following marijuana.

          Prescription painkillers are a major contributor to the number of drug deaths. In 2007, for example, nearly 28,000 Americans died from unintentional drug poisoning, and of these, nearly 12,000 involved prescription pain relievers.  These statistics are overwhelming. Perhaps you or someone you love is included in these numbers.

          Of the available options, which treatment is best?  Hypnosis has a number of real advantages. Hypnosis for pain relief is one of the most effective alternative treatments available. Hypnosis for pain relief has been clinically proven to be a highly effective alternative to medication. Self-hypnosis is taught by most practitioners to make pain relief available 24/7, any time, any place, as needed.

          Hypnosis for pain relief is safe, natural, and self-contained. It can be used alone or in conjunction with any other treatment. Any treatment that reduces the need for opioids has already proven its worth. Hypnosis for pain relief fits those criteria.

           More and more Western mainstream physicians are prescribing hypnosis for pain relief for their patients. Some of the most well-known physicians are Drs. Mehmet Oz, Andrew Weil, Michael Roisen, and David Spiegel, to name just a few.

          If you or a loved one is one of the suffering fifty percent, perhaps it is time to consider giving hypnosis for pain relief a try. Keep the patient safe from addiction, overdose, or the disabling effects of prescription pain medication.  Call or email today for more No-Obligation information.  http://www.hypno4success.com/contact-us/email-us/

Here’s to your success…

Susan French

susanfrench2010@gmail.com

888-333-3688

http://www.hypno4success.com/programs/pain-reduction/

Don't suffer with IBS one more day!

Do you agree that all disease starts somewhere in the ‘mind’? First you have to understand that the words mind and brain do not mean the same thing. Then you have to understand that there is no way to separate the ‘mind’ from the ‘body.’ Bodies are attached to brain/minds and brain/minds are attached to bodies. There is no way to separate them.

What this means to you is that anytime you have a thought, feeling or idea, it registers somewhere in your physical body. Then your physical body responds to those thoughts in one way or another, negatively or positively by upping its need for oxygen/breath/blood supply, as well as the release of adrenaline which causes the muscular contractions in the first place.

It’s a devilish cycle that needs to be interrupted and controlled. You can do this with hypnosis.

We know that  you  have many ‘under the radar’ thoughts, feelings and ideas (i.e., unconsciously and subconsciously) which can cause disruption in the function of your body.

You also want to be aware that when we speak of ‘stress,‘ we are speaking of both the emotional feelings that we call ‘stress’ along with the physiological stress reactions in the body. I feel stressed/fearful/angry (the emotion); my body feels shaky/sweaty/faint/numb/flushed/weird (the physical sensations).

Whenever a thought crosses your mind about food or eating, blood starts to flow to your digestive system and enzymes are released.  Your conscious attention will probably check in to decide if, you are in fact, hungry. It is a fairly complicated process if you were to make a flowchart. Most of the time this complicated process happens below your conscious awareness. It’s automatic and proceeds as it should.

However, say you’ve had a really bad day, or a really bad week (not enough sleep, not good nutrition, no exercise, no breaks in your day to decompress, fear, anger, overwhelmed, frustrated), and your BODY slips into a stress-reaction.

Any disturbing thought, such as fear, anger, frustration, tells the mind to tell the body to start releasing adrenaline. Why? Because adrenaline is your body’s natural speed, so you can fight or flee or even freeze.

All kinds of changes occur in your physical body. You don’t need to know them all. Just consider that a burst of adrenaline would be like mainlining a pot of coffee: blood-pressure goes up, respiration goes up, contractions begin in your muscular system, which also causes an inhibition in blood flow. Suddenly you’re in pain, fear and more stress.

You have a stomachache, a headache, pain in your neck, pain in your back. All of these experiences are usually triggered by a burst of adrenaline, which constricts blood flow. In fact, most pain that we experience is caused by a restriction in blood flow, but that is a different discussion.

We all have one or more “sensitive” areas in our physical body; an area that seems hyper-reactive. Some of us get headaches, some get neck pain, others feel it in the digestive system, i.e., the gut.

IBS, or Irritable Bowel Syndrome, as far as we know, is caused by some level of stress. This stress might be caused by an allergy or other food sensitivity. When we eat or drink it, our body yelps in dis-stress. Message from brain to body: something’s not right: release adrenaline.

But even more significant is the kind of ‘stress’ that is caused by some strong emotion, usually negative, such as fear, anger, frustration, even grief.

What does all of this mean to you? It means that, if the sensitive part of your body, the part that always acts up when you are stressed out, is your digestive system (your gut), you can learn to control this stress reaction before IBS is even triggered.

IBS (or any digestive complaint) can be headed off before it begins. In addition, if any of that reaction managed to get through to send its message to your gut, you brain/mind can send an additional flow of blood to the area, oxygen reaches every cell via the blood system and that results in the relaxation of your muscles.

Oxygen is Mother Nature’s tranquilizer and Mother Nature’s pain killer. Oxygen steps up the blood flow, bringing that oxygen into all of your cells. What that means for your IBS is that the increase of blood flow will begin to calm and reduce pain and distress.

You can see, then, that using hypnosis to treat IBS and other digestive problems is not a magical, mystical occurrence. The process can be followed if you have the proper measuring devices.

If you suffer from IBS or other digestive distress, hypnosis can interrupt the stress reaction that causes the symptoms to begin and also to start calming the nervous system down. Using hypnosis, you can also increase the blood supply to the affected area, which will begin to decrease pain and begin healing.

Not only that, but hypnosis can be used as the master key to your bodily computer. In other words, when you are in hypnosis, you have more control over your autonomic (automatic) nervous system. Blood flow carries oxygen to muscles, which results in a calming in the affected (blood starved) area.

If you are one of those people who suffers from this often immobilizing, extraordinarily painful condition that seems to have no cause and over which you seem to have no control, not even with medication, you owe it to yourself to try hypnosis.

Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is not only physically painful but traditional medical treatment alone is usually ineffective for relief of symptoms. However, more than ten years of medical research has shown that using hypnosis in addition provides relief in over 80 percent of patients who try it.

Hypnosis has been so successful for improving IBS symptoms that Adriane Fugh-Berman, MD, chair of the National Women’s Health Network in Washington, DC, says that hypnosis should be the treatment of choice for IBS cases which have not responded to conventional therapy.

Why suffer one more day? Call me and ask any questions you need answered. I’m happy to explain it all to you without pressure or obligation.

You can book a free consultation appointment on my web-based calendar. You can call me (888-333-3688), email me (susanfrench2010@gmail.com),or chat with me live on my website live chat.  You could find me  on Facebook where I frequently answer questions. What you shouldn’t do is to go one more day without finding out how you can have 100% relief from the agony and embarrassment of IBS.

Here’s to your success…

Susan French

http://www.hypno4success.com

888-333-3688

Yes you can quit smoking today.

Let’s talk  about smoking cessation using hypnosis.  First let me explain why hypnosis takes the struggle out of quitting, making it easy and permanent.

Hypnosis is considered by the medical community to be the most effective method for quitting smoking .

If you’re reading this blog post or watching this video,  someone in your life has a smoking problem.  Is it you?

Take a moment to think about the typical self-talk that happens when the subject of quitting comes up again.

Do you cringe? Does your stomach go into a knot?

Does your self-talk go something like this?

• I can’t quit; I’ve tried
• I can’t imagine getting through the day without a cigarette
• Is there really life after quitting smoking
• I can’t stand the heebie-jeebies
• I can’t stand the withdrawal: the edginess, irritability, grumpiness, the insomnia 

Hypnosis eliminates that discomfort, making it easy, comfortable, and doable. Let’s take a moment to understand the smoking habit.

There are three components involved.

There is the physical, body component: the ‘withdrawal,’ the reaction to nicotine leavinhelpg the body. But nicotine is gone in 48 to 72 hours Gone. So that’s the physical part.

Then there is the habit component. Studies have proven that any time you change an automatic behavior, any habit, there is a certain amount of feeling disrupted and hyper-aware. I.e. uncomfortable.

Then there is the hardest part of stopping smoking: 1) the belief that smoking relieves stress and 2) that this tension cannot be relieved in any other way.

This belief is physiologically inaccurate, but you have come to associate the cigarette ritual with the permission you give yourself to take a break; let go of tension.

If you had learned to scratch your head to relieve stress, then you would relieve your stress by scratching your head. We have all kinds of little tension relieving behaviors. You believe that it will relax you, so it does.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could substitute scratching your head for smoking? Or drinking a delicious, cleansing sip of water? Or by breathing in a special relaxation-Yogic-breathing way that relieves tension?

Relaxation breathing actually DOES reduce stress physiologically, so that’s a good substitute, and we use that. Perhaps you’ll find that because your breathing improves and your energy increases, that you might easily start exercising, walking, working out, dancing, jogging. Exercise is a great stress reliever all by itself.

But what about that miserable withdrawal part; The heebie-jeebies? We can make you “forget” to smoke, we can link the you that existed before you had a smoking habit, the you that never smoked. We can make your brain ignore the pulses of discomfort and experience only those times in between smoking-craving-pulses, when you are calm, comfortable and completely relaxed.

Let me tell you about a little trick that stage hypnotists use, perhaps you’ve seen it.  It demonstrates the power of hypnosis to get you to “forget” to smoke or to “forget” the feeling of wanting to smoke.

The subject is put into hypnosis and made to ‘forget’ something: their own name, perhaps, or the number six when made to count. A stage hypnotist can even make a subject “not see” something that is right in front of him, like a red apple or a vase of flowers.

It’s a lot of fun to watch a stage hypnotist create this “forgetting” phenomenon or this “negative hallucination” phenomenon. The brain does this all the time. How many times have you stood in front of the fridge searching for something that’s right in front of you?

By the way, addiction cravings, like pain, comes in waves and pulses. It’s not contant. It only seems constant bc the attention is on the pain. In therapeutic hypnosis, we make your brain ignore the pulses of discomfort and perceive only those times when there is no discomfort.

Hypnosis is an accelerated learning state, so changing habits can become relatively immediate.

You perceive relief from stress because you associate it with this moment of letting go and relaxing. While we know medically that nicotine increases stress in a number of ways, you have learned to associate the smoking ritual with the taking of a break, relaxing, spacing out, time to yourself.

In hypnosis we can create a positive substitute behavior in place of smoking., such as drinking delicious, cool water instead, or doing relaxation-yogic breathing, or even sucking on a hard candy. In fact, one of the positive distractions that is most effective is the habit of exercise, walking instead of smoking, for instance.

If you take a look at the comments of former smoking clients you’ll see that hypnosis makes quitting smoking easy and doable. All you are really need to do is to listen to the preparing for quitting recording during the first couple of weeks of brain-retraining.

So if you are here because you’re ready end that costly and poisonous habit, you need to try hypnosis. Hypnosis works when everything else has failed. You can (and should) become a nonsmoker just as quickly as you can.

Call and book your appointment to quit right now, today. If you have questions, please call me. 888-333-3688. Or chat with my by live chat on my website. Or come talk to me on facebook.

I’m happy to answer all of your questions. No obligation, of course. I know that you’re gather information and I’m happy to help. you will receive a free mp3 recording that will prepare you for your quit date. like magic. In fact, don’t be surprised if you find that you become very excited to begin your smokefree life.

Here’s to your success…

I’m Susan French, your architect for change using hypnosis

Call me. We’ll talk.

888-333-3688.

http://www.hypno4success.com/programs/quit-smoking/

NOTABLE  QUOTABLE

Always forgive your enemies – nothing annoys them so much.
–Oscar Wilde

Laughter is Still The Best Medicine

I often feel that life is a far more formidable opponent than my human being-ness can handle. Anything that that makes me laugh out loud gives me the edge I need in this daily battle.

I hope today’s Twitt-i-cism can do that for you as well.

Here’s to your success…

 Susan French

http://www.hypno4success.com

Call me and we’ll talk. I’m happy to answer all questions about hypnosis and therapy.  No obligation.

888-333-3688