Hypnotic Thoughts.

Paula Deen Has Diabetes, Partnership with Drug Company

I love Paula Deen.  I've admired her for years.  When I first started watching the Food Network, her show was one of the ones I watched regularly.  That lady can cook some comfort food!  When you watch her on TV, you just want to go to her kitchen and let her cook for you.  

Her story is a great story, an American-dream-come-true story.  She worked hard and made things happen and today she has an empire.  She started out selling sandwiches, and today she has her own TV shows, her own line of cookware, cookbooks, food products, etc.  She has earned what she has today, and she should be proud of that.  I'm not so sure she should be proud of her latest venture, however, a partnership with Novo Nordisk.  

I heard rumors over a year ago that Deen had been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, but she only publicly admitted it this week, as she appeared on The Today Show.  Deen told Al Roker that she had been diagnosed three years ago during a routine physical examination.  When Roker asked her why she hadn't shared her diagnosis sooner, Deen answered that it was because she "had nothing to give my fellow friends out there."  Is it me or is that a poor answer?

Paula Deen built an empire through hard work and by having a great TV personality.  She also built it, in part, by selling a style of cooking that is, quite honestly, unhealthy.  She has come under a lot of criticism in recent years over this, and she makes some good points.  She never said we should eat that kind of food every day.  She's the host of a cooking show, not your doctor.  Fair enough.

And don't think this is all on Paula's shoulders.  I'm sure she has a whole team around her, people who specialize in brand development and marketing and business management, and they all have input on how to handle a situation like this.  They all missed the boat.  God forbid we admit that cooking with copious amounts of butter may not be a good thing.

Paula Deen doesn't sell southern food.  Paula Deen sells comfort.  Yes, comfort food is often big on calories, but it doesn't have to be the crazy rich foods that she makes as over-the-top examples of southern cookin'.  What really made Ms. Deen a househould name was her presence on the screen, her way of talking about how food brings families together.  The food matters, of course, but it's the story behind the food that hooks you in.

Ms. Deen had a chance to shift her brand strategy and write a new chapter in her story by focusing on ways to create foods that aren't quite so... um... calorically endowed.  She could have shown how our diet and lifestyle shifts as we age, and she could have been a wonderful example of that, role modeling to millions of people that the culture we live in promotes obesity and its related risk factors: heart disease and diabetes.  But you can DO something about it.  You can make changes, and you can make new and different choices.

Ok, technically she is doing that.  She has a statement on her website about how she's going to start doing dishes with a lighter touch.  But that's taken three years, and it's being presented as a sort of side note.  The emphasis seems to be on the partnership with Novo Nordisk.

I talk with clients a lot about re-framing.  When you re-frame a situation, you find a different perspective on the issue, so that by seeing it differently you feel like you can make different choices.  Ms. Deen did not re-frame her situation.  She managed it.  And now she has a partnership with a drug company that will encourage people with diabetes to manage their condition with an injection, and that is a viable option.  I'm just not sure it's the best one.

Hypnotic Lap Band is the Latest Craze in Weight Loss

Over a year ago I wrote a review of Martin and Marion Shirran's book about their hypnotic lap band method.  The Shirran's had recently appeared on "Good Morning America" and were taking the hypnotism world by storm with their new concept:  give a client the hypnotic experience of having a lap band procedure without actually getting the surgery.  After the sessions, when the client eats they get a feeling of constriction, feeling fuller sooner.  But does it really work?

The Shirrans have had plenty of success with it, and their book was the best book about hypnosis and weight loss that I've read, not because of the novel idea of hypnotic lap band, but because the book takes a comprehensive look at what it takes to change behavior and understand why people overeat.  Sadly, the reality about any profession in our capitalist culture is that more emphasis gets placed on marketing than results, so after the big attention given to the Shirrans by the media I knew what would happen, and it did: hypnotists all over the place started offering their own versions of hypnotic lap band methods.  People jumped on the bandwagon, big time.

It's been a little over a year since I reviewed the book, and now every week I see something about hypnotic lap band.  I get Google alerts with press releases about this person's and that person's program.  I get emails offering to teach me the method from people I've never even heard of before.  I predicted in my book review that this would happen, and while part of me likes to be right, the other part of me is tired of this kind of behavior in my profession.

It's not just my profession; it's all professions, but since I'm in this one I can only talk specifically about what I experience.  People are lazy.  They take shortcuts.  Hypnotism for weight loss is one of the areas in which hypnotists do it the most, because it's arguably the most difficult area of hypnotism, and lots of hypnotists don't like doing it, but they know how huge the market is, so they do it anyway.  Let's compare weightloss to nailbiting cessation.

If a person comes to me to stop chewing her/his fingernails, I can usually help them stop in one session.  Nailbiting, much of the time, is a simple coping mechanism for stress, a release of internal energy.  You help the person increase their awareness of the activity, and find better ways to cope, and they stop.  Easy.

Overeating, on the other hand, happens for a wide variety of reasons, and unlike nailbiting, which you don't have to do at all, you DO need to eat.  Hypnotists, therefore are challenged to modify existing habits without eradicating the main habit of eating.  It's a more complex situation, with more variables and factors, and this makes it much more challenging.  

If you think a hypnotist is going to do some quick and easy session where they hypnotically give you the lap band and all your food problems and weight issues go away, you are mistaken.  Hypnosis is not a magic wand.  It doesn't just "fix" problems.  It's a tool that can help you change your behavior and the way you think about things, and it has to be properly applied by the hypnotist.  That is more art than science.

If you search for hypnotic lap band, you'll get a lot of potential leads.  Treat them all like any smart consumer would.  Ask lots of questions, do your homework on the hypnotist and the process they use, and make an informed decision.

 

Tony Robbins Talks about Why We Do What We Do

I'm a big fan of Tony Robbins, and this TED Talk that he gives is a great example of why.  Tony has a rare gift for taking the things in life that seem so big and overwhelming to many of us and making it much simpler so that we feel like we can create the change we desire.  While this blog is devoted to hypnotism, anyone who is interested in hypnotism as a means of helping others knows that we can't rely solely on hypnotism.  We have to know more, and understand people on a deeper level, and this video gives us some of that.  Enjoy.

 

First Hypnosis Hangout Held on Google+?

I had the wonderful opportunity this week to appear as a guest on Brock Predovich's "Entrepreneurial Interviews" series on Google+.  We talked about how I left a safe job working at a state university to launch a career in hypnotism, and how that career has gone to a new level over the past year and a half for me.

After we discussed what I've learned from starting my own business, I took questions from folks in the Hangout about how hypnosis works and how it can be applied to help people create positive change.  Then I wrapped up the event with a live hypnosis demonstration for everyone in the Hangout who wanted to focus on an goal for 2012.  I did a quick induction and used some NLP to help them find a resourceful state that they could call forth in the future.

I wonder if it was the first Hangout ever held on Google+ to feature live hypnosis?  For those of you who aren't familiar with Google+, it's Google's new social media platform, and it is amazing.  Google+ has a wonderful array of features that you won't find at other social media sites.  The Hangout feature is a great example.  You can create an online video conference to "Hangout" with people for free using Google+.  It is fantastic!

After having so much fun with the folks at Brock's hangout, I'll definitely make more use of the Hangout feature at my own Google+ page.  If you want to watch the Hangout I took part in, it is archived here.

Book Review: "The Divided Mind" by Dr. John Sarno

If you're a hypnotist, "The Divided Mind" is a must-read.  If you suffer from chronic pain, or if you have ever been diagnosed with a psychosomatic illness, this book could be life-changing for you.  Dr. Sarno shares his perspective from decades of working with thousands of people in pain.  This book is a controversial book, both in the medical community and with lay people who will read it, but I am convinced it is a book of great importance.

The first three chapters define psychosomatic disorders, give a brief history of psychosomatic medicine, and discuss the psychology of psychosomatic disorders.  Dr. Sarno lays the groundwork for the reader to adopt a new understanding of what psychosomatic really means, and how to help others come to this new understanding.

Sarno then talks about treatment in chapter four, and the rest of the chapters are written by other doctors who share Sarno's views about psychosomatic illness.  Each chapter, each guest author, focuses on a specific aspect of psychosomatic illness, through the rest of the book.  Hypertension, arthritis, and pain are some examples of the specific topics the doctors focus on in their guest chapters.

If you have pain or any symptoms that suggest you have an illness, you should consult with your doctor.  This book does not suggest that doctors, or medicine, for that matter, aren't needed for healing.  What it challenges us to do is to look more closely at the role that the mind plays in the creation of some of these illnesses, and to pay more attention to the mind as a solution to those illnesses, rather than drugs or surgery.

Hypnosis in the Soviet Era

I stumbled upon this really cool piece by Anna Geltzen.  If you're into hypnotism, give it a read.  It's the story of a man who would conduct mass hypnosis sessions over Soviet Union television, with the full backing of the Soviet medical higher-ups at the time.

We already know that television is a hypnotic medium.  Imagine its power when combined with an individual who knows hypnotic tactics, and uses those tactics explicitly.  Very interesting.

Easily Hypnotized People Can Hallucinate Colors at Will

Just a quick blip today from the world of research.  A study at the University of Hull in the United Kingdom shows that highly hypnotizable people can hallucinate colors whenever they want.

Psychologists gathered together two groups.  One group was made of subjects who were highly suggestible in hypnosis and another group that said they were not easily hypnotized. The groups were shown some black-and-white patterns and asked to try to see colors in them. The highly suggestible group was consistently able to see colors, but under hypnosis and of their own free will, while the second group generally failed at this task.

Now that may not seem so impressive, but brain imaging showed that the subjects who were hallucinating colors actually had increased activity in the region of the brain responsible for visual perception, so this isn't just about "imagining" the colors; the brain is actually registering something!  

This is another great example of how we are still just starting to figure out how powerful hypnosis is and how it actually affects the brain.  

More Evidence Hypnosis Can Help Those with IBS

A new study in the official journal of the American Gastroenterological Association says that both physical symptoms and psychological problems influence a patient's perception of the severity of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) symptoms.

IBS is a chronic, painful, oftentimes disabling GI condition that leads to crampy pain, gassiness, bloating and changes in bowel habits. Some people with IBS have constipation, others have diarrhea, and some people experience both.  Because patients report their IBS symptoms and experiences in a wide variety of ways, doctors struggle to consistently treat the condition in a way that gets the same results each time.  In fact, they still aren't quite sure what causes IBS, but it definitely gets affected by stress.

We already know that hypnosis is an excellent tool for managing and reducing stress levels, so it fits nicely in an IBS management plan in that regard, but this new study also suggests that understanding patient-reported outcomes is an important part of the process, as well.  

When patients have certain ways that they view their condition and the related symptoms, the way they perceive those outcomes has an effect on the actual condition.  So the study supports the idea that IBS has a strong psychological component, and that the psychology of the patient really affects how they feel at the gastrointestinal level.  This brings us to the second important aspect of using hypnosis for IBS management.

Any time that a condition in our lives is affected directly by the way we perceive it, then hypnosis can help us change those perceptions and improve the overall condition.  For example, if one suffers from IBS and develops a strong fear of the pain that can occur in an IBS attack, that fear is stress, and can actually bring on the very thing that one is afraid of experiencing.  Hypnosis can help us reduce our fear, re-frame the way we look at issues in our lives, and create different outcomes.

Can hypnosis cure IBS?  No.  Hypnosis doesn't cure things, but the medical community doesn't have a cure for IBS, either.  No pill, no shot to make it go away.  If you want to get some relief from IBS, do some research into the relationship between the nervous system and the gut, learn about how stress affects your health, and then look into ways that feel reasonable for you to manage your wellness in these areas.  If hypnosis is an option you are interested in, you can see a hypnotist in person for live sessions, or perhaps find an audio recording specifically designed for people with IBS.

Police Say North Port Principal Broke the Law

The North Port police department has concluded its investigation into high school principal George Kenney and is forwarding the case to prosecutors.  While the police believe that their investigation shows Kenney violated Florida health care laws, they apparently believe the case to be unusual enough to ask state prosecutors for their opinion about whether or not to proceed.

If Kenney is prosecuted and found guilty, the felony charge of unlicensed practice of health care could result in up to five years in prison.  The second charge, of unlawful practice of hypnosis, is a misdemeanor.

This story has become a cautionary tale for hypnotists all over the United States.  State laws about the practice of hypnotism vary, and most states are friendly to the practice of hypnotism, but lay hypnotists must be cautious about providing services that could be deemed "therapy." Many states have laws about unlicensed people providing therapy, and if a hypnotist "treats" a client for a diagnosed health issue they could end up in hot water.

I'm not sure what the North Port police found that makes them think Mr. Kenney broke the law.  Since the investigation is still open, there is no public record of what they found in their investigation, yet.  Kenney's attorney remains confident that his client will be vindicated.

"I have serious doubts that they're going to meet the elements," attorney Mark Zimmerman said. "We're dealing with, beyond question, a very good man."

Coldplay Used Hypnosis While Recording Latest Album

Guy Berryman, the bassist for the rock group Coldplay says that the group was hypnotized for some of its recording sessions.

"We're not afraid to try different things. Brian Eno brought a friend in and the four of us were playing music under hypnosis," explained Berryman.

Eno is the group's producer, and is known for using unusual strategies to help groups experiment with their music and boost their creativity.  According to Berryman, the strategy didn't do much for them.

Hypnosis is a state of increased focus, so it would be worthwhile for artists to explore the idea of producing their art while in hypnotic trance.  With proper suggestions given, it could also be a way to boost or focus one's creativity or imagination.  Kudos to Mr. Eno for thinking outside the box.