7 tips to change your eating habits this year using hypnotherapy
This time of year I love reviewing what works for me and what doesn’t. I know something isn’t working for me when I am not in a place I want to be.

Like Sarah when she came to see me. She knew her eating habits were not good and she wanted to finally change them after so many years of trying. Habits are our brain's way of saving us time and energy. When we repeat behaviours so many times, we do them unconsciously, thus it saves us from having to think about them. This is fantastic when the habits benefit us, for instance, going for a walk after dinner. (It helps to lower our blood sugars)
When we know we want to change some habits, it can be hard to know what habits to change as they all seem jumbled into one big behaviour, like eating. It can be hard to know how to change our habits and what to do so new habits stick around.
Working with Sarah she had tried many times to change her eating habits. They would last for a week or two and then she would go back to where she was, only feeling even more frustrated than before.
So here is what we did together.
Eating habits breakdown
1. Awareness
We started re-living all of her eating patterns. We do a lot of these habits unconsciously so therefore we aren’t always aware of what habits we have. Once Sarah was aware, we started to list the ones that would be helpful to change.
2. Start small
Start with one habit at a time. The temptation is we want to change everything at once. This leads us to feel overwhelmed. And new habits are hard to sustain. Sarah picked out a habit that she thought would be easy to change first. For her, she wanted to stop eating biscuits every night with her cup of tea.
3. Break it down
A habit is not just one behaviour, it is often a series of small behaviours leading to one another. We started with boiling the kettle, getting the mug, then the tea bag, and then noticed she would reach into the cupboard for the biscuits. Get out the tin, put 5 on a plate, take them into the front room, put the plate on her lap and eat them whilst watching her TV shows. We got as specific as we could.
4. The trigger
After breaking it down, we noticed the trigger for this behaviour. The event or thought that started the chain reaction of small behaviours. Sarah noticed wanting a cup of tea would automatically lead her to wanting some biscuits.
5. Visualise a new behaviour
In the therapy room, we got into detail about what Sarah would like to do instead. We recorded an audio file and Sarah was able to listen to it in-between sessions. Visualise the new behaviour in the 3rd person first of all, in other words, view yourself as if you are a fly on the wall. Then see it with your own eyes.
6. The benefit
There has to be a benefit to it and this is an emotional benefit. If you feel you are going to lose out or miss out on something, that feeling is going to drive you back to your old behaviours. Try on the new habit and try on the feeling. If it does not feel good, keep tweaking your visualisation of your new habit until it feels good. For Sarah, initially, she got some healthy snacks, for instance, she cut up an apple. This did not feel good at first, so she also visualised herself feeling good, fit and healthy and that helped to motivate her.
7. Persist
At first, it can be difficult to stick to new habits. Sarah kept visualising hers, kept bringing in positive feelings around it and we also brought in a reward. The reward was she kept saying well done to herself and brought in feeling proud of herself. At the end of week 1, she did something nice for herself which felt good. She knew at first it would feel like a mountain, but as time went on it got easier and easier.
Hypnotherapy
We used hypnotherapy in several ways:
- To visualise her new habits.
- To help break some habits as we dived into what was in the unconscious that was stopping her from losing weight.
- We did some inner child work and healed what was in her childhood that was the origin of some of her behaviours.
- We were able to work out what food was doing emotionally for her, for instance, the biscuits were giving her a boost.
- We were able to replicate that boost feeling intrinsically so it broke the association between tea and biscuits.
What new habits do you want this year?
What old habits would you like to change? Habits are absolutely possible to change and sustain. At first, it takes a bit of awareness and perseverance. Keep bearing in mind what you want and why you want it.
