How can hypnotherapy positively influence your eating habits?

This weekend, I took my children to a horse show. If you’re not familiar with horse shows in the same way I am – it’s a lot of stalls selling expensive horse accessories, with a glimpse of a horse every now and then. I believe if your perspective is slightly different to my children's, you might seat yourself by the arena to watch the horses and ignore the shops. If you’re like me and prefer natural horsemanship, you probably wouldn’t go at all. However, it was my youngest daughter’s birthday, and she wanted to spend her fortunes on pony paraphernalia, so off we toddled.

I delighted in the many stalls offering free sweets in exchange for my name and email address. It didn’t help me follow the “I quit sugar” lifestyle, which I realise only now I began when the same daughter was born – 10 years ago exactly. Quitting sugar for two years did reduce my sugar intake enough that I feel comfortable being more flexible about it now. However, I’m not sure I needed as many chewy sweets I ate this weekend.

My point is this – everywhere we go there is temptation. I remember when I took the car for an MOT and walked out with candy canes. Fair enough, it was December, but still. If you want to make healthy food choices, you need to remain committed every day. Much like recovery from addiction, it takes effort and conscious thought. Hypnotherapy is not the quick fix, brain rewiring that some people believe it is. However, it can help make conscious eating easier.

Understanding eating habits

Consuming food is not necessarily the ritual it once was. Our ancestors gathered, prepared, and ate food with intention, often as part of a communal activity that connected them to the seasons, their environment, and each other. Today, however, many of us eat on the go, distracted, quickly and without thought.

We’ve forgotten our hunger cues and take in food, because the clock says we should, for fear we may feel hungry later if we don’t or in response to emotion. No one has the hours it takes to prepare good quality nutritious food, so we feel the only option is to grab something quick and easy. The human body lacks nutrition, and we’re losing the ability to intuitively know what we need and when we need it. Eating in response to emotion is fuel to an unhealthy habit, rather than energy for life.

What is hypnotherapy?

Hypnotherapy is a talking therapy that uses hypnosis to enhance a therapeutic modality. Hypnosis alone is a focused state of mind that science hasn’t yet fully understood. Research shows changes in brain activity in areas related to attention and emotional regulation. When someone is in hypnosis, they have a greater internal focus and get less distracted by the external. The mind opens to suggestion, but rather than the hypnotist having control, it becomes easier to think differently, feel open to new behaviours and notice emotional reactions.

How hypnotherapy influences eating habits

While the suggestion aspect of hypnosis and hypnotherapy can help you change your eating habits, I do not advocate this as the solution. You are an active participant in your therapy, and lasting change requires self-awareness, commitment, and willingness to engage in the process. Hypnotherapy provides the tools and guidance to reframe your relationship with food, but your conscious choices and effort are what sustain those changes in the long run.

Hypnotherapy sessions can help you improve your self-awareness and take ownership of the choices you make. The sessions will help you understand how your mind works best, so you can create a plan for the nutritional changes you’d like to make. Hypnotherapy can help you find healthier ways to manage your emotions.

If your hypnotherapist has experience with mindfulness, they’ll be able to help you learn how to sit back and notice your emotions and reactions with curiosity. When you do this, you can more easily preempt emotions and manage your reactions, while bringing back the ritual of eating food with intention.