Hypnosis Practice: Rapid Relaxation
A Quick Fix for Heightened Nerves
DISCLAIMER: nothing herein shall be construed as professional medical or psychological advise.
Today, I’m going to share a technique that teaches your deep mind how to relax at will. Results may vary in the beginning, but with practice this will come naturally to just about everyone.
It’s best to learn about hypnosis experientially. When studying logic, we often use thought experiments to arrive at an understanding of this or that idea; in hypnosis we will use experience experiments to learn more about how to leverage the power of our subconscious mind to change our state (and habits, and instincts, and so on).
It’s helpful to read A Primer On Hypnosis and/or my article about how I made my dog allergies disappear using self-hypnosis to contextualize this piece—however, it’s not completely necessary. If you’re short on time, read on.
The Importance of Relaxation
Our society is downright hostile to basic human needs. We are supposed to have breaks from time to time, and have fun. We need to connect with friends (in the real world, not just online) and feel like we belong. Anxiety and depression are the subconscious mind’s way of telling you that you have unmet needs.
The signals we receive from the subconscious mind are meant to help us, however we have to learn how to mitigate them so that we don’t become overwhelmed by them. Learning how to relax on command is an essential tool in your mental-health toolkit. Relaxation + problem solving = the beginning to getting your needs met.
In life, there are cycles of activity and rest. The deeper you rest, the more energy you will have available when it’s time to be active; and the more you exert yourself while active, the deeper you will rest. Harnessing this cycle for your own benefit is the bedrock to solving a great many things.
The following self-hypnotic process will activate your body’s natural ability to relax, just like flipping a switch. This one skill alone can thwart anxiety from snowballing into much worse problems—you need to take breaks from time to time.
The more you do it, the more automatic it will become—like mentally installing a “relax” button in your brain. Don’t sweat it if it takes a long time to really sink in—these things take practice.
Do the following every day until it’s automatic. Once it becomes more second nature, it only takes a minute or so at a time to do.
The Process
Step 1: sit upright in a chair. It’s preferable to use a chair with a straight back and no arms, but whatever you have will work.
Step 2: take a slow, long inhale through the nose for about 5-7 seconds, then exhale out your mouth for 10 seconds or longer (it helps calm the nervous system when you exhale longer than you inhale). Allow your breath to be smooth and gentle (if you have a cough, just cough as you need to and keep going).
Step 3: at the end of the exhale, close your eyes. Imagine that your eyelids are heavy and that they just want to close on their own, and you’re just letting them.
Step 4: with your eyes closed, imagine that you are in a sanctuary of your own design. Make it a simple, uncluttered sanctuary. Allow the scene to come to you naturally. For those who struggle to visualize, you can simply feel what it would feel like if you were in such a sanctuary.
Step 5: imagine that no concerns can reach you in this sanctuary. Even thoughts don’t reach you in this place. And even if a stray thought, here and there, may reach you from time to time… it disappears like a blip in the ocean. Be in this place for a minute or so, enjoying the peace and stillness.
Step 6: slowly open your eyes, feeling refreshed and ready to move on with your day.
You just gave your mind a break—a chance to reset. Doing this regularly will help keep your energy levels up. Being able to relax at will is crucial for self-regulation—many of us in the modern age struggle with this skill. One of the reasons why I became a hypnotist is because I used to deal with extremely bad insomnia—we’re talking multiple years of my life where almost every night it was a roll of the dice whether I’d get to sleep or not—and hypnosis was the only thing that made a difference. It taught me how to relax by choice.
With every step of the above (or similar) processes, your mind has to intentionally create an experience for itself—which it absolutely can do. By learning to intentionally generate certain experiences, you train your mind like a muscle. You will learn to focus better, relax better, become more creative, and solve problems faster from doing the above exercise (and similar ones).
One caveat: for some people, it’s tempting to get “blissed out” for long stretches of time with techniques like the one above. Instead, think of the above process as nothing more than a quick fix. Your goal isn’t to get blissed out all the time—your goal is to get your actual needs met, so that you can accomplish the things in life that really matter to you. Hypnosis is not an end in itself—it’s just a helpful tool to get where you want to go.
Enjoy your newly installed “relax” button. It will serve you well.