Trying to lose weight might feel like an uphill battle. Perhaps you have tried a couple of diets or upping your exercise, and may have even lost a few kilos… until those kilos mysteriously returned.

Experts say that a permanent weight loss starts with a change in lifestyle. And a change in lifestyle starts with a change in habits, including transformation of patterns that keep you stuck.

In other words, leaving destructive beliefs behind provides a good starting point in empowering you to shift your perspective. Hypnosis makes change in eating habits easier to manage, getting you to your desired weight faster.

Addiction can be tricky to overcome, however research has shown that hypnotherapy can assist with addressing and eliminating unhealthy behaviours and triggers. It’s an effective tool that helps people to gain control over their addiction in a safe and supportive environment.

Addiction to sugar, shopping, alcohol, coffee, overeating, devices or gambling can have negative impact on life. Socially acceptable addictions like addiction to work or material gain are often perceived as strength, but all addictions are negative in one way or another and most importantly, they all have consequences.

Addiction is a limiting coping mechanism and might be challenging to transform as over time it becomes almost invisible. Addiction is usually connected to an emotional experience that left a negative impact on the individual. In a session, deeper and automated behaviours and emotions stored in the unconscious mind can be addressed, which in turn supports clients on their way towards a happier and more peaceful life.

It has been well documented that hypnotherapy is extremely effective in breaking the smoking habit as it works directly with the unconscious mind, the very place where habits are stored.

Experts say that the addiction to nicotine is easier to break compared to the psychological habit of smoking. In the sessions, the psychological triggers are addressed in order to achieve a complete smoking cessation.

As the smoking triggers and associations are identified, the focus can then turn towards replacing the unhealthy habit to move towards a more pleasant life. As the mind shift takes place, freedom that comes with choosing a new, smoke-free life appears.

Constant physical or psychological pain is associated with poor quality of life and mental health wellbeing. Hypnosis assists with alleviating pain and can significantly improve quality of life. It modulates neural processes associated with pain intensity and focuses on how you relate to pain or a stressful situation you may associate with pain.

Hypnosis is recognized by pain management experts as an effective tool for chronic pain management. It can be debilitating and stressful and is characterised by no longer having a detectable cause. Pain from diagnosed conditions like arthritis, cancer, lower back injuries, shingles, fibromyalgia belong to this category, too.

The aim is to help you manage the discomfort rather than have it control you. Through deep relaxation, new neural connections can be created to support you in moving towards a more comfortable life, where pain does not dictate your thoughts, actions or behaviour.

It’s important to remember that pain has its purpose - to signal there is something in our body that needs attention. All pain should be discussed and assessed by your GP first.

Anxiety is a widespread condition that affects millions of people all around the world. It presents in various forms and with different symptoms. You may experience:

• Sweaty palms
• Increased heart beat
• Feeling of an impending doom and gloom
• Fast and/or unpleasant thoughts
• Difficulty sleeping
• Panic attacks

Anxiety often makes simple tasks feel daunting and some find decision making, going to work or visiting friends difficult.

Hypnosis is an effective way to address stress and anxiety. It can assist with developing coping strategies; help you increase your resilience and bring you back to feeling comfortable within yourself and the situations you find yourself in.

Our nervous systems are not designed to be in a constant overdrive. Whilst in trance, a deep relaxation combined with detachment from external stimuli and inward focus allows the whole system to rest and feel calm.

Depression affects 1 in 7 people in Australia and can be a debilitating condition, one that affects your physical and mental health.

Managing day-to-day commitments like work, children’s schooling, meeting financial obligations or managing a household might feel simply overwhelming. Without support from family or friends, it may all feel just too much.

Hypnotherapy can assist with some aspects of depression including:

• helping you find new ways to deal with
your emotions and respond more effectively
• assist you with changing continual negative patterns
• re-orient from the past to focus on building a positive future

Note, if you are under medical supervision and your doctor has prescribed medication, it’s important to continue with that. I am happy to work with you and your doctor to provide additional support so that you better connect with your inner resources and become better equipped to create a brighter future for yourself.

Self-esteem is based on our beliefs about ourselves and together with confidence, it forms the perception we have of ourselves.

Low self-esteem permeates every facet of our lives and can lead to feeling not appreciated, not worthy of success or not suitable for a job you’d like to apply for, not being able to find a romantic partner or not feeling good enough comparing to others.

Various factors contribute to a low self-esteem, including being eager to please, criticising yourself, not thinking much of yourself or focusing on your weaknesses.

Hypnotherapy helps build authentic and peaceful self-confidence, positive self-image, which can be found deep within yourself. Working with your subconscious mind you are able to transform those core beliefs into a more positive belief system, allowing you to enjoy life with more confidence.

Athletes face all sorts of obstacles on their journey to stardom. The biggest of all is fear and it comes in many forms. Fear of failure is very common in sport and is always restrictive. It’s hidden partner, fear of success, creates extra pressure by suggesting that success can create expectation of further improvement.

There is evidence that hypnosis can address a variety of issues in sport, assisting athletes to:

• increase self-confidence
• relieve fatigue and restore energy
• improve mental stamina
• overcome pre-competition nerves
• increase clarity & improve concentration
• increase endurance
• achieve goals faster

Historically, hypnosis has been used by many competitors at all levels and across the sporting field. Andre Agassi used hypnosis and NLP to improve his performance on the court and Tiger Woods started using hypnosis during his teenage years. Phil Jackson, coach of the Chicago Bulls and LA Lakers said that the Bulls used and practiced hypnosis when he coached them to win six NBA Championships.

Hypnosis assists with restructuring cognitive processes that are essential for athletic performance, including self-confidence, attention and memory. Via hypnosis, athletes can eliminate errors, create corrections and stimulates excellence.

Fear is a natural response and its purpose is to alert you to potential dangers. But when fear becomes irrational, it can manifest as a phobia – an intense fear of objects or situations and activities. The most common phobias are fear of flying, fear of snakes or spiders, fear of public speaking, fear of heights, enclosed spaces and fear of driving just to name a few.

People suffering from phobias can experience a range of symptoms like sweating, difficulty breathing, increased anxiety, panic and feeling powerless to control the situation even though they may be aware the fear is not warranted and no real danger is present.

Hypnotherapy offers tools and techniques that can efficiently deal with various fears, helping you to move forward to living a wonderful fear-free existence.

A number of clinical studies have shown hypnotherapy to be an effective treatment of IBS, reducing and improving the symptoms in majority of patients.

The exact cause of IBS is not known, but science points to the miscommunication between the gut and brain. The gut-directed hypnotherapy targets the gut-brain axis and people are able to achieve life-changing results by creating new harmony between the gut and brain.

The latest study by our own Monash University demonstrated that hypnotherapy improved the gastrointestinal symptoms in people with IBS by 70-80% and these improvements are maintained in the long-term. The same study showed that if a patient is getting symptoms relief via hypnosis, the need to make drastic changes in their diet is also eliminated.

Symptoms like bloating, abdominal pain, cramps, diarrhoea and constipation are magnified by stress and anxiety that stem from the discomfort of the IBS. During a session, clients learn to relax their body and mind, which transforms their experience with IBS. Underlying emotional issues stored in the subconscious mind can be addressed and in doing so, new patterns of emotional and physical response can be established.