5 Ways Hypnotherapy Can Improve Your Mental Health: Alternative Therapy in Honolulu

Apr 23

We live in a culture that places an ever-growing demand on our time and energy. Between work and home, between family and friends, and then there’s making time for ourselves. We often don’t get to reflect and process some of our most difficult experiences and issues, relishing in the small bits of free time we have for enjoyment’s sake.

How do you find the mental and emotional relief you need to keep succeeding?

Hypnotherapy is a valuable treatment that helps address the patterns and behaviors that generate emotions such as feeling undeserving, not good enough, or lacking motivation, helping countless individuals find lasting relief, shift their mindset, and turn negative thoughts and feelings into a “can-do” mindset for an abundant life.

Maybe making more time for genuine rest and recovery would help you better navigate all those moving parts of your life, often a missing piece for many. Hypnotherapy could help identify and address the underlying beliefs that create turmoil in your life, in turn helping you understand what to address to live a more consistently fruitful life.

What is Hypnotherapy?

At Manawa Energy, we wholeheartedly believe in the transformative benefits this modality has to offer you. Encouraged by the difference we’ve seen it make for our clients, we want to cover five specific ways hypnotherapy can serve you and your mental health. We’ll start by answering some of your questions, such as…

What is a hypnotherapy session like?
How is it different from traditional therapy?
Who would benefit from going to hypnotherapy?

Firstly, all the ideas you might have about forms such as ‘stage hypnosis’ or what you see on TV and in movies are very unlike the actual practice itself; these are purely for entertainment.

What a Hypnotherapy Session Involves

Hypnotherapy is very similar to guided meditation, beginning with a discussion with your practitioner of what you’d like to focus on during the session, talking about your intention for what you want your life to look like, we make time for some Q & A to assist with getting to the bottom of your issue. We do a few inductions to put you into a deep state of relaxation. You’ll then lie down in a peaceful environment with a calm ambiance. This is to get you into a peaceful, deep relaxation, through which the client and the practitioner can open and allow positive suggestions into the subconscious mind.

This state opens the doorway to the healing power of hypnosis. The client remains awake and conscious and very much in control; the fact is, we don’t want you to fall asleep, but simply be fully and deeply relaxed.

The subconscious is a storehouse of trauma, internal beliefs, and unmet emotions. Most of us have negative beliefs and stress beginning from childhood stored in our subconscious, and a hypnotherapist can help individuals uncover and heal these deep inner wounds. Think Identification, Association, and Response. This is how we learn what’s been programmed into our subconscious. Often, once healed, these wounds reveal themselves as gifts, portions of yourself that have been locked away waiting to be released.

This means that anybody could potentially benefit from hypnotherapy sessions since none of us are immune to the turmoil we experience in life.

The sessions close with an emergence and a feeling of lightness. There is no timeframe on how many sessions are necessary, some need one or two sessions, others need more.

The greatest benefit of hypnotherapy versus traditional therapy is its ability to bring clients to the root of their issues, effectively helping them overcome them in more permanent ways. This is a huge part of hypnotherapy’s growing popularity and availability.

Now that we’ve better established how the treatment works, let’s explore five unique ways hypnotherapy can improve your mental health.

Five Mental Health Benefits of Hypnotherapy

Reducing Stress and Anxiety

Hypnotherapy’s intrinsically relaxing nature is an immediate aid for managing stress and anxiety, with numerous studies confirming the practice’s effectiveness in addressing both states.

In our workaday world, it’s become commonplace to be plagued by worry and tension, and the demand for treatments that can help us navigate these feelings only rises. The relaxing state of mind produced when beginning hypnotherapy has proven to assist in reducing anxiety [1].

Furthermore, the sessions themselves can help people address past experiences that have resulted in present anxiety and stress. Although not everyone will experience such resounding success during their session, many will.

Clients regularly report improvements in mood after sessions, consistent sessions can bring a longstanding ease to anxieties.

2. Managing Depression

Studies show that, similarly to the reduction in anxiety, hypnosis has caused significant improvements for people suffering from depression [2]. Because hypnotherapy penetrates deep into our mental and emotional roots, it can benefit people suffering from an array of ailments, including depression.

It can be hard to grapple with the roots of depression consciously and on our own, which is where certified hypnotherapy professionals come in to help guide us in navigating these feelings subconsciously, offering an insight unavailable by our effort alone.

Results have even shown that hypnotherapy can be just as or more effective than prescribed antidepressants in reducing symptoms and assisting overall well-being [3]. However, we encourage you to continue with any current prescribed medication and consultations with your primary healthcare provider; at Manawa Energy, we firmly believe in working with your doctor to get the best results for our clients, integrating all the care you receive for maximum benefit.

After a session, many find themselves with a more positive outlook, encouraged by a higher emotional resiliency.

3. Improving Sleep Quality

People with recurring sleep issues can testify just how damaging poor rest can be to your mental health. Sleep is our body’s natural healing state for recovery, physically, mentally, and emotionally, so ineffective rest can create many issues. Improving its quality can serve to benefit us in many ways, creating positive differences across our lives.

Many people currently use various medications to try and help them overcome their issues with sleep, but this increases the risk of dependency and addiction, not to mention having to deal with the side effects present in most prescriptions.

Hypnotherapy provides a holistic solution to such a severe issue, helping patients achieve better sleep consistently. One study from 2023 showed that 22 college students who received a clinical hypnosis intervention experienced improvements in sleep quality and reduced insomnia symptoms [3].

Manawa Energy has a vested interest in improving our clients’ overall health, and addressing issues around sleep is a great way to secure greater well-being.

4. Boosting Self-Esteem and Confidence

How we feel about ourselves is hugely determinative of the quality of our lives and how effectively we’re able to meet the demands of our circumstances. It can be impossible to move through life while feeling unworthy, self-sabotage can deter our efforts for improvement.

Whether in sports or performing at work, lacking confidence can be a real obstacle to success. Hypnotherapy can help clients identify what stops them from feeling at ease and self-assured, whether it results from poor treatment by a caretaker or some traumatic event in their lives.

A 2013 study shows that consecutive sessions of hypnotherapy lead to increased self-esteem [4]. The sessions offer this benefit through suggestions made to the subconscious, helping clients overcome adverse beliefs toward themselves. Of course, identifying the underlying root of self-esteem issues is incredibly effective, but just countering negative beliefs with positive affirmations during hypnotherapy can help create improvements. This can set the groundwork for future breakthroughs.

If people want to perform at their best, generating a sense of confidence is crucial. Through targeted hypnotherapy sessions, Manawa Energy can help you achieve just that.

5. Overcoming Fears, Phobias, and Bad Habits

And finally, hypnotherapy can support you in gently shifting fears, phobias, and habits that may be holding you back from experiencing a fuller, more vibrant life.

These are probably the most popular uses of the treatment, as the subconscious is where our deep fears and patterns of behavior are stored.

Imagine a life of greater ease, where unhelpful fears and habits no longer control you— hypnotherapy gently opens the door to that possibility.

Studies show that individuals who suffer from phobias often exhibit a high receptivity for hypnosis since the disorder depends so heavily on their ability to vividly imagine and focus attention. These are the same qualities that make hypnotherapy effective, proving that clinical hypnosis offers positive change for phobics [5].

And for context, there is a difference between fears and phobias. Fear is a natural response to a real or perceived threat— it helps keep us safe and naturally passes. This response is rational. Think of “fight or flight” responses, they’re a natural tool of your subconscious mind.

A Phobia is a more intense, irrational fear that’s out of proportion to perceived dangers and can interfere with daily life. Possibly not even stemming from your own direct experiences. (e.g., flying, bugs, water, or small spaces).

When it comes to negative habits, such as smoking or overeating, the suggestibility of clients in the deeply relaxed hypnotic state allows the mind to override old patterns of behavior to effectively replace them with chosen, healthier habits [6]. This has helped establish hypnotherapy as a reliable alternative therapy for self-improvement.

Hypnotherapy At Manawa Energy

We’re proud to offer our clients hypnotherapy as one of our services. We believe in its effectiveness for providing people with better health and deeper happiness. We hope that after exploring this blog today, you have a better understanding of what the treatment entails and the benefits you stand to gain from a session.

Seeking a deeper, truer confidence?
Hoping to live worry-free?
Ready to kick those self-destructive, old habits?
Looking to better manage and understand your emotions?

Book a session today by visiting Our Services page, you’ll also find further reading on hypnotherapy there, or contact us at shari@manawaenergy.com to schedule a free 15 consultation.

Thank you for reading with us today, and we can’t wait to see you living a heart-centered life! May your journey be filled with peace and blessings.