Post Hypnotic Suggestions

What Are Hypnotic Suggestions?

Hypnotic suggestions are phrases used in hypnotherapy to help make desired changes. These suggestions are introduced while you are in a hypnotic trance and are designed to support positive changes in your thoughts, feelings and behaviors. This should then help positive changes to happen in everyday life if the suggestions are accepted by the person being hypnotized.

What Are Post Hypnotic Suggestions?

Post-hypnotic suggestions are designed to take effect after the hypnosis session has finished. The post-hypnotic suggestions are designed to carry the changes into everyday situations. They are considered to be one of the most important parts of a hypnosis session because they are designed to take the changes in behavior and responses into real situations.

The difference between a hypnotic suggestion and a post-hypnotic suggestion is mainly, when the suggestion is intended to take effect. Standard hypnotic suggestions are used during the actual hypnosis or hypnotherapy session itself, whereas post-hypnotic suggestions are designed to influence your feelings, thoughts or responses after the session, in your normal everyday life.

Examples of Post-Hypnotic Suggestions

Ocean Phobia Post-hypnotic Suggestion Example

If we were helping someone overcome ocean phobia, a hypnotic suggestion might be: “You are changing, your fear is growing weaker” or “you are letting go of fear”. A post-hypnotic suggestion is more focused on the future and might go something like this: “When you are on the beach you will feel perfectly calm” or “next time you are near the ocean you will notice how calm and relaxed you feel.”

Social Confidence Post-hypnotic Suggestion Example

For social confidence, a post-hypnotic suggestion may be “in social situations as soon as you begin to speak you feel a wave of calm confidence”.

Insomnia Post-hypnotic Suggestion Example

“Each night once you close your eyes your mind becomes quiet and peaceful. You relax and drift off to sleep”

We have a huge range of self hypnosis audios and in them we utilize hypnotic suggestions, post-hypnotic suggestions, future-pacing, triggers and visualization. Browse the collection here.

Do Post-Hypnotic Suggestions Actually Work?

Post-hypnotic suggestions work by linking a particular desired response to a thought, feeling, situation or cue, so that the response can be recalled and experienced after the session. All types of hypnotic suggestion can be very effective but they are not guaranteed to work for everyone, every time. The success of a post-hypnotic suggestion depends on the person’s willingness and enthusiasm for change, how well the suggestion is worded and how receptive the listener is to hypnosis.

The purpose of the post-hypnotic suggestions is to encourage a new response (such as feeling calm) in everyday life situations. Repetition of the hypnosis can help to strengthen the post-hypnotic suggestions but they must have a desire and motivation for the change they are working on.

In my experience as a Clinical Hypnotherapist, the best outcomes I have seen have been when people listen to the recording consistently, when they genuinely want to change their response and when the suggestions make sense to them. New patterns of behaviors can be formed and reinforced through regular listening and opportunities to test out the new responses.

Post-hypnotic suggestions are not things that control your reaction without your participation as is depicted in stage hypnosis, they are designed to support the changes you want to make, so they always work better when the change aligns well with your goals, circumstances and desire for self-improvement.

How Long Do Post-Hypnotic Suggestions Last?

How long post-hypnotic suggestions last depends on several factors including motivation, receptiveness to hypnosis, desire for change, and how consistently the suggestions are reinforced through repeated listening.

Some people can listen to a hypnosis audio once and notice immediate changes. Even when this happens it is still worthwhile continuing to use the hypnosis regularly because repeated listening can help reinforce the changes. Some people find the changes take longer to take effect.

Like any new habit, changes supported by post-hypnotic suggestions can weaken or fade with time. For example, someone who has successfully stopped smoking may remain smoke free for months but a few drinks or a major life event could still tempt them to have a cigarette. This does not mean the hypnosis stopped working, instead it shows that post-hypnotic suggestions can be quite delicate and sustaining change requires some effort, caution and ongoing commitment. Many people listen to their hypnosis recording at times of stress when they wonder if the new behaviors could benefit from reinforcement, and this helps with long-term success.

What Is Future Pacing in Hypnosis and How Does It Work?

Future pacing is where you imagine a future version of yourself having already made the positive changes. As you see yourself transformed and successful, it can be a very powerful and motivating visualization. It can bring a wave of emotion, a feeling of power and belief that it is in fact going to work. This technique is very effective and is used in many of our self hypnosis audios.

What Are Triggers in Hypnosis?

A trigger in hypnosis is a specific cue associated with a particular feeling, thought or response. Post-hypnotic suggestions can use triggers such as a physical object, a place, an action or a person to help bring about the intended response.

For example if we were creating a hypnosis audio for motivation at work, we might use a suggestion such as “When you arrive at work, the moment you see the building you feel a surge of motivation and energy”. In this example, the building is the cue and it is associated with the feeling of motivation.

How Hypnotic Suggestions Are Created

I have been working as a Clinical Hypnotherapist for over 20 years and have written hundreds of hypnosis scripts covering anxiety, confidence, phobias, sleep, habits and many other areas. Every hypnosis recording I create contains carefully constructed hypnotic suggestions and post-hypnotic suggestions designed to support positive changes beyond the hypnosis session.

When planning a new audio, I carefully construct the suggestions in a way that will bring about the best possible result for the listener. I aim to make the suggestions universally relevant to the issues being addressed. Occasionally there may be some suggestions in an audio that do not relate to every single person listening, and that is absolutely fine because any irrelevant suggestions will simply be rejected or ignored by the listener.

I carefully write out the scripts for recording and I check it over and over. I always wait at least a day before recording a newly written script because I am a big believer in “sleeping on it” I often find that a small change will come to me in the night or early morning. I then make any minor adjustments before beginning recording.

How Do Hypnotic Suggestions Work?

Hypnosis suggestions work by presenting carefully worded ideas that are likely to be accepted by the client or listener during hypnosis. The wording of the suggestions needs to be clear, appropriate, well-formed and carefully constructed, with no ambiguity to help them make the changes they want to make. The listener needs to be comfortable with the suggestions they hear and genuinely want the change to actually happen. They need to be open-minded and receptive to the process, as this makes it easier to engage with the suggestions without over-analyzing them.

When Post Hypnotic Suggestions Don’t Work

For hypnosis to work well, the listener needs to really want the changes to happen. Sometimes different parts of the mind are in conflict and this is where self hypnosis may take longer to bring about the desired changes. An obvious example is smoking cessation. The sensible part of the mind wants to give up smoking in order to feel healthier, to be less worried about health, to have more money, to not smell of tobacco and it probably genuinely wants to be free of smoking.

However, part of the mind of the smoker may be resistant to the idea of giving up smoking and may be already thinking “is it the right time?” “I’ve got too much stress in my life right now to be giving up smoking” or even worse “I’ll probably fail and end up smoking within a week”. This is because the smoker finds smoking nice, they enjoy it, it relieves the pain of the craving for nicotine.

So this part of your mind that wants everything to stay as it is (because that is easy and comfortable) might stop the hypnosis from working as a means of “saving you” from the pain and stress of giving up smoking. In fact the suggestions in this case would not get past the conscious critical faculty and will therefore not work. So in conclusion, you need to be as certain as you can be, that you want to make the change you are using hypnosis for, otherwise it may not work for you.

What Makes Hypnotic Suggestions Effective?

Our hypnosis audios are structured in a way that we believe works best, and they include compounding of hypnotic and post hypnotic suggestions. This means the subconscious mind will likely hear the suggestions again and again and therefore be able to take on the ideas more readily. The suggestions are phrased in an optimal way to get you the results you want. There is some repetition and emphasis in our audios and this is essential for good results.

Experience Post-Hypnotic Suggestions Yourself

Every self-hypnosis recording we offer contains carefully written post hypnotic suggestions designed to help positive changes continue into daily life.