Anxiety and weight gain

Today I got this email:

I am studying hypnotherapy and was hoping that I could use hypnosis to help with my own weight problem. I have listened to various weight loss CD's but it seems to have little effect. I was wondering if you had a script that I could record and listen to myself for weight loss?

If you are new to therapy the first thing you need to realize is that people seldom recognize the source of their own problems. People don’t have weight problems: they actually have a self esteem or anxiety problem. The reasons for weight gain are well known – eat too much and you put on weight. Simple. Continue eating too much and it stays on. There is no mystery about why people are fat. The mystery is why they don't regulate what they eat.

Anxiety and weight gain

In my experience weight problems are always emotional problems. Anxiety and weight gain are closely connected. People eat because their thoughts make them feel anxious. Eating gives them something to do to distract the thoughts. Then they get overweight and that makes them feel bad, so they get negative about themselves, and the cycle continues. The right approach is to find the source of the anxiety.

What you need to find out is why you eat, and what it is doing for you. Since you are a hypnotherapy student the best thing to do is to hook up with one of the other students.  Together you can explore why you are continuing to eat when you know you shouldn’t. This will benefit both of you.

Then get the other student to choose one of the scripts and personalize that script to suit your particular needs. Ask the other student to put you into trance and follow the script outline. Self recording seldom works.

What do you think?

How do you deal with weight loss? Should aim at the weight or the emotions?