As a hypnotherapist and coach for the last 15 years I have seen many clients who want to break a negative habit. Negative habits such as smoking, binge drinking, binge eating and negative thinking are all created through repetition and on a chemical level they bring comfort and reward no matter how ‘negative’ they might be to our health.
Often negative habits are our way of seeking comfort during stress –we turn towards substances that bring both pleasure, with the release of dopamine, and distraction from the stressor; however both the pleasure and the distraction are short term and yet this experience is recorded by the unconscious mind for future use when we encounter stress again. With repetition the habit is created and functions automatically along with the recollection and promise of the same good feeling which offers us ‘escape’ from the pain of the stressor.
It is because our habits are automatic and run by the unconscious mind, that the first part of any change process is to re-engage the conscious rational mind so that we can raise our awareness of our habit triggers. This process begins by reducing stress with hypnotherapy or meditation both of which increase alpha brain waves and serotonin production – a calmer mind is capable of more rational thought and of noticing the times and situations that trigger the habit and therefore, in a more relaxed and rational state of mind, we can begin to choose not to have the cigarette or not to eat whatever is in the fridge. Michael Yapko (‘Treating Depression with Hypnosis’) describes these moments of conscious choice as ‘forks in the road’. In her poem ‘An Autobiography in Five Short Chapters’, Portia Nelson uses a similar idea of walking down a different street. Habits don’t change by themselves or by magic but by reducing stress and being willing and able to make a new conscious choice. A therapist can’t make you give up a habit but can help you take a different turning at those moments of choice.