Change Your Brain Every Day - How to Hypnotize Yourself to Tap Into Your Potential – Pt. 3 with Dr. Mike Dow

Episode Date: August 29, 2018

Clinical hypnosis is a medically proven method to take control of your mind to help with things like reducing pain or anxiety. In the last segment of Hypnosis Week, Dr. Daniel Amen and Dr. Mike Dow teach you how to hypnotize yourself at home to gain mastery over your brain.

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. Here we teach you how to win the fight for your brain to defeat anxiety, depression, memory loss, ADHD, and addictions. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we've transformed lives for three decades using brain spec imaging to better target treatment and natural ways to heal the brain. For more information, visit amenclinics.com.

The Brain Warriors Way podcast is also brought to you by BrainMD, where we produce the highest quality nutraceutical products to support the health of your brain and body. For more information, visit brainmdhealth.com. Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. Welcome back to Hypnosis Week. Well, today we're going to teach you how you can use some of the principles that Dr. Dow and I have learned at home. It's amazing. I was on cardiology. So I had another one of those great story moments of a chaplain who had arrhythmia. So he had an abnormal heart rhythm and the medications weren't working and he couldn't sleep.

And I'm like, well, I'll give you a sleeping pill, but can I hypnotize you? And when I put him in a trance, his heart rhythm normalized. I'm like, whoa. And the cardiologist, this was nicer to me than the neurologist. He's like, oh, can you do that for me? And the same thing happened. And that became my second professional paper. But on my cardiac rotation as an intern, I couldn't sleep because people were dying.

Yeah. Right? I mean, they were seriously sick and I couldn't sleep. And I had this little epiphany. It's like, you're helping everybody else sleep. Why don't you do the same thing for yourself? Yeah. And I got so good at it, I could put myself to sleep in like two minutes.

I picture myself when I'm lying in bed that the bed is in an elevator and it's going down and I actually use movement and I close my eyes and I can feel the bed as if the bed is like on a, you know, on like a pulley and it's going down a hundred floors very slowly, not in a scary way. But it's the coolest feeling when your mind can actually help you to sort of drift down, down, down and using these self-hypnosis skills, which is a lot of the research. That's what they do. You know, instead of having to go every time, you know, you can use these at home. And I know that your online community, you teach them. And then, you know, you can use an audio track at home for whatever concern and a lot of the recent research is so exciting because all of these

quote we we have nothing for you modern medicine you know fibromyalgia chronic pain well guess what all of the recent research hypnosis says otherwise hypnosis says we have something for you we can improve the quality of your life. So some simple steps. So for me, when I put someone in a trance, I have them focus on a spot on the wall, a little bit about their eye level. And what that's doing is decreasing the distractions from the world and then close your eyes

because you take the outside focus to a spot on the wall inside. Yeah. And really, you know, the conscious brain can really, I think it tends to think about, you know, what you need to get at the grocery store, the organic eggs or the berries, you know, hopefully you're buying those organic berries. And all the things you need to do tomorrow, so isn't it so nice that just by closing your eyes and by finding that spot, that hopefully you're going to be transitioning to this other part and using these other brain structures, the subconscious.

The next thing I do is I have them purposefully take three deep breaths. And simple suggestions. Breathe in relaxation. Blow out the tension yeah i like that one it's something that's purposeful that everybody can do yeah and then i'll do progressive muscle relaxation and some people will have them actually tight. Squeeze and then release. And release. What I do is I have them just roll their eyeballs up. So the little tiniest muscles in your body or some of them, roll your eyeballs up as far as they'll go with your eyes closed.

Hold them up, hold them up, and then let them come back down to a normal position. And just notice how relaxed they are yeah and then I have them visualize that relaxation spreading like a warm penetrating oil the top of their head all the way down to the bottom of their feet and I do it slowly and progressive muscle relaxation is another technique that has been found it works in and of itself and i love i love that you build it in you know other researchers have really integrated it into hypnosis as well so it's sort of a two for one which is great it's a two for one and then just like you had the bed go down i'll do something called a deepening technique and it may be be at the top of a long staircase yeah and I'll have them see the flowers flowers they like and colors they love and as they walk down

the staircase I'll count backwards from ten and it's just the idea of going down that's my favorite and when when somebody count the first time somebody counted for me, there's something about that. And for anyone I've ever treated, I watched their body. I watched their eyes, the way they start to flutter. I, and you know, some, you know, sort of those little jerks when somebody is falling asleep, I watched those, you know, as the body just starts to release. That's when I, and personally when i'm uh using hypnosis that's my favorite part of it are the steps my favorite part though is when you get to the bottom

it's like what do you do when you get to the bottom and that's the guided imagery and so it's it's often different yeah but usually I'll have them imagine the most beautiful part with all of their senses. See what's there, hear what's there, smell and taste the freshness in the air and feel what's there. So you begin to activate many different areas of their brain. And, you know, what's so incredible is that the subconscious brain is so, it can almost feel, I describe it as virtual reality using just the mind. So, you know, by using those words, you can actually do almost anything. And that's what's so cool about it. It's so exciting because you can transport yourself to any world you want to go.

So that's why when we were talking about PTSD just a moment ago, that's why that screen just sort of pops up. So if you want to go to a screen and you want to image a new screen and write a new story and then project that story because you're now the director of this new story that you're writing for yourself you can do that and of course if you if you want to relax then then then then just yeah of course the most beautiful field you've ever seen which is incredible and I love what you said about creating a new story because ultimately in psychotherapy the most important thing you can do for yourself is rewrite your story. Yeah. Right?

Rather than you're a victim of this and that, that you're a superhero. Yeah. That you're powerful. That you can be in control of your thoughts and of your behaviors. That the addictions don't have to run your life anymore. That's right. I often have people find a pool, a warm pool with healing waters. And the water helps to not only soothe their emotional pain or their physical pain,

but it also helps to reset their mind. I love water. I also love clouds. I love water. I also love clouds. I love floating. Imagine, imagining yourself falling into a warm cloud that's sort of enveloping your entire body or anything that's sort of soft, that sort of wrapping you up.

And, you know, what's also just so wonderful is that in this stage, now you have the ability, you know, because you've used that imagery and those, those five the ability you know because you've used that imagery and those those five senses you know if you're somebody let's say there's something that's warm and burning so a burn somebody who survived a burn or maybe there's something that's aching and maybe there's a pain in your shoulder that feels sort of hot well Well, of course, if something's hot, maybe

you want that water to feel cool, or maybe you want that cloud to feel light. If there's something that's tight, maybe the cloud is going to feel loose. So then you can kind of see how at this stage, you can sort of use whatever imagery you want. And what's so fascinating, you know, Daniel, I was studying, I took a deep dive in every study and I looked at, you know, the IBS script, the fibromyalgia script, and they all had a lot of things that were similar, but then they all had different things that were, some things that were different, you know. So for the IBS script, if it was IBS for constipation, it was imagine that you're, imagine that inside it's sort of an amusement park slide and that slide in the inside of you can just travel freely and you can kind of see how if the mind is picturing an amusement park slide, how that imagery would work, right? And so every script is sort of targeted

to whatever you want. And it's sort of, well, you can use these scripts or you can also tweak it in your own mind. So even if they're using your online community, you can kind of say, oh, well, I want my water to be warm. No, but oh, but I have a cool, I have like a ice pick headache. Well, then make your water warm inside your own mind. So you can kind of almost do whatever you want to do in those moments too, which is kind of fun.

And that's ultimately the goal, to get you to be in charge of your own brain, how your subconscious brain can change your life. That's the title of your new book. How can people learn about you and your work? My website is drmikedow.com, D-R-M-I-K-E-D-O-W.com. And I'm just so passionate about this work. I know you and I are like-minded people because first and foremost, we want to help people. I wrote this book because I knew that there are elusive conditions. There are people struggling with trauma, abuse, and they're looking for other integrative

answers which is what I know you do here at Amen Clinics. I was just in the waiting room and I saw people who were just happy to be here because they knew they were finding solutions and I think they're going to find those in this book as well as yet another tool in the tool belt for people. So obviously you know they can find the book on Amazon or they can go to my website or wherever they want to go to find out more. And it's coming out March 12, 2019. And you're going to have a public television special. I may have a public television special. And yeah, we'll see.

So exciting. Hypnosis Week, thanks for being with us. Thank you. Use the code PODCAST10 to get a 10% discount on a full evaluation at amenclinics.com or on our supplements at brainmdhealth.com. Thank you for listening to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. Go to iTunes and leave a review and you'll automatically be entered into a drawing to get a free signed

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