Archive for December, 2007
Published by mark.tyrrell December 30th, 2007
in hypnosis-downloads.
Full hypnosis download Be more persuasive
Someone once told me I’d make a good salesman. I think they were right. But also wrong. In a way, I do sell ideas to clients who need to change. But I can only sell something if a) I believe in it and b) I am interested in it.
My job as a hypnotherapist is all about persuasion. I have to persuade people to behave in their own best interests – I might have to encourage a heavy drinker or smoker to adopt a lifestyle better suited to health and living, or I have to persuade an angry husband or wife to stop and listen to what their partner is saying, and sometimes I even have to persuade a person’s unconscious mind to lower blood pressure or decrease pain. My communication has to be continuously persuasive, even if it doesn’t seem that way on the surface.
Be more persuasive
Good persuaders don’t bamboozle and buttonhole (unless they are absolutely sure this would appeal to the unique person they are aiming to persuade). They know how to connect with people and how to perceive the ‘type’ of person they are dealing with – so they can include that person’s attitudes, ideas and beliefs into the mix of their argument. They know that it’s only when you do this your persuasion becomes really effective – because then your ‘persuadee’ feels as if it was their own idea all along. When you have really been persuaded, it doesn’t feel as if you have.
Persuasive people appeal to emotion as much as logic
To be persuasive, you need to appeal to the emotional mind because if you want someone to adopt a particular belief you need to understand that beliefs are held emotionally as much as logically, and will not be accepted if they do not have the right emotional appeal. To be persuasive, you also need to be enthusiastic (enthusiasm transmits emotion) to the right degree. If you are appealing to an emotional person, use more emotion; if to a poker-faced business type, you need to use lessemotive language – although when you do use it carefully with them, it can be very powerful.
Good persuaders know about the social rules of influence and about how to use language to create expectation. They know how to listen and when to leave an idea alone in the person’s mind to gestate and grow on its own.
Believing is everything
And above all I reckon (and research backs me up (1)) that to really be more persuasive you need to believe in what you are saying. So, if you don’t tend to be particularly socially confident, then you are less likely to persuade others of facts or opinions, even if they are better facts/opinions than those being offered by your more confident peers.
We have created this new hypnotic download ‘Be more persuasive’ for hypnosisdownloads.com because so many people have told us they have a hard time getting their ideas heard, only to see them being used later and someone else getting the credit. Whether one is a mother, father, boss, co-worker, therapist, salesperson, novelist (trying to convince others to publish and readers to buy into the story and characters) or just a friend – becoming more persuasive and confident in one’s own persuasive powers is a great step.
Mark
(1) Psychologists have confirmed (what many know already) that people who believe in and are confident in what they are saying are more likely to persuade others.
Research by Dr Briony Pulford and Professor Andrew Colman of the University of Leicester England made a number of interesting observations.
Using an experiment involving participants who had to look at nine photographs of faces, then work with each other to agree which e-fit type picture showed the best likeness, the researchers found that when people communicate beliefs to one another they express degrees of confidence proportional to the certainty with which they hold those beliefs. Furthermore, the people being communicated to tend to judge the reliability of the information they are being given according to the confidence with which it is expressed.
Fifty six participants worked in pairs, with one partner being shown a good e-fit likeness of one of the faces – in order to induce high confidence and accuracy of identification – while the other partner was given a weak e-fit with a poor resemblance of one or more of the faces. Participants were not shown each other’s e-fits but were allowed time to discuss which face from the set they wanted to choose as the suspected criminal. When they both chose the right face, they were rewarded with 40p. When they both agreed on a face but it was the wrong one, they received just 20p. If they chose different faces they received no reward.
The number of times the person with the strong evidence persuaded the other to agree on the correct face was significantly higher than the number of times the person with the weaker e-fit persuaded the other to choose the incorrect face.
Published by mark.tyrrell December 29th, 2007
in hypnosis-downloads.
Full hypnosis download Being adopted
The new ‘Being adopted’ session for hypnosisdownloads.com is for all those people out there who were adopted as children or babies and who feel that their knowledge of that fact still has negative effects for them as adults.
Of course, some people are totally relaxed and comfortable with the fact they were adopted. This session is not for them.
Some people who were adopted feel sad sometimes, or ‘different’ from others, or perhaps angry that they were ‘given away’ by their real parents. Adopted people may have been told by others that they are lucky, especially if they were adopted into a loving and caring family – but they might not always feel lucky. Instead, they may be plagued by negative emotions and insecurities around the issue of their adoption.
Adopting a new attitude
In this session I use hypnosis not to change the past (which is rather beyond my remit ☺), but to help people come to terms with their adoption and more easily put the adoption issue behind them and move on.
All the best.
Mark
Published by mark.tyrrell December 27th, 2007
in hypnosis-downloads.
 Relaxation For Multiple Sclerosis Sample [4:05m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (61)
Full hypnosis download Relaxation for multiple sclerosis
I’ve had the pleasure of working with several people living with multiple sclerosis (or MS). We used hypnosis as a tool to reduce stress, boost mood and optimism, and encourage the body to work at its optimum level. Fortunately, the days are long gone when the body was seen as working totally independently from the mind, and it’s now unequivocally understood that the emotions powerfully affect the way the body functions. But you don’t have to take it from me.
Stress worsens the symptoms of multiple sclerosis
A study conducted at the University of California, San Francisco, found that quite ‘ordinary’ stressful events such as arguments, work place stress or financial worries can all make MS symptoms worse. Stress is not good for any illness, and certainly not for multiple sclerosis.
The researchers analyzed data from 14 trials of stress and MS, and discovered a significant risk of exacerbation of symptoms after non-traumatic stressful life events, such as the types of stresses that we all face now and then.
Multiple sclerosis symptoms vary
Typical MS symptoms include numbness or loss of function or feeling in the limbs, incontinence, sexual dysfunction, extreme fatigue, loss of balance, physical pain (plus the anxiety associated with that), depression and cognitive problems. Symptoms can present very suddenly and, as this study showed, for some people, are more likely to be preceded by a stressful event (or by responding with stress to an event).
Of course, multiple sclerosis is a physical condition and not caused by what people think or how they feel, but once someone has MS, their symptoms may be alleviated by an effective stress-busting strategy. The body in general, and immune function and cardiovascular symptoms in particular, respond especially well to hypnotic relaxation. The new hypnosisdownloads.com Relaxation for multiple sclerosis session was produced to help MS sufferers rest deeply and really relax, and hopefully relieve stress induced symptoms and raise mood when required.
I hope to get feedback soon.
All the best
Mark
Published by mark.tyrrell December 23rd, 2007
in hypnosis-downloads.
Exercise Motivation Sample [3:02m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (603)
Full hypnosis download Exercise motivation
I must confess that personally I’ve always been motivated to exercise. I start to feel a little ‘weird’ if I don’t get active often. But I know that for millions of people exercise motivation is a real problem. Of course, we all know all the benefits of exercise. Better sex life, increased attractiveness, better functioning heart, lungs, skin, eyes and even brain (increased blood and oxygen flow to the brain after exrcise).
Short term exercise enthusiasm vs long term exercise habit
The motivation for us at hypnosisdownloads.com in producing the hypnotic session Exercise motivation was to find a way to turn short term enthusiasm to exercise into long term ‘it’s just what I do!’ motivation to keep exercising without constantly having to be fired up all the time to actually do it. Imagine if you had to be constantly motivated and fired up to clean your teeth, or wash your hands after going to the bathroom. These are just things you naturally do without thinking about it (I’m guessing and hoping here – help me out a bit!).
Exercise motivation as habit
When it becomes more normal to exercise than not to exercise then you know you have a habit that will help you at any age you happen to be. Habitual motivation to exercise means that 60-year-olds will be much more like 50-year-olds or even 45-year-olds who take less exercise. Historically, people didn’t have to think so much about exercise motivation. The vast majority of the population had to walk long distances regularly, work in physically demanding jobs, and eat natural unprocessed foods. Although ignorance about diet, or lack of means, meant that people were not always as healthy as they might have been, their levels of physical fitness were generally high. Nowadays, if we choose, we barely have to raise a sweat and therefore we become physically what we were never meant to be. Obese, old way before our time, stiff and weak of muscle.
Obesity, inactivity and health
There isn’t so much a tide of inactivity-related ailments and illnesses going on around us as a tsunami. If I get ill, I really don’t want it to be because I couldn’t be bothered to get up off my —–. We’ve had wonderful feedback from people who have got on really well with exercise motivation and found their lives physically and psychologically transformed. It’s gratifying to know that this session really can really help stem the flow of inactivity-related disease.
Mark
Published by mark.tyrrell December 22nd, 2007
in hypnosis-downloads.
Stop Gossiping Sample [3:10m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (296)
Full hypnosis download Stop gossiping
We put together the new download Stop gossiping for hypnosisdownloads.com because gossiping is a real problem for many people. Gossiping, like any addiction, seems fun at first and in the short term. But gossip has long-lasting and long-term damaging effects not just on the person being gossiped about but also on the person doing the gossiping.
The buzz from gossiping
Gossiping about someone you don’t like can be a way of getting back at them without directly confronting them – although if it does get back to them you may have to confront them in a back-pedalling kind of a way.
When you know something about you get an instant rush of power. This is because:
You now have a ticket to some instant attention from other gossip seekers: ‘Look at me! I know something you don’t!’
You have ‘ammunition’ to use ‘against’ somebody – useful if you dislike them or are jealous of them.
You feel ‘one up’ and superior to the person you are gossiping about.
But are these short term emotional highs worth it?
You might try spreading gossip in order to be seen as a fount of information, in the hope that people will like you. But the fact is that, on one level, while the people who welcome your gossipy titbits may find you good entertainment value, they are unlikely ever to really want you as a proper friend or confidante because they’ll always wonder what you might be saying about them.
Being mean with gossip is generous
A truly generous person will be sparing and mean when it comes to locking secrets away. They will generously withhold and protect secrets imparted to them. And they don’t have to have it spelled out to them that: ‘This is to be kept secret!’ So there is no: ‘Well, you didn’t tell me to keep that secret’ to be heard from them. They wisely assume that there are some things people just don’t want spread around.
Learning to keep a secret – even if it would be ‘a juicy bit of gossip’ – really develops you as a person. Keeping secrets and standing aside from gossip are good indicators of maturity, strength and integrity.
Gossiping and ‘Chinese whispers’
Gossip may seem harmless but it tends to get distorted and exaggerated as it goes from one person to another. It bullies and haunts the person who is being gossiped about and also judges them and ‘let he who is free of sin cast the first stone…’ (or something like that!)
Hypnosis to stop gossiping
I use hypnosis in this session to change the mindset of the intentionally or unintentionally cruel gossiper to one of a more mature, dignified, generous and ‘bigger picture’ person.
This is done partly through giving them a kind of sixth sense about the person being talked about and also by helping them develop a sense of truly becoming the guardians of what is entrusted to them. Gossiping may be on the increase in our celebrity obsessed times but on a personal day-to-day level I really hope this session helps people kick the harmful gossiping habit.
Mum’s the word.
Mark
Published by mark.tyrrell December 18th, 2007
in hypnosis-downloads.
Overcome Shyness Sample [4:36m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (429)
Full hypnosis download Overcome shyness and social anxiety
Long gone are the days when I suffered really badly from shyness myself (thank goodness!) but I do recall being very anxious around the opposite sex, and absolutely terrified of speaking in front of more than a couple of people at the same time. Now I feel I can relax and talk to anyone, but I do remember how awful it felt to suffer real shyness, which is why a) I can truly sympathise with shyness and b) I know you really can go from being very shy to very socially confident. Time, life events and regular self hypnosis finally wore out my shyness – and also paved the way for a public speaking career.
Helping to lift shyness
Our Overcome shyness and social anxiety download is, I’m pleased to say, really popular amongst the hypnosisdownloads.com customers. Shyness is such a universal problem (1) (although, of course, when it’s you that is suffering, you tend to feel it is just you) that we’re really pleased about the positive feedback we’ve had over the years from people who’ve overcome shyness helped by this download session.
Shy people and focus of attention
Shy people tend to focus on themselves (and their fear response) when they are in social situations and therefore they have less ‘spare capacity’ to focus on other people. It’s been found that shy people have less recall of the details of a social event than their more relaxed social gatherers (not surprisingly). Shyness is just a type of fear that is activated by being in certain, many, or (for some) all social events. If you are so shy that you feel terrified then, of course, you are not going to notice details about the social event it self.
As if being shy was not enough of a burden in itself, shyness can be compounded because the shy and socially anxious person, in their fear, can come across to others as aloof, rude, or inconsiderate – which is generally very far from the case. One shy man I helped lamented the fact that he could never recall people’s names or other details about them because his shyness always seemed to paralyse him with fear so that he couldn’t take in this information. Sadly, other people just thought he ‘couldn’t be bothered’ to remember them. He was able to transform his life with the help of hypnosis.
Shyness, stress and poor health
With the world population at 6.6. billion and rising, it’s hard to avoid other people if you are shy. Shyness activates the ‘fight or flight’ response each time social anxiety kicks in. Stress hormones flood the body and raise blood pressure. Being chronically shy is bad for health in the long term. One long term study found that shy men are 50% more likely to die from heart disease. The research (2) took other factors (smoking, high cholesterol, etc) into account. Shyness doesn’t just corrode physical well being, it also means shy people miss out on business, dating and friendship opportunities. Shyness can blight whole lives.
Shyness as an identity
The socially anxious sometimes feel that their shyness is just something they have to live with: ‘I’m just shy, and that’s all there is to it!’ But I have seen countless shy people overcome their shyness and learn to be comfortable with other people. Shyness is something you ‘do’, not something you ‘are’. Once this distinction is made, progress out of shyness can be rapid.
Lifting shyness with hypnosis
Hypnosis used well is a wonderful fast track treatment for shyness as it deals with the instinctive anxiety response. Like all the hypnosisdownload.com sessions, Overcome shyness and social anxiety is relaxing and comfortable, but has the power to life people out of shyness and place them on the path to social confidence. I actually wish I’d been able to listen to it 25 years ago.
Mark
Notes
1. How widespread is the condition of shyness? Interesting stats come from research conducted by Carducci and two other leading American psychologists, Dr Philip Zimbardo and Dr Lynne Henderson. The number of Americans who classified themselves as ‘chronically shy’ rose from about 40 per cent in the 1970s to about 50 per cent by 2000. Another 40 per cent said that they had been shy once but were no longer; 15 per cent suffered from situational shyness (shy only in certain settings, such as when meeting new people). Only 5 per cent reported never having experienced shyness in their lives.
2. The researchers, at Chicago’s Northwestern University, tracked the health of over 2,000 men over three decades. At the start of the study, the men, who were aged between 40 and 55, filled in questionnaires designed to set their levels of sociability and shyness. By the end of the study, 60 per cent had died and the analysts went to work. Comparing the questionnaire results with death certificate details revealed a clear link between shyness and heart disease. The shyest men were 50 per cent more likely to have died of a heart attack or stroke than the most outgoing men. This was true even when factors more commonly linked to heart disease such as smoking, high levels of cholesterol, and obesity were taken into account. There was, however, no link between sociability and other ailments.
Published by mark.tyrrell December 17th, 2007
in hypnosis-downloads.
Better Spelling Sample [2:26m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (283)
Full hypnosis download Better spelling
I’m one of those who always struggled with spelling.
Every Friday at junior school we would sit in muted silence and have to spell out words like ‘muted’ and ‘silence’ and sometimes longer words like ‘miscellaneous’ and ‘discombobulate’. Nowadays, rote learning is out of favour (sorry – ‘favor’ for you guys in the States) but back then we just went over and over it till it stuck. If we got any wrong, some random child would be hauled out to write the correct spelling on the board in front of the class. It was enough to make anybody anxious – and anxiety inhibits the learning process. This is why many people who were anxious at school come to believe they are just ‘not naturally good learners’, when in fact they were just… anxious at school.
Give a dog a misspelled name and flog him
We all label ourselves and for years I labelled myself a ‘bad speller’. With inverted pride I would even proclaim that I was a ‘terrible speller’, ‘a disasteraus speeler’ an irrecoverably ‘genaticallly awfral mizspellier’ of the English language. But then I got really interested in how we learn and remember things. Why couldn’t my spelling be a ‘work in progress’? Why couldn’t I tell people (lucky people who got to listen to me) that I was an ‘improving speller’? We are not as stuck with poor spelling as we assume. If we truly couldn’t learn to spell then you or I would never have learnt the spelling of one single word.
Hypnosis for better spelling
The download Better spelling for hypnosisdownloads.com provides clear strategies and tips as well as hypnotic suggestions for greatly improved spelling. When spelling improves we actually become more time efficient, because we don’t have to spend time to check the spell check to see if it has entirely misinterpreted what we were trying to say by allowing a word with correct spelling but wring meaning to remain un-highlighted.
If I succeed in learning to spell really well, I’m going to apply for a place at Hogwarts. I hear they take mature students now.
Mark
Published by mark.tyrrell December 16th, 2007
in hypnosis-downloads.
Overcome Procrastination Sample [3:08m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (104)
Full hypnosis download Overcoming procastination
I love the expression: ‘Stop having a wishbone for a backbone!’
Just think how much potential achievement has been irrevocably lost to the world because of procrastination. Before we developed our Overcoming procrastination session for hypnosisdownloads.com, we had had hundreds of requests for a hypnotic download which would address this problem and stop procrastination from tripping people at the first hurdle.
But what exactly is procrastination?
Procrastination takes effort
Surprisingly, procrastination can actually be a lot of work. This is because there is usually a lot of ‘displacement activity’ involved. Rather than just, say, getting on with writing, I might convince myself that I need one more cup of coffee. I might then find that I’m out of milk. I then convince myself I have to go and get some. While I’m out, I may decide to get some other items. When I return, I might then decide that I need to call someone up. I talk to them. I then remember I haven’t checked my emails for a while. Finally, I might decide I really should get on with writing but now it’s getting late. So I convince myself that it will really be more practical to make a ‘fresh start’ tomorrow. So, instead of just writing, I’ve gone out, I’ve talked, I’ve wasted mental effort coming up with reasons to persuade myself why I really shouldn’t just get on with it today after all, because, as we all know, there is always tomorrow, isn’t there?
Procrastination: wasting creativity
Procrastination is partly about self-deceit. How many times have you heard people telling you they haven’t done what you asked because they were too lazy! This is rarely the case. Procrastination likes to waste your creativity. You have to be very creative to produce convincing excuses. People will tell you all kinds of reasons why they haven’t actually finished – or even started – that project yet. Don’t get me wrong, I have procrastinated with the best of them. But I estimate the amount of time I spend procrastinating has dropped by around 90% ,and I can live with procrastinating over some things occasionally as long as they are just the more trivial things!
Procrastination: short term v long term gain
Actually, procrastination is all about short-term benefit versus longer-term gain. In the short term, it may indeed be more comfortable not to write that report, even if the long-term benefit of writing that report well might just get you promoted and land you more money.
What usually happens when we procrastinate is a pattern more or less like this:
Steps to procrastination
You become aware you have to do something (or know that if you choose to do it then you’ll benefit.). Let’s say it’s writing a report.
You decide to start the report but inertia prevents you from actually starting. It’s easier not to do it now than to do it.
To avoid the unpleasant realization that you just aren’t doing it, you now really begin to procrastinate.
You start inventing displacement activities. You convince yourself that other things need doing first, that you need a walk to ‘clear my head’, that the cat doesn’t like their food so you need to replace it, that watching daytime TV is somehow going to help the project, and so on. It’s amazing how creative one can be when procrastinating.
But all the while the stress of not doing what you know you should be doing is building in the background, and that starts to feel unpleasant. The tension of not doing it grows.
But you are likely to continue to procrastinate: ‘I’ll start on Wednesday when I’ll have a clear run at it!’ ‘Actually, I promised Joe I’d go to the movies with him on Wednesday and I just can’t let him down again.’ And so it continues. But now guilt is building. The report needs to be 5,000 words long and it needs to be in by Monday morning!
Procrastination can continue until the point where a reverse occurs and it becomes more unpleasant not to do it than to do it. Now, because it has to be in tomorrow, procrastination goes out the window, and doing or not doing the report becomes ‘non-negotiable’ in your own mind.
You finally write the report in a hurry.
Now you experience the relief of actually having done it, but this is often of coupled with a feeling regret: ‘Why didn’t I just get on and do it in the first place and save myself all that extra effort and stress? When it takes more effort and more work to procrastinate than not to procrastinate?’
What a cumbersome, inefficient and laborious way to go through life.
The hypnosisdownloads.com session Overcoming procrastination seeks to get people ‘just doing it’ – and it’s already producing brilliant results, as testified by the feedback we’re getting from many reformed procrastinators.
People don’t always take procrastination seriously, and we can be very glib about our own procrastination habits, but life spans are finite and there is much to do and experience if you want to get the most out of life.
All the best
Mark
Published by mark.tyrrell December 15th, 2007
in hypnosis-downloads.
Portion Control Sample [3:07m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (442)
Full hypnosis download Portion control
Many of us know what to eat to be healthy. Antioxidants, fruit and veg, plenty of water, protein and carbs. But what about how much to eat? In the new Portion control hypnotic download for hypnosisdownloads.com I concentrate on limiting portions to healthy sizes.
Portion control and hypnosis
We live in times where food is plentiful and easily got. We don’t have to exercise to get it by hunting, and much of it is chock full to the brim with nasty fattening stuff conveniently free of nutritional content. Yet we still have a two million year old instinctive urge to gorge – in case the next famine is just around the corner. I regularly use hypnosis to help people when it comes to getting them to feel natural about good portion control as part of a way of becoming slimmer, fitter and healthier.
Common sense and portion control
How many of us eat, stuff our faces, purely through habit or just because it’s time to eat? How often do we eat more, much more, than we will burn off? From a chore that you’ve started to a name that you’re trying to recall, feeling the need to ‘complete a pattern’ is essentially human. The trouble is, this very useful human characteristic – the desire to see things through – can be counter-productive when it comes to polishing off all the food on your plate – especially if there is too much on your plate to start with. Learning to naturally leave what you don’t need – separating out need from greed – makes getting and staying slimmer so much easier.
This new session Portion control includes hypnotic metaphors, hypnotic ‘rehearsal’ and common sense guidelines to make portion control easier.
Eat well.
Mark
Published by mark.tyrrell December 13th, 2007
in hypnosis-downloads.
Becoming a new father sample [2:39m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (216)
Full hypnosis download New father
I remember becoming a first time dad (many years ago!). I was pretty terrified up to the point of the birth of my first son, but as soon as he was born I guess the paternal instinct just kicked in for me. But it was a MAJOR lifestyle shift. Of course (naturally and rightly), everyone’s focus is on the mother and the new born babe and as a new dad you are expected to ‘get on with it’. Nobody tells you what ‘it’ is, exactly.
No manuals for first time fathers
You see, there is no instruction manual that comes with being a new dad. Somehow new first time fathers are expected to ‘just know’ what to do – and that’s when doubts can appear and confidence can get a little shaky.
When you become a new dad you suddenly have to exercise virtues that may be a little rusty from lack of use. Qualities like… oh, I don’t know… patience, tenderness, selflessness (the picture of a grown man vying with a newborn baby for the attention of the mother is… well… not nice). In fact, becoming a father gives you the opportunity to behave like a real man. Courage, dignity, long-term planning (as opposed to focusing on immediate gratification), selflessness and (yes, I know I mentioned patience already, but bear with me, it bears repeating) patience.
Pity the poor new father
Ok, don’t pity him, but spare a tiny thought at least. I know, I know, how must it be for the mother? She’s the one that actually has to give birth and breast feed in the middle of the night and so on. But it’s because the new father suddenly has all this responsibility and he’s not supposed to bat an eyelid (because woe betide, think of the mother! What’s he got to worry about ? etc etc) that we at hypnosisdownloads.com decided to produce this hypnotic download for new fathers. It’s designed as a pick-me-up, a chance to recharge the batteries and inspire confidence that you really can be an excellent dad.
Mark
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