Hypnosis is deep relaxation and it is Meditation

Hypnosis and Meditation are terms that are surrounded with mystery. I talked about these ideas with some friends one evening as we sipped lemonade and watched the sun set on Waikiki beach. Muttagi, an Indian Psychologist, described his personal experience with meditation. He said that when he meditated he felt a great calmness in his mind. It was as if his mind was cleared of all thoughts, and his body seemed almost to float. Elsie, from Sri Lanka, confirmed this description. They were both surprised to hear that almost exactly the same words are used by people who experience deep hypnosis for the first time.

Forms of Eastern meditation and hypnosis are not the only strategies for producing the calmness described. Sometimes people have these experiences quite spontaneously while praying and Christian writers, like Saint Teresa who lived in the sixteenth Century, frequently described these experiences and how to achieve them in the context of prayer.

A more predictable way to experience the calmness meditation can bring is to learn deep relaxation. That is, following some kind of guidance in relaxing your body and your mind. Psychological research has been unable to find any difference between the effects of hypnosis induction procedures and procedures of deep relaxation. This means that hypnosis is a much more accessible experience than many people believe. Ernest Hilgard, one of the world's leading authorities on hypnosis believed that all hypnosis is really self-hypnosis, and that given a modest amount of instruction and a little practice, people should be able to produce the required effects within themselves without much difficulty.

The trouble with making these kinds of statements intended to demystify experiences like hypnosis and meditation, is that people might come to believe that the procedures have no real effect. That would be a mistake. The mental and physical experiences that can accompany hypnosis, meditation, or deep relaxation can dramatically alter an individual's quality of life. For some people the experience itself is profound, leaving them with a feeling of being in touch with the deepest levels of their being. For others it becomes a way of discovering control over pain, a technique for unravelling deep seated feelings, a path to mental alertness and powerful concentration, or a source of calmness and peace.

All of that might sound too good to be true, but I don't believe that it is an exaggeration. A state of deep relaxation allows many people to distance themselves from feelings of pain. Often they can learn to maintain this altered perception even after they become alert again. Deep relaxation (or hypnosis) are increasingly being used with cancer sufferers, both to help improve their quality of life, and to enhance their bodies' own immune functioning.

The feeling of clearness of mind that accompanies deep relaxation is often accompanied by new insights into one's motivations and simply maintaining this clearness of mind seems to improve concentration at other times.

However, the most commonly recognised use of deep relaxation, is in the management of stress. For most Psychologists, it is this area in which deep relaxation is most often applied. It can lead to increased awareness of bodily responses, and involves direct control over arousal levels. Learning to relax often leads to a change in the way that people look at their lives. They often change from being helplessly manipulated by life's events, to taking quite deliberate control over their day to day experience.

In his book "The Relaxation Response", Herbert Benson, suggests four basic components of the Eastern and Western religious, cultic, and lay practices that lead to the relaxation response. These are:

* A quiet environment; a situation with as few distractions as possible. A quiet room, or a place of worship, for example.

* A mental procedure to prevent "mind wandering"; especially focussing on something like an external sound, or word repeated silently or aloud, or fixed gazing at an object. Attention to the rhythm of breathing is useful, and can be done in conjunction with the repetition of a sound or a word (like "relax", or "peace", or "one", or even "ohm").

* A passive attitude; especially the attitude that it doesn't matter too much exactly what is happening to you. Don't worry about distracting thoughts, they don't mean that you are doing things wrong. Just let your mind go back to the thing that you were focusing on before.

* A comfortable position; especially one without undue muscular tension, though it is sometimes better not to be too comfortable before you learn the response well, since you might fall asleep. Its not damaging or counterproductive to learning if you fall asleep, but it might upset your daily timetable.

Using this set of guidelines, many people will be able to achieve deep relaxation without other assistance. It can be helpful to share experiences with other people who are trying the same thing, so that you will have an idea what you will feel like at various stages. If you are still uncertain about whether you are getting anywhere, you could get further assistance from a Psychologist, or from yoga or meditation groups.

More readings will be added to my blog from time to time. Have a quick look now to see the first posting on my blog PSYC1PLUS