How hypnotherapy changes behaviour

It has been a few years since I hypnobirthed for the first time, so my recollections of how my thinking changed are a little rusty. When I learnt hypnobirthing (not The Wise Hippo way!) I didn't learn how my view of birth could, and would, be changed. I knew that it was, but not how I got from the slightly nervous anticipation of labour and birth, to the full-blown acceptance, lack of fear and excitement to meet my daughter! Although I teach (and know) how both the conscious and subconscious mind work together to change first perception, understanding, belief and then behaviour I hadn't experienced it myself consciously...until recently. Knowing how well The Wise Hippo techniques work for my past clients, I KNOW that hypnosis can help to change the way we think about things and how we approach them, which I felt was rather pertinent for me to experience it myself. So, probably not the most relevant topic to discuss with you pregnant mums-to-be, but for me, weight-loss has been on my mind. Last year I did pretty well with Slimming World, but come the winter, I nested a bit and put on a stone. So this year, I thought I'd give something else a go. I spent a whole £5 on the Easyloss Virtual Gastric Band.

Having read the 'guidelines' I began to consciously change my behaviour to fit with them. When you consciously do something, it's when you actively think about doing an action. In this case, I was tuning in to my appetite to recognise 'was I hungry?' and 'was I still hungry now?', having eaten. I also made efforts to eat slowly, putting my knife and fork down between mouthfuls. The hardest thing was remembering to drink plenty of water, which I definitely had to think about often.

At night, I had a hypnosis track to listen to . I have no idea what i said, as consciously, my brain was switched off (having fallen asleep!). But, that's the beauty of our SUBconscious mind...IT continues to listen even after sleep, up to an hour more. And through this, after less than a week, I began to notice that I wasn't really thinking about eating slowly, registering my hungry/not hungry response, I was simply stopping eating when I became 'full'. I wasn't actively doing anything in terms of managing my behavious at all; my subconscious was doing that for me. It had leant. It knew what to do.

And that's what happens with hypnobirthing. You begin by consciously, actively undertaking the techniques that we teach with The Wise Hippo. You'll think about your breathing. You'll use techniques to surround yourself with positive thoughts of birth. You'll catch yourself when thinking negatively and replace those thoughts with positives. You'll really think about your birth by concentrating on it.

However, you will also listen to an array of 6 MP3s that will 'train' your subconscious to think more positively in general. To help you believe that birth, your birth, will be positive. You will become confident, composed and in control of your conscious thoughts, and your body will respond naturally. It will know that 'this is labour and in labour this is what I do'. Your body; you, will just know what to do.

Check out our recent new mum Kelly's empowering story of her birth which tells a tale of how even the most fearful expectant mum can achieve the best possible experience, without even really thinking about it. Leading up to her birth, Kelly was still pretty anxious that she was falling asleep during the MP3s; but when you read her story, I'm sure you will agree that she simply knew what to do; proving that her conscious mind and subconscious mind were working perfectly together to achieve what she set out to do.