Possible Health Benefits of Hypnotherapy

Hypnotherapy may be a helpful tool for treating some health concerns. This complementary therapeutic technique uses a hypnotic, heightened state of concentration and guided focused attention — with the help of a certified hypnotist or hypnotherapist — toward making healthy changes in your thoughts and behaviors, per the Cleveland Clinic.

The idea behind hypnosis is that it’s a means of tapping into the subconscious or primal parts of the brain that seek to protect us from pain. While the conscious, rational parts of our brain tend to dominate our everyday lives, the more emotional subconscious regions tend to take over when we’re stressed or anxious, according to a 2019 editorial in the journal Palliative Care: Research and Treatment. And all too often, the subconscious mind encourages us to repeat unhelpful thoughts or behaviors we’ve relied on in the past.

In hypnotherapy, you’re guided into a state of relaxation and awareness, which may allow you to become more receptive to new ideas. While you’re in this state, the hypnotherapist describes feelings, thoughts, and imagery — the language of the subconscious — that echo the changes you want to make. “We bypass the critical, conscious mind and speak directly to the subconscious, which is the place where change happens,” says Ginger Gibson, a certified hypnotherapist based in Freehold, New Jersey.

This approach may be used to support the treatment of many health conditions, from anxiety and pain to sleep and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). How? Here’s what the limited research and experts suggest.

1. May Help Relieve Acute and Chronic Pain

“Hypnosis is a very effective analgesic or pain reliever,” says David Spiegel, MD, a hypnosis researcher and the medical director of the Center for Integrative Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine in California, in his professional opinion. It may help you manage the fear and anxiety you feel related to pain by first helping you into a relaxation state and then redirecting your attention to something else, per the Arthritis Foundation.

Research suggests hypnosis may help with various types of pain. For example, after reviewing 18 studies of hypnosis and pain, the authors of one meta-analysis concluded that hypnosis has moderate to significant pain-relieving effects in patients with burns, cancer, headaches, and heart conditions. Hypnosis was also effective in healthy volunteers exposed to experimental pain, such as having a hand or foot immersed in a container of ice water for one to three minutes to gauge blood pressure and heart rate responses to stress. And a meta-analysis published in April 2019 in Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews of 85 trials also found hypnosis to be effective for most participants at reducing experimentally induced pain.

Additionally, a randomized clinical trial published in the June 2022 issue of Regional Anesthesia & Pain Medicine compared patients who received a one-on-one 10-minute hypnosis session prior to knee surgery with a control group who didn’t receive pre-surgery hypnosis. The hypnosis group used lower doses of opiates for postsurgical pain than the control group, but it was not statistically significant. On the other hand, of a group of select patients with previous opiate experience who received hypnosis, 54 percent saw a daily reduction in opioid use — equivalent to sparing 65 milligrams (mg) of oxycodone per day. More research is needed to explore the effects of hypnosis on opiate use after surgery, and how the therapy may relate to pain management.

2. May Soothe Anxiety Symptoms

“One of my favorite things to work with people on through hypnosis is to help them overcome the symptoms of anxiety,” Gibson says.

Hypnosis might ease people into a relaxed and calm state. In this state, people may be able to direct their attention away from the issue causing their anxiety and toward a sensation they want to feel instead, Gibson says.

For example, in one study, scientists took brain scans of 57 people (36 who tested as high and 21 with low hypnotizability) who were undergoing hypnosis and discovered changes in areas of the brain that allowed for greater focus and emotional control. Fostering these self-management skills may help people with anxiety recognize unhelpful thoughts and beliefs and replace them with supportive ones.

Research suggests hypnosis can help with many types of anxiety. For a meta-analysis published in 2019 in the International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, researchers analyzed 17 trials that included people with dental, medical, general, and performance anxiety. The authors noted that hypnosis was more effective when combined with other psychological treatments, such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).

3. May Help With Smoking Cessation

Hypnosis may be a complementary approach for people interested in quitting smoking.

As Dr. Spiegel explains, hypnotherapy may provide the opportunity to introduce different messages about smoking to your brain. For example, your hypnotherapist may encourage you to think about smoking cessation as a way to respect your body. They may also ask you to imagine that you’re blowing cigarette smoke into the lungs of your baby or dog. “That enables a fair number of people to feel good from the moment they decide to quit, because the cravings don’t bother them when they think about being a good parent to their own body,” Spiegel says, of his experience with patients.

A variety of studies and meta-analyses over many years have looked at hypnosis to help reduce smoking, and many conclude there are some benefits, yet the more rigorous reviews point to biases in the design and insufficient evidence. Given the low risk of harm, and the fact there are no reports of adverse effects, you could consider this intervention along with more conventional approaches after discussion with your primary doctor.

4. May Improve Sleep

Sleep hypnosis, or hypnotherapy to address sleep issues, may be effective in changing challenging thoughts or habits that could interfere with sleep.

For example, if someone continuously thinks they can’t sleep, their brain may eventually recognize the belief as truth. “When we think certain thoughts in our conscious mind, it’s like a seed being planted in the subconscious mind, and the more we think something, the more the subconscious will produce that behavior on its own,” Gibson says. This may promote unhealthy sleep habits and behaviors, and even create anxiety surrounding sleep in some people.

Hypnosis may help people recognize these unhelpful beliefs and replace them with thought suggestions to support healthy sleep.

The research is mixed and limited, and it’s also unclear whether hypnosis can help people with sleep disorders, such as insomnia.

A review published in February 2018 in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine found that roughly 58 percent of the 24 included studies reported that hypnosis improved sleep outcomes. Meanwhile, 12.5 percent of included studies reported mixed results, and 29.2 percent reported no benefit; the evidence suggested a low risk of adverse side effects. It’s important to note that the studies considered for the review were generally low quality and included people with various health issues and sleep concerns, including insomnia, sleepwalking, PTSD, chronic pain, and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). This makes it more difficult to draw conclusions about the effects of hypnosis on sleep, and more research is needed to better ascertain how this approach could help promote sleep in certain groups.

5. May Assist in the Treatment of PTSD Symptoms

According to a past review, hypnosis may help people with PTSD unlock traumatic memories hidden from their conscious brain. But instead of reliving the trauma, people with PTSD who undergo hypnosis may be able to view it in a different context and reframe the memory in a healing way, per the review.

One past meta-analysis of six studies involving 391 people with PTSD found that hypnotherapy had a positive effect on PTSD symptoms such as avoidance and intrusion. Intrusion refers to intrusive thoughts such as flashbacks, whereas avoidance is when someone steers clear of people, places, and situations that may trigger distressing memories, per the American Psychiatric Association.

Hypnotherapy may also help PTSD patients with insomnia. A past study in 32 patients with PTSD found that 88.2 percent of those who received hypnotherapy twice a week for two weeks reported excellent or good sleep quality, compared with 26.6 percent of those who received insomnia medication nightly for two weeks (zolpidem, aka Ambien).

Hypnotherapy may work by promoting physical comfort and control, as guided by the therapist. “The essence of trauma is losing agency or control over what’s happening,” says Spiegel, one of the review’s authors. While many people might fear that hypnotherapy takes away self-control, it may actually give back self-control, “so you can maintain comfort and safety in your body, and then you’re able to look at some element of the trauma and see it differently,” Spiegel explains.