Behavioral & Habitual Challenges
Hypnotherapy can help address…
Weight Management
You already know what to do—eat less, move more—but knowledge alone doesn't create lasting change. Weight struggles reflect emotional eating, automatic patterns, food as comfort, and all-or-nothing thinking that leads to restriction-binge cycles. Diets work temporarily, then fail because underlying psychological patterns haven't changed.
Hypnotherapy doesn't promote rigid dieting. Instead, it reprograms subconscious eating patterns—separating emotional eating from physical hunger, addressing triggers without using food as coping, and reinstalling natural hunger and satiety signals. Research shows hypnotherapy combined with behavioral guidance significantly improves outcomes compared to diet and exercise alone.
As a physician with gastroenterology training, I understand metabolism, hormones, and the gut-brain connection affecting appetite and eating patterns. This approach works best for genuine readiness to change behaviors, not eating disorders requiring specialized treatment.
Habits (Smoking, Nail-Biting, Etc.)
Unwanted habits feel automatic because they are—willpower alone rarely succeeds long-term because you're fighting against subconscious programming reinforced thousands of times. Body-focused repetitive behaviors like nail-biting, skin picking, and hair pulling serve emotional regulation functions, while smoking combines physical nicotine dependence with psychological conditioning.
Traditional approaches like nicotine replacement and habit reversal training work with your conscious mind, but the urges and automatic responses operate at levels your conscious mind can't directly control.
Hypnotherapy reprograms the automatic patterns themselves—reducing the emotional need the habit serves, changing reward associations from pleasure to unappealing, and creating new automatic responses to triggers. Research shows hypnotherapy significantly increases smoking cessation success rates.
As a physician, I understand habit neuroscience and addiction pathways, and can assess when habits may indicate anxiety disorders or OCD requiring additional treatment.
Procrastination & Follow-Through Issues
Procrastination isn't laziness—you care deeply but can't start, or you abandon projects before completion. Overwhelm, fear of failure, and fear of judgment create emotional avoidance that no planner or productivity system can overcome. It's not a time management problem; it's an emotional one.
Hypnotherapy addresses the emotional patterns driving avoidance—building tolerance for discomfort, shifting from "enormous project" to "manageable first step," improving time perception, and replacing narratives like "I work better under pressure" with realistic self-talk that supports action.
As a physician in demanding environments, I understand productivity pressures and recognize when procrastination might indicate ADHD. I integrate behavioral strategies with hypnotic work addressing emotions, overwhelm, and motivation without judgment.
Research Support
Spiegel D, Frischholz EJ, Fleiss JL, Spiegel H. (2011). Predictors of smoking abstinence following a single-session restructuring intervention with self-hypnosis. American Journal of Psychiatry, 150(7):1090-1097.
Elkins GR, Rajab MH, Marcus JD. (2018). Complementary and alternative medicine use by psychiatric inpatients. Psychological Reports, 96(1):163-166.
Smoking Cessation:
Kirsch I, Montgomery G, Sapirstein G. (1995). Hypnosis as an adjunct to cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy for obesity: A meta-analytic reappraisal. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 64(3):517-519.
Cochrane G, Friesen J. (1986). Hypnotherapy in weight loss treatment. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 54(4):489-492.
Weight Management:
Pychyl TA, Sirois FM. (2016). Procrastination, emotion regulation, and well-being. In Procrastination, Health, and Well-Being (pp. 163-188). Academic Press.
Steel P. (2007). The nature of procrastination: A meta-analytic and theoretical review. Psychological Bulletin, 133(1):65-94.
Procrastination & Habits: