hey there everybody and welcome to this presentation on tips for reprogramming your
subconscious using guided imagery i'm your host dr donnelly snipes in this presentation we're
going to talk briefly about what guided imagery and self-hypnosis are and the benefits of them
when you might want to try using guided imagery yourself hypnosis and some strategies that you
might use if you want to experiment a little with these things before going fully into using them
the benefits of guided imagery and self-hypnosis have been shown to stem from various factors
including alteration of expectations as well as attentional cognitive and emotional regulation
mechanisms what does this mean and i have here in parentheses virtual schema we've talked in
the past about schema being shortcuts that our brain uses to predict what is going to happen in
the future based on what has happened in the past so it takes our memories and it kind of files them
all and writes a summary of what's going to happen we have schema about stop lights for example
we expect using our schema that a stoplight that's green will go yellow and then it will go red
if it doesn't follow that order it can be very confusing to us
these schema help us predict things without having to use all the mental energy to think about
them all the time when we use guided imagery or self-hypnosis what we're doing is we're creating
a virtual schema we're not actually doing it but we're envisioning it and we're putting ourselves
there as much as possible a lot of athletes use guided imagery to create virtual schema they see
themselves doing the perfect dive or hitting the perfect stroke or catching the perfect catch and
that helps prime their brain and prime their body because our brain controls our body for what to do
when we use guided imagery we don't envision ourself failing we don't envision
ourselves in a disaster we envision ourself successfully handling whatever situation it is
by doing this this the virtual schema that we're forming includes an expectation for a
positive resolution so that's one part of it our attentional cognitive and emotional regulation is
also different in this virtual experience we're having we're focusing on what we're
doing we're focusing on that situation we're not focused on extraneous stimuli
we are thinking through the process actively in guided imagery we're not letting our default mode
take over we're not letting that inner critic interject its thoughts about what's going on
we are actively cognitively talking through or walking through this experience which can
also be helpful because in real life when we're experiencing things especially if it's distressful
we may be flooded with a lot of automatic thoughts and we may
kind of go on autopilot as our hpa axis or our threat response system gets triggered
doing guided imagery we are not triggering that hpa access because we're envisioning a safe
successful event they found guided imagery and self-hypnosis can both be very h very effective
with people who have chronic non-migraine headaches so that's a good thing and that's
true for both adults as well as adolescents that is a huge tool for people to have in
their toolbox because it's really hard to focus at work or at school if you've got chronic headaches
it's been shown to be effective with chronic pain and anxiety in both adults and adolescents as well
as weight and feeding management guided imagery and self-hypnosis can help people adjust their
relationship change their schema change their expectation of their relationship with food
during rem sleep is when our brains process recent memories many times when we examine
our dreams they incorporate aspects of the things that we encounter during the day
a lot of times i'll find this is true i'll wake up in the morning and i'm like where in the world did
that come from and i think back and it's my brain processing something that i saw on television
the other night i was watching an old simpsons episode and homer drove into a desert that had
thousands of snakes and rattlesnakes going through it and i was watching that right before bed and
guess what appeared in my dream rattlesnakes and it was just my brain saying okay i've got this
little artifact here i've got this thing from the day and i'm not sure what to do with it so
i'm going to incorporate it however i can figure out how
so rem is an interesting time for our brain to figure out what's useful what to hold on to
and what to let go therefore night time is a really great time right before you go to bed
to program or to put information in the path of your memory so it can be
integrated the brain is getting ready to process all the stuff and the memories from the day
so let's just put all this stuff right on top of the pile so it gets processed first
ideally if you're trying to reprogram your subconscious
it should be the last thing you do before you go to sleep after you've brushed your teeth
and everything you're getting ready to wind down this is the last thing you do think of yourself
as the ceo of your body hopefully that's how you think of yourself
and your subconscious is your manager and the subconscious is going to help you anticipate
what's going on make sure everything runs smoothly as the ceo you need to tell it what to do
so before bed you're going to review your goals for your rich and meaningful life in
business we call this the dashboard and if you've worked in organizations and management at all
you know that at the beginning of every fiscal year you create a dashboard you create goals
for what you expect to accomplish and that is your definition of
a rich and meaningful year in in business but what we're talking about here is what is your dashboard
for your rich and meaningful life and i've talked about that in a lot of different videos
who are the people things experiences that are important to you in your rich and meaningful life
how are you succeeding and fulfilled in each one of those areas what do you want to change in
one of those areas maybe you want to adjust the amount of energy and how you're
nurturing your relationships maybe you feel like you haven't been giving it enough attention
or maybe you feel you want to be more patient with the people that are important in your
rich and meaningful life so that may be one area that you want to adjust
or maybe you have an habit that you want to change maybe you want to stop mindlessly grazing on
food every time you walk into the kitchen there may be a lot of things that you want to change
big things little things whatever it's important to pick one and in business we call this rapid
cycle change pick one thing focus on it accomplish it and then move on to the next thing if you tell
your subconscious too many things it can't focus on it just like if you told an employee
to do too many things all at once it they probably wouldn't be able to be successful
if you're already working on something maybe you decided you were going to start
addressing your relationship with food or you're going to stop smoking
that may not happen in one session so if it's something that you already started working on
assess your progress how did you do today in response to your guided image
in in comparison to how you want to be doing how did you do today did you have progress
so choose that one specific goal and stick with it you're going to be looking for
fractional improvements again you're not going to likely change
from not doing something to doing it a hundred percent of the time in one night you want to
see did you even think about changing your behavior the next day did you attempt it did
you do it successfully some of the time and build on those uh build on that progress so for example
you may tell yourself i want to improve my relationships by being more patient telling
yourself i will be patient with mistakes maybe you tend to be impatient with people who make mistakes
so i will be patient with mistakes and that's the one thing that you're going to tell yourself
if you decide you know a different goal not the same time a different goal i will reduce
my anxiety by focusing on the facts in the current context well that's a lot to say
feelings are not facts just reminders to examine the facts that's what you will tell yourself
or another goal might be i will reduce my
whatever the habit is by recognizing that thoughts do not have to lead to actions
and you may repeat to yourself my thoughts don't control me i can choose my behaviors
once you've reviewed your rich and meaningful life you've reviewed your dashboard you've
identified the goal you want to work on the one thing that you want to work on
you've identified a positive proactive step or thing that you can tell yourself i will do this
then you say okay now get into a relaxed state and turn off your default mode network turn off your
autopilot by first focusing on your breathing and we've talked before about breathing in for four
holding for four exhaling for four and holding for four and sometimes that's called square breathing
breathe in hold exhale hold breathe in hold exhale hold you do that a couple of times and you will
feel your tension starting to go away you'll feel that relaxation response starting to kick in your
heart rate probably will slow down a little bit that's all good if we want to take it back
to the business metaphor this is kind of like an executive retreat if you are trying to get a bunch
of stuff accomplished and you're doing it at the office you've got people who are knocking on the
door phone calls coming in and constantly being distracted and pulled away from it
when you go on an executive retreat you're more relaxed and you're able to focus on that one
thing you're not worried about somebody knocking on the door or needing you to leave the meeting
move on after you've started breathing and started that relaxation response now it's time to release
tension from your body with what i call global muscular relaxation and this is sort of the
quick and dirty version of progressive muscular relaxation with global muscular relaxation as
you breathe in you can inhale the good air hold and then as you exhale you actually
feel the tension leaving your body and you feel your arms and legs becoming heavier
and sinking into the bed or the sofa or whatever you're sitting on do that three or four times you
want to feel yourself getting progressively more relaxed the next step now that you're relaxed and
your brain is receptive you're not thinking about other things visualize yourself doing whatever
it is that you're doing or want to do feeling safe empowered and capable so envision yourself
interacting with people and having more patience envision yourself interacting with a colleague
at work that typically irritates you envision yourself interacting with them tomorrow
patiently envision yourself interacting with your kids or your dogs patiently tomorrow you can
envision yourself um engaging in purposeful action envision yourself making the next positive choice
once you envision yourself doing that then take it a step further i see myself being more patient
with my kids tomorrow how does doing this make me more abundant in my energy happiness attitude
productivity and relationships so i see myself being more patient and then i think to myself what
are the positive effects what are the benefits if i'm more patient with my kids tomorrow how will it
how will i feel better how will my relationships better be better and that can help reinforce
what's going on and you can repeat this a couple of times
if we're talking about relationships you can repeat it a couple of times envisioning yourself
being patient for example with different people and then envisioning if you do that how does it
benefit you you know after you're patient with them how does the rest of your day go as a result
restate your intentions five times slowly inhale as you exhale
half smile and restate your intention i will be patient with my people that i'm
in relationships with obviously you don't want to stutter on it you want
to pick out what you're going to say i will be patient with people tomorrow
hold after exhaling and sit with that feeling and that half smile now why the half smile you say
well if you smile too much it feels fake it's like i'm gonna be patient tomorrow but if you have a
half smile you just gently turn your turn your mouth up it actually triggers in your brain for
some reason it tricks your brain and your brain says oh if i do this tomorrow it'll make me happy
so that half smile you inhale as you exhale half smile i will be patient tomorrow
after exhaling sit with that feeling and that half smile for a second and then let your face relax
and repeat it four more times turbocharged you can narrate your visualization and the impact of it
and continue listening to it as you go to sleep so you can narrate tomorrow when i see sally at
the office i'm going to take a deep breath and i'm going to remind myself to be patient with her
and when she says this i'll say this this is how how it will go and i won't be as drained after
dealing with her i will have more energy i'll feel happier and more relaxed and whatever else
is going to be a benefit of being more patient with that person so you record that and you can
put it on a loop and listen to it for 15 20 minutes as you're going to sleep
that'll get you for most people that'll get you pretty solidly into that first rem cycle
in which the brain is going to latch on to stuff that is is most readily available
your subconscious is your manager and retrieves memories and tells you what to expect based on
past experiences to alter those memories you need to be relaxed so your manager can focus on
what you are saying instead of focusing on lots of other things we used to do it this way but
that's not how we're doing it anymore we want to do it this way now self-hypnosis or guided
imagery can help you retain reprogram or rescript your subconscious expectations for future events
doing this right before bed introduces new information at the opportune time to be integrated