Can Hypnosis Improve Study Skills?

I once tried out hypnosis to overcome my fear of going to the dentist and it was really a great experience. I wondered what hypnosis can do to improve my exam preparation.

Can hypnosis improve your study habits and skills? Yes, Hypnosis can improve your study habits by helping you to overcome stress and anxiety, increase focus, boost self-confidence and decrease self-doubt.

That is great new. The question is how you can use hypnosis yourself to remove roadblocks during your test preparation and keep the eye on the ball?

Benefits of hypnosis for esam preparations

There are several way that hypnosis can support your study efforts.

• Enhance motivation
• Control emotion and stress
• Improve concentration and focus
• Control emotion and stress
• Remove conflicts or blocks
• Remain calm and relaxed during the exam
• Increase confidence and self esteem

As you can see there are many benefits of hypnosis when it comes to your study efforts. Some of them like removing conflicts or blocks is probably something that needs to be done by an expert in professional sessions. But getting yourself into a relaxed state, increase your motivation and improve your focus can not only help you during your preparation but also before an exam. With enough practice, this process can be done by yourself. Let’s take a look at the experience I had with hypnosis.

Self hypnosis for improved exam performance

Usually, the biggest problem when taking an exam is the fear or anxiety of having a blackout. For my early exams, I used the steps I had learned during my hypnosis sessions to get through the dentist and it really made a difference. I am not sure you can just follow these steps, I practiced them with a trainer so I recommend taking at least an Online course to get familiar with the basics. Here are the basic steps that I learned with the guidance of an experienced trainer:

1. Wear something comfortable
2. Close your eyes
3. Put on some relaxing background music
4. Sit (or lie down) without tension, relax your muscles
5. Listen to the voice of the trainer (which can, of course, be your own voice)
6. Describe (or listen to the description of) a place you feel most relaxed and enjoy being (in my case that was my lovely garden). At first, the trainer described it for me (after I explained in detail to her in preparation session how that place looked like)
7. Then I needed to imagine stairs with 10 steps that lead directly to my favorite place. 
8. In my mind I slowly took one step at a time and with each one I reaffirmed the description, the closer I cam the more I could hear, smell, feel and see.
9. Wenn I arrived I was in a deep relaxed mood.

When I tried this first I was very skeptical and thought this could never work with me, I thought I was too “down to earth” to believe this nonsense but I was still open and wanted this. So after my first session, my trainer asked how long I thought I was in my garden. A couple of minutes I replied. She said you were away for 45 minutes! That was really amazing. The reason I recommend a trainer or at least an online course is that if you are like me and do not really believe in hypnosis you will fail which then seems to prove you were right in the first place.

Does hypnosis work to motivate your study

So how can hypnosis help you overcome the lack of motivation and enthusiasm? You need to prepare and have goals that you want to achieve. Hypnosis can then help you visualize these goals vividly and make you “feel” how it would look like if you had your wishes already fulfilled.  I used this technique long before I researched for this article. During my time in China while I was preparing for my Chinese language exam sometimes it was really tough to motivate myself to practice the characters by simply writing them over and over again. So I took a picture of myself reading a Chinese newspaper and put it up on the wall. Just looking at my own future image often gave the kick I needed to practice a litte longer until I eventually passed the test.

Related questions

How long does it take to learn self-hypnosis? Learning the steps you need really doesn’t take more than half an hour or even less. But just by knowing something doesn’t mean you are actually doing it right. Especially if you don’t really believe it works. So again, I highly recommend learning the basics from an experienced trainer. While a real session from a hypnotherapist could be quite pricey (Yes! It was!) just get started with a highly rated and affordable Online course on Udemy. This gives you a great overview of the topic and when your first hypnosis experience is guided it makes it much easier to repeat the success than trying it all by yourself.

Do you remember being hypnotized? When I was hypnotized at the dentist I could remember being hypnotized and I was aware that the doctor was “doing” something. Since I was in an extremely relaxed state I didn’t really pay attention to it because I was in my favorite place that I had practiced to go to. But I could clearly remember the nurses being there, talking calmly though I didn’t hear what it was because I didn’t care.

Can hypnosis help me ignore noise? Yes, it definitely can. Actually, this should not be a new experience for most of us. Did you ever focus on something and didn’t realize how the hours went by? I like this state (the so-called flow) and during that time I always completely block out background noise or other things that would usually disturb me. Since hypnosis can bring you into a calm and focused state of mind it indirectly can help you to ignore noise. What I use to ignore any background noise (not only for study) is a noise cancellation headphone from Bose. If you have never tried it before got to shop and try one! Just read the reviews on Amazon. Yes, it is not cheap but the time you gain by not being distracted is worth every penny.

Is hypnosis dangerous? No, it is not. There are many fears when it comes to hypnosis so here is a short summary:

• You will not be stuck in there forever and always wake up
• You will not reveal secrets you don’t want to
• You will not do anything against your will
• You will not be asleep
• You will not lose control (In fact my trainer gave me gesture to do in case I felt uncomfortable during my dental treatment to get me out of hypnosis – I never needed to use it)

Can hypnosis help me pass the driving test? Yes, it can. In contrast to what most people believe hypnosis is not some kind of trance similar to a deep sleep but rather could be described as a relaxed awareness. I found some blog posts where people described their experience and got their license under hypnosos. If your major problem of failing the driving test is fear hypnosis is certainly something to take a look at.