How Can Hypnotherapy Help You on Your Wedding Day?

The sky is blue, the sun is shining and all the birds are singing in the trees.  It is early summer and the wedding season has arrived once more.  Every weekend from now until the end of September, happy couples will be tying the knot on what is supposed to be the happiest day of their lives. You want your wedding day to be full of love, joy and elation. But for too many couples, the weeks leading up to the wedding can be filled with stress, anxiety and even fear. This is a very special day that the couple, especially the bride, and their families have been dreaming of and planning in their heads for years, so there are a lot of expectations to be met, especially an expectation that the day must be perfect right down to the tiniest detail.

A Bride - 1895 AH Thayer

So can hypnotherapy help you plan and enjoy your wedding day feeling relaxed, calm and happy?

Stress and Anxiety:

If planning a wedding as well as working and getting on with your day to day life is leaving you feeling tired, stressed and anxious, then hypnotherapy sessions can help you to relax and stay relaxed whatever is thrown at you.  You will also learn some great techniques such as self hypnosis and EFT that you can use at home, to keep you feeling chilled and carefree even when the relatives start squabbling about seating plans or your wedding dress needs to be altered at the last minute.

Confidence:

Many brides and grooms feel extremely uncomfortable at the thought of being the centre of attention for the whole day and do not like the idea of the spotlight being on them.  Hypnosis can help to improve your confidence levels, so that you can really enjoy walking down the aisle with all eyes on you and taking to the floor for that all-important first dance.

Fear of Public Speaking:

At many weddings the best man, the bride’s father, the groom and increasingly the bride make speeches at the wedding reception.  Fear of public speaking can turn the speech maker into a miserable, bundle of nerves weeks before the actual wedding day and ruin any sense of excitement and anticipation.  Hypnosis can help to calm those speech making nerves, so that you can look forward to the wedding happily and fully enjoy the actual day, rather than letting the dread of having to speak in public cast a dark shadow over the whole proceedings.

Social Anxiety:

A lot of people just aren’t that comfortable having to socialise with large groups of people.  Standing in the line up greeting lots of people you may not know very well, being seated on a table with strangers and being expected to chat and mingle at the reception can be very stressful for some people and can lessen their enjoyment of the occasion. A few hypnosis sessions will help you to relax and overcome your fears and anxieties.

Weight Loss:

Every bride wants to look their best on their wedding day, and hypnotherapy can be a really useful tool if you are trying to shed a few pounds.  Having some hypnotherapy sessions will help you to lose weight more easily, improve your relationship around food and ease those cravings. Hypnosis can also help you if you are losing too much weight because you are stressed, rushing around and not eating properly.

Skin Problems and IBS:

If you suffer from skin problems or IBS, you may find that the stresses of planning your wedding can cause distressing flare ups.  Getting everything sorted out on time is challenging enough without having to deal with the painful symptoms of IBS or a skin eruption and you certainly don’t want to have to deal with them on your big day.  Having hypnosis can help to ease your IBS or skin problems, leaving you to enjoy the occasion with confidence.

Honeymoon:

The idea of a honeymoon on an exotic tropical beach is idyllic.  However, fear of flying, fear of water or a phobia such as a fear of snakes or insects could be causing you to dread rather than look forward to these precious first few weeks of your marriage.  Hypnotherapy can help eliminate these phobias, so that you can look forward to and enjoy a long-haul flight, splash around happily in those warm, tropical seas and explore jungles and rainforests without the fear of seeing a snake or a spider.

So as you can see, hypnotherapy can help in many different ways; enabling you to truly relax and enjoy your wedding day.  Allow yourself the freedom to no longer worry about everything being perfect, how the relatives are all going to get on, what you look like or being the centre of attention.  You really deserve your wedding day to be the occasion you have always dreamed of, a day that you will never forget for all the right reasons.

If you would like to book some wedding day hypnotherapy sessions please call 0777 051 5377 or email cmarsh@cmhypnotherapy.co.uk

Hypnotherapy Watford - Hypnotherapy Bushey

www.cmhypnotherapy.co.uk

A Bride image Wikimedia Commons Public Domain

Bring the Sunshine Back To Your Life – 'Manifest with the Sun' Workshop and ‘The Happiness Trip’ Hypnotherapy Sessions

It has been a long, cold winter here in the UK, but now that the weather is beginning to warm up it is time to think about how you can start bringing the sunshine back into your life. If the grey skies and freezing temperatures have left you feeling a little blue, what can you do to make yourself feel happier, more vibrant and more energetic?

Is the sun rising or setting in your life at the moment?

One of the most important things is to realise that you do have control over how you feel.  It is surprising how many of us believe that we are at the mercy of our emotions and that if we are feeling miserable and unhappy then there is nothing that can be done about it.  One of the first things that you can do is to start monitoring how you are thinking and talking to yourself.  Is most of what you say to yourself negative, or are you more of a positive, glass half-full type of person?  Always try and use positive language and if you catch yourself thinking a negative thought press the delete key in your mind and immediately replace it with a happier, more constructive one.

What do we mean by positive language?  Let’s start by looking at a statement containing a negative. A good example would be someone who is trying to lose weight saying an affirmation like ‘I don’t want to eat chocolate anymore.’  A much more useful affirmation would be ‘I only choose to eat healthy food that I know is good for me’ as with the first statement you are basically telling yourself to eat chocolate, as your mind will just ignore the ‘don’t’.  Do you say horrible things to yourself if you think you have made a mistake or haven’t done something that you intended to do?  If so, next time that you call yourself a ‘stupid idiot’ or something a lot stronger, stop and think for a second.  Would you say that kind of thing to a loved one, friend or work colleague? 

So why are you being so critical of yourself?  Every time you say something negative about yourself, you are compounding it in your unconscious mind.  If you hold onto negative beliefs about yourself in your unconscious mind, you will find that you attract people and situations into your life that just reflect those beliefs back to you. So rewire your unconscious mind with positive beliefs about yourself, by being as kind, gentle and caring to yourself as you would be to anyone else in your life that you love. Then you will find that the people in your life will start offering you more consideration, love and attention and the events in your life will run much more smoothly and offer you greater opportunities.  You have to cherish yourself before you can be truly loved or give love to someone else.

Do you complain a lot?  Do you expect situations in your life to go badly?  Do you think that you are unlucky and that you have been born under a cursed star?  Every time you complain about something or someone, you are just locking yourself further into your misery and despair. Just look at how we Brits complain about the weather.  As soon as the sun comes out we are ‘too hot’, if it rains our day is ruined and if it snows the world has come to an end.  How much happier would we all be if we just accepted the weather we were experiencing on any given day?  Much better would be to bless the weather and give thanks for the awesome miracle that is the sun rising each morning and for the start of another day where we can choose to be as happy and content as we want to be.

Let springtime bring the sunshine back!

Do you choose activities, friends and surroundings that bring a smile to your face and help you feel great?  Should is a very pervasive and potentially damaging word and if you habitually feel that you don’t want to crawl out of bed in the morning to face another day, then maybe you need to examine all the ‘shoulds’ in your life.  So where do you feel obligated?  Are there friends that you see through habit and because you feel obligated?  Do you have friends who always seem to pull you down, draining your energy and always leaving you feeling flat? Would you be happier if you broke away from them and spent time with people or doing activities that make you happier and more energised?  Are you doing a job that you hate or find boring because you feel you ‘should’?  Maybe it’s because you are trying to live up to family expectation, or you feel that you have to do a certain type of work to earn enough money or that you have invested too much time and effort just to walk away now.  While these are all considerations, are they worth being miserable and unfulfilled for the rest of your life?  If you are doing anything that doesn’t bring you joy, have a look at how you could do it differently or choose something that does make your heart sing.  If you are dragging yourself to the gym every day because you feel you ‘should’ exercise, why not look at all the other different types of exercise you could do that would put the bounce back in your step like yoga, football, cycling, ice skating or even mountain climbing?

If you want to be happy you can start today.  You just have to start making different choices and making your own feelings of joy, peace and contentment a priority.  This may seem like selfishness at first, but can you really make other people happy if you are miserable and negative all the time?  Like attracts like, so allowing more light, fun, joy and laughter into your world is going to open up inspiring new avenues for you and bring exciting new people into your life. Choosing to be happy will help you know that you can reach the goals that you set, that you can take the exercise and eat the healthy food your body has been craving and that you can have peaceful, loving relationships.  Because you know that happiness is a choice, you will also lighten up when things do go wrong or wander off track a bit.  It is only the meaning we give to events that makes us unhappy, not the events themselves.  So if the train is late in the morning it is entirely your choice as to whether you get all riled up and angry or whether you just chill out and treat yourself to another coffee.

If you would like some help bringing the sunshine back into your life and consciously start choosing to feel happy, I have some great resources for you.

On Monday 22^nd April at 7.30pm, I am running the ‘Manifest with the Sun Workshop & Meditation – Taurus and the Second House’ at the The Peace Hospice, Peace Drive, Watford, WD17 3PH.  Entrance fee £15.

The sun moves into a new sign of the zodiac around the 20^th of each month, allowing us to tap into the energies of that sign to make powerful, positive changes in our lives. This month the sun is moving into the fixed earth sign of Taurus.  Taurus represents the material foundation of our world, so when the sun is transiting that sign it is a good time to reflect on what we have built, what we have, what we value and how solid we think our foundations are.  How have we nurtured our talents and do we have the ability to feed, clothe and sustain ourselves?  It is about our earnings and how we use them.

Taurus is also a sensual, physical sign, so are you taking enough care of your body?  Do you choose to eat a healthy diet and take enough exercise?  Are you open to giving and receiving physical affection?  Do you give yourself enough time to relax and enjoy life?

In this workshop we will be doing a series of practical exercises and meditations designed to help us find out what it is that we truly want to manifest in these areas and release any blockages to our success.  By shining the warming, healing light of the sun into these areas of our lives, we will be able to identify and clearly see the steps that we need to start taking to achieve our goals and manifest our desires.

If you prefer working on a one-to-one basis, I have put together a special set of three hypnotherapy sessions called ‘The HappinessTrip’ which have been created especially to help you bring more sunshine and joy into your life.  During these special hypnosis sessions I will be helping you to identify why you are feeling unhappy, where these negative emotions are coming from and what areas of your life need some adjustment or unhelpful beliefs changing. I will give you some great practical tools to help you relax, cope with anxiety and improve your confidence.  The ‘Happiness Trip’ costs £170 and is a great investment because you will find that being happy and content will improve your health, your relationships and you will find that you start making much better choices in your life as you will be deciding from a place of joy not fear.

So if you want to book onto the ‘Manifest with the Sun Workshop & Meditation – Taurus and the Second House’ of book ‘The Happiness Trip’ set of three hypnotherapy sessions call me on 0777 051 5377 or email: cmarsh@cmhypnotherapy.co.uk

Choose to bring the sunshine back to your life today!

Is Perfectionism Stifling Your Life?

So is perfectionism stifling your life?  That might sound like a strange question because we have all been brought up to do our best and be the best person we can, right?  But there is actually a world of difference between doing the best you can and trying to be perfect. Doing the best you can means that you accept yourself for who you are; that you know that you have flaws, that you can make mistakes and get it wrong.  It means that you start projects, have life experiences and enjoy relationships that are ‘good enough’. Trying to be perfect generally means that you are trying to control every little detail of your life and will not start living it until you have achieved whatever level of faultless transcendence that you are currently shooting for.

Relax as the sun goes down

The trouble is that real life is messy.  To enter into it completely and enjoy all aspects of it, we need to give up any need to control it and shape it into our idea of perfection. As soon as we start seeking perfection we suck the life and joy out of whatever it is we are trying to do and achieve. If only I can turn in a report at work that is flawless in every way, then I can be happy and start appreciating myself we think.  Or if only I can work on my body and face until it is thin enough, pretty enough, toned enough or whatever enough, then I can start being happy and appreciating myself.  If only I could meet that one romantic partner who is perfect for me in every single way, then I can start being happy and appreciating myself. We tend to bring this kind of perfectionist thinking into every area of our lives, whether it is our home, our kids, our career, our love lives, our hobbies or the way we look and then wonder why we are so exhausted and dispirited all the time.

Trying to be perfect is so tiring because we are continually setting ourselves up for disappointment.  It is a goal that can never be achieved, so will always be that thing that is just over the horizon, just out of view and it is too easy to burn yourself out chasing this elusive chimera.  For the truth is that there is no such thing as perfection and that we all have different ideas on what perfection is any way. In a way we are all putting the cart before the horse.  We say that we will be happy and content when things are perfect, when we get it all done to our own impossibly high standards or when the miracle happens.  But the truth is that we need to learn to be happy now.  To be happy and content with what we are and what we have, knowing that we can make the most of each and every precious day because we are optimistic, vibrant, relaxed and confident.  It means having trust in yourself; trusting that you have the skills, knowledge, experience and wisdom to navigate your way successfully through your world.

For some reason, we tend to look at what happens in our lives and fixate on the mistakes, the things that have gone badly or weren’t the way we wanted them to be.  Many more things went well and we succeeded, but we tune this fact out as irrelevant.  So why are we so keen to be responsible for the bad things that happen in our lives and take no responsibility at all for creating all the wonderful things we have and enjoy? We shrug off the good things that happen as luck, happenstance or just take them for granted and go back to beating ourselves up for all the small mistakes, perceived flaws and petty misdemeanours that we have accused, tried and convicted ourselves of.

The fact is there is a trade off for everything in life and the trade off with being a perfectionist is that you don’t ever have to start anything, the time is never right, conditions are not good enough or other people are not keeping their end of the bargain. It’s a procrastinator’s charter, because as nothing will ever be perfect then you will always have an excuse not to do something or finish a project that you have started.  How many half written books do you think there are stuffed in drawers all over the world, because the author doesn’t think they are good enough?  How many pictures don’t get painted, songs written, relationships started, homes moved into, businesses launched or holidays taken because they are not deemed perfect enough? If you look at your life it actually the disasters, mistakes and chaotic situations that we tend to look back on and remember fondly.  The holiday where the tent was swept away in a rain storm, the date you had where you broke the heel on your shoe or the party you all turned up at in fancy dress only to find that everyone else was in normal clothes.

The area of our lives that our perfectionism can have the most negative impact on is our relationships with other people.  As we rush around trying to be perfect, we get mighty annoyed with our friends and loved ones that are not getting with our programme.  We might think that our herculean effort to attain a flawless existence is for their benefit and that they should be thankful that we are exhausting ourselves on their behalf, but they just aren’t buying it.  The bottom line is we cannot have any expectations of other people.  If we want to play the perfection game that is our choice, but we cannot expect other people to join in just to make us feel better.  How much happier would we all be if we just chilled and relaxed a little?  Is it really such a major disaster if your son does not put his dirty sports kit in the washing hamper or that your wife forgot that you only like white bread for your sandwiches?  You are also more likely to get a better response from them if you tell them all the things that you appreciate them for.  Try praising people for the things they did right rather than chastising them for what you perceive to be their mistakes, and they are far more likely to carry on with the positive behaviour you want.  Just think of the times that you have slammed a door extra hard or deliberately gotten home late after a parent or a partner had a go at you and you will recognise what I am talking about.

All this trying to be perfect shows that at some unconscious level you do not believe that you are already good enough.  But you are already more than good enough; you are worthy, you are important, you are needed and you are perfect just the way you are. Give up worrying what other people think of you.  It is not important.  The truly authentic, happy in their own skins people set their own standards, are only concerned with what they think of themselves and always continue valuing themselves even when they fail, make mistakes or forget to do something. It does not mean that they do not do things to learn and develop, but they take courses, go on workshops or start new jobs or businesses knowing that they will do their best and not beat themselves up if they get it wrong.

So give yourself a break.  Relax, chill out and do something purely because you want to do it. Set yourself realistic goals and don’t fall into despair if you don’t meet them all.  The world has a habit of getting in the way of the best laid plans anyway and sometimes the disruption works out much better than anything we could ever have prepared for. The world won’t end because you didn’t get around to doing that third load of washing, but you might just burn yourself out.  You deserve to be happy and you do not have to prove anything to anyone.  So go on, I dare you?  Just be happy today for no other reason than that you can.

If you feel you need some help in learning to relax and letting go, contact cmhypnotherapy for a hypnotherapy appointment today in Watford and Bushey.

Learn to Relax Naturally - Kingsfield Kalm's First Event!

One of the exciting new developments for cmhypnotherapy is that I have joined with three colleagues to form KingsfieldKalm.  We are a group of four friendly, experienced complementary therapists dedicated to teaching you techniques that will help you to relax naturally, so as well as hypnotherapy you can enjoy aromatherapy massage, reflexology, yoga and meditation.

We will be holding our very first event on 21st July 2012 between 11am and 2pm at the Kingsfield Centre for Physiotherapy in Bushey.  Admission to the talk is free and you will be able to sign up for 20 minute taster sessions for £15 each.

As space is limited and places are filling up fast, please email kingsfieldkalm@gmail.com or call 0777 051 5377 to secure your place.

Or sign up for the event on our KingsfieldKalm Facebook page

We look forward to seeing you on 21st July and helping you to leave stress and anxiety behind forever.

You Can Now Make A Hypnotherapy Appointment in the City of London

After several successful and happy years of hypnotherapy in Watford, you can now book hypnotherapy appointments with cmhypnotherapy ... on the trendy edge of the City of London in Clerkenwell.  Forty Five Central Street is an elegant, beautifully furnished house that makes for an amazing, relaxing venue for your hypnosis sessions. It is the ideal venue for all of you who live or work in Clerkenwell, Farringdon, the Barbican, the City, Old Street, Hoxton, Islington and Finsbury.

If you live in Watford or Bushey and work around EC1, then why not split your hypnotherapy appointments between the two places, as I offer appointments during the day, evenings and weekends.

So if you want to change your life with hypnosis today, then book a hypnotherapy appointment in London at Forty Five Central Street.  Just call 0777 051 5377 or email cmarsh@cmhypnotherapy.co.uk

What Not To Do If You Are A Stage Hypnotist!

One of the worries that many hypnotherapy clients have when they come for hypnosis for the first time, is that once in a hypnotic trance they will not be able to return to their full awareness and somehow stay 'stuck' in the trance state. This would never happen as the hypnotised client would be more likely to fall asleep and then wake naturally, or if there was an emergency such as an alarm going off, they would be able to bring themselves back to full awareness pretty quickly.

But if you volunteer to join in a show given by a stage hypnotist, you do not expect to be left in the hypnotic trance. So imagine what it was like for three participants in stage hypnotist David Days show when he tripped over one of their legs on stage and knocked himself out. He had just given the three hypnotised volunteers on stage the suggestion that they were Martians, before he had his unfortunate accident.

The stage crew who rushed to help David Days, were unable to bring him round, so the Emergency Services were called and the auditorium emptied.  Luckily for the three 'Martians', Days did eventually come around while still at the venue and was able to emerge his hapless volunteers from their hypnotic trance. and rescue them from the Red Planet!

Afterwards the participants who had been hypnotised said that they had been aware of the drama unfolding around them, but because they were comfortably in the hypnotic trance they just did not feel like moving. Apparently Days did have a voice recording with him to emerge people out of the trance in case of emergency, and luckily Days did not need to go to hospital for treatment and escaped with a just a few bruises!

Expectant Mothers Will Be Taught Self-Hypnosis in NHS Trial

An 18 month trial has been started by the NHS aiming to teach expectant mothers self-hypnosis so that they do not have to rely on drug treatments such as epidurals, gas and morphine for pain relief during labour. 800 first time mothers will participate in the trial of hypnobirthing, that will be run in hospitals in Burnley and Blackburn.

The aim of the trial is to give women greater ability to manage their labour, with the courses lasting several hours and teaching the expectant mothers to enter a state of deep calm and relaxtion. The participants will also be taught to massage themselves to stimulate the release of endorphins, which are a natural painkillers released by the body, and also learn to replace words like 'contraction' and 'pain' with more neutral terms.

Drugs used during labour are expensive and also thought to be potentially dangerous for the mother and the baby, and it is also hoped that with the self-hypnosis helping to control pain, there may be a reduced need for supervision by a midwife during the labour, which will help to ease the pressure on busy maternity wards.

Read on to find out more about the NHS trial into hypnobirthing

New Year Hypnotherapy Offer With cmhypnotherapy...

If you have been looking for a hypnotherapist in the Bushey and Watford area for weight loss, stopping smoking, gaining confidence, improving your night's sleep or ridding yourself of that phobia, then why not contact cmhypnotherapy... for an appointment today?

There is a special offer running for the New Year, that offers four hypnotherapy sessions for just £180.00, which is a saving of £40.00 on the usual price of £220.00.  So give yourself the New Year boost that you have been looking for and improve your life in 2011 with hypnosis by booking your hypnotherapy sessions today.

Click here to see the details of the special hypnotherapy offer from cmhypnotherapy.....

Summer Hypnotherapy Offer at cmhypnotherapy..

Special Summer Hypnotherapy Offer
Summer is almost here and the time for change is now! If you have been meaning to lose some weight, give up smoking, overcome that phobia or are simply wanting to let go of that anxiety and relax, why not try the special SUMMER OFFER at cmhypnotherapy.....? If you book your first appointment before 30th June 2010, you will receive 10% off the first session and then 5% off any subsequent sessions. So start to change your life for the better with hypnosis today and book an appointment at cmhypnotherapy....... Or why not book a Reiki Healing session?
Just mention SUMMER OFFER 2010 when you call or email:

Sessions held at The Kingsfield Centre for Physiotherapy, 54 Chalk Hill, Bushey, WD19 4BX


Or Bodywise, 249 Station Road, Harrow, HA1 2TV Tel: 020 8861 3336 (Monday afternoons)


Daytime, evening and weekend appointments available


Call 0777 051 5377 or email cmarsh@cmhypnotherapy.co.uk
 
Find out more about hypnotherapy in Bushey and Harrow

Why Are So Many Women Unhappy?

In today's society, why are so many women who outwardly 'have it all' so desperately unhappy and depressed?  Quite often these women have a successful career, a good marriage, happy, healthy children and lots of friends.  So guilt as to how they can be depressed when they feel they have so much, just adds to the depression.

According to this newspaper article, people are ten times more likely to be depressed now than they would have been in 1945,  with women and adolescent girls being twice as likely to suffer from depression than men. Experts predict that if the rates of depression continue growing at the current rates, that by 2020 depression will be one of the most disabling conditions in the world, only being beaten by heart disease.

So why are the women of today more unhappy than their mothers and grandmothers?  Is it all down to chemical imbalances in the brain, or are the ways we live our lives today innately more stressful, although physically less demanding?  Humans evolved as social primates, so we have a need to live in a community and interact with other humans.  Is this great wave of depression partially caused by the fact that so many more of us live alone or in small family units, sometimes hundreds of miles away from our extended families?

Or is this increase in depression down to the raising of expectations?  Our mothers and grandmothers never expected to have it all.  They were happy if there was money coming into the house and everyone in the family was healthy and either working or getting an education.  We are perhaps the first generation of women who have been brought up to think that we could have it all and, crucially, have it all with no effort and always looking like a supermodel.  So modern women juggle high-powered jobs with housework, child care, their relationship with their partner, friends, hobbies and caring for elderly parents.  In the media, they are constantly being presented with images of 'A' List women floating around looking gorgeous, holding down glamorous jobs, with designer-clad cute kids, and are given the message that this is the way a modern woman should be.

With the pressure on to always be happy, successful and looking good, is it any wonder that so many women today are beginning to unravel?  So is the current epidemic of depression really down to chemicals in the brain going haywire or a sign that there is really something wrong at the heart of Western society?

Find out more in the newspaper article on the depression epidemic

Holding Money Can Provide Pain Relief

Money may not be able to buy you love, but it seems that it can provide you with pain relief.  New research suggests that holding money can relieve pain or even prevent the pain being felt in the first place.  It was found that during research, people who had counted money before being subjected to low level pain felt less discomfort than those who had not been given any cash to handle.

It is believed that this is because handling cash boosts our feelings of self-importance and self-esteem, and it has been proven in earlier studies that someone is more able to deal with pain if they have a high sense of self worth.

Read on for the whole news article on how holding money provides pain relief

Getting Lots of Sleep Boosts Your Brain Power

Scientists have discovered that getting lots of sleep boosts your brain power, and that even having naps of only an hour or two can be beneficial.  It seems that the more hours that people spend awake, the more slow and sluggish their brains become.  There may even be a link between the tendency of older people to sleep less and poorer memory in the elderly.

US scientists have shown that memories are embedded in the brain in a certain stage of sleep and that sleep is needed to clear out the brain's short term memory storage and create space for new information to enter.  A recent study undertaken by the University of California at Berkeley shows that sleep not only cures a person of any effects of prolonged wakefulness, but also at a neurocognitive level moves you on beyond where you were before you slept.

Read the whole news article on sleep boosts your brain power

Is Willpower Better than Nicotine Patches When Trying To Quit Smoking?

New research has shown that willpower maybe a better aid to stopping smoking than nicotine patches and gums.  A research team at Sydney University reviewed 511 studies on stopping smoking and they showed that most ex-smokers had given up smoking without the help of nicotine replacement therapies.

It seems that studies that commend the use of nicotine replacement therapies are more likely to have been funded by the drug companies than other studies.The Australian research team also stated that governments were also involved in the medicalising of quitting smoking and implying that giving up smoking is harder than it actually is. The review of the studies showed that between two-thirds to three-quarters of ex-smokers had given up without using stopping smoking aids and that they had found it easier than expected.

Other experts have disagreed with this research and say that the studies on nicotine patches and nicotine gum had been robust and that relying on willpower alone to quit smoking was not particularly successful.

Read all of this news article on willpower versus nicotine replacement therapies to help quitting smoking

Need Help for Nail Biting or Hair Pulling?

Biting your nails or persistently pulling out your hair are very distressing habits.  They can be painful, cause physical injury and be damaging to your appearance.  Nail biting and hair pulling are habits and are a sign that the person is stressed and anxious.  The habit inevitably leads to further stress as having bald patches, chewed down, painful-looking finger nails and no eyebrows or lashes, can lead to isolation and have a detrimental affect on someone's family and social life.

So what can be done about these self-harming habits?  Hypnodude has written a very informative Hub on how to break yourself free from the habit of nail biting or hair pulling. In the Hub he provides a very clear description of both habits - onychophagia and trichotillomania - and steps that you can follow to free yourself fromm your habit of nail biting or hair pulling.

Read on to learn how to use self-hypnosis to cure yourself of nail biting and hair pulling

Is Being Addicted to the Internet Linked to Depression?

Researchers at the University of Leeds have discovered that spending a lot of time surfing the internet is strongly linked to depression.  They questioned around 1300 people between the ages of 16 and 51 to look at their dependency on the internet and how depressed they were.

In general, they found that the longer people spent online the more depressed people tended to be.  One of the reasons put forward for the internet addiction was that surfing the net was a substitute for more normal social activities.  Although the research proved that there was a correlation between internet addiction and depression, the researchers don't know which comes first.  Does the depression occur due to the amount of time spent on the net, or are depressed people more likely to spend hours internet surfing?

Read the whole news article on depression and internet addiction

Paul McKenna Admits That He Hypnotised Girlfriend To Like Curry

The famous hypnotist Paul McKenna has admitted that he used mind control to get a girlfriend to like curry. The admission came out during a BBC Radio Five interview where he was asked by a listener if there was a way to get his wife to like sport.

McKenna said that he 'hated himself' for manipulating the girlfriend, and went on to describe the technique he had used to get her to start eating Indian food and eventually liking it.  The technique involved talking about curry when he knew she was hungry and the touching her on the shoulder to create an association over a period of a few weeks.

Please click here to read full news article

Increasing Magnesium in Diet Can Boost Brain Power

Scientists have discovered in a study that rats fed a magnesium supplement improved their memory and learning ability.The research, done in China, shows that the magnesium supplements encouraged connections between nerve cells in laboratory cultures.  The study then proceeded with rats being given extra magnesium in their diet, and found that the higher level of brain magnesium stimulated different forms of learning and memory in both young and older rats.

It is believed that around half the population in industrialised countries have a magnesium deficit that increases with age.  This magnesium deficit could contribute to age-related memory decline, so taking a magnesium supplement could reduce the effects of this decline or even prevent it.  Foods that contain magnesium include nuts, pulses, avocado, halibut, spinach, brown rice and milk products.

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Hypnotic Trance Faciltated By Brain Asymmetry

Tests conducted by Peter Naish of the Open University point to the fact that those who go into a hypnotic trance more easily are more likely to have an imbalance between their brain's two hemispheres.

This challenges the belief of sceptics who say that hypnotic trance is not a biological function, but simply a case of some people being more susceptible and willing to act out the trance. However, the recent research suggests that during hypnosis there is actually less connectivity between different regions of the brain and a decrease of activity in the rational, left side of the brain and an increase of activity in the more creative right side.

Naish's tests suggested a successful hypnotic trance required temporary domination by the brain's right side, which might be easier to bring about in people who tended to have an imbalance between the two spheres of their brain even when they are not in the trance.

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Drink a Pint of Blueberry Juice a Day to Improve Memory

Tests have shown that drinking a pint of blueberry juice a day could help to stave off memory loss.

A study on pensioners showed that after twelve weeks of drinking daily blueberry juice they fared up to 40% better on memory tests.  They were also 33% better at memorising lists and did better than pensioners who were drinking grape juice.  Researchers at the University of Cincinnati put the improvements down to compounds found in the blueberry called anthocyanins.  Anthocyanins are responsible for the deep, bluey-purple colour of the fruit and always help to protect against other conditions such as cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer's and diabetes.

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What Does Success Mean to You?

Success means different things to all of us.  In her fascinating Hub 'How Failure, Leads to Success' wrenfrost 56 talks about life being a marathon and not a sprint, and how the meaning of success can be interpreted in so many different ways.  What is the meaning of success for you?  Is it lots of money, a successful career, a big house, a great relationship or a big, happy family?

wrenfrost56 talks about being persistent, taking the time to learn new things properly and being adaptable to change.  So if you think that maybe you are fearful of success, click here to read the whole of the Hub and learn about how to be successful!