I will admit that since the end of the challenge, I have slacked off a bit with reading the script. I HAVE read it but I have certainly slowed down to the tune of about once a week. I am not sure what the needed amount of self-hypnosis is to maintain results from the self-hypnosis but it seems to be effective at my current rate of practice, which is not much.

I think that the more you do the self-hypnosis the less you have to do it, if that makes any sense. It is as if once you manage to open the door to the subconscious it stays open and the doorman is perpetually flirting with some hot girl trying to get in which allows you to Sam Fisher your way in much more easily than before. I don’t know if self-hypnosis has a shelf life but if it does, mine has gotten longer over time.

I still use the sleep process most of the time I go to sleep. I am finding that I don’t have to actually start counting anymore but rather just run the beach scenario and THINK about counting and I am out. My ability to slip into sleep and stay that way has improved 100 fold and I can’t think of a time since the challenge ended that I have really struggled to get to sleep. The worst case scenario is usually I have to count to 40.

As skeptical as I was about the whole process to begin with I have to say that I really buy into it now. There has been a definite change in how I sleep and the only thing I have done differently is the self-hypnosis. I genuinely plan to start doing the scripts for some other things in the book at some point soon but I haven’t started yet. I might take a look at the procrastination one next, but, you know, I will do it later.

Well there is a 2-week gap between my last post and this one.

Did I happen to mention 1 of the things I’m using self-hypnosis for is procrastination? Odd… you look like you already knew.

The last 2-3 weeks have been heavy-heavy weeks. Long hours getting things done, late nights and early mornings. One improvement I absolutely had was not rewarding myself so heavily with food.

6 months ago, going through this grind would have netted me pizza ever night and some form of fast-food each day at lunch time at least. This time though I think I had pizza twice during that 3 week push at work and no fast food at all for lunch.

NOTE: OMFG I want pizza now that I’ve posted this pic…

Pretty significant improvement if you ask me. I don’t know if it’s related to the self hypnosis or not, but there was more calm sense of “I don’t need that” making it easier to avoid. It’s not like I didn’t still think about it, I did, and am definitely doing so now that I’m talking about it — but I still didn’t leave the house and go get it.

To mix into the work load of the last few weeks, we also have the Chicago Marathon this weekend that we’ve been training for, for a year. There are the pressures there of “I know you’re tire, and over worked, but you have to keep running”.

The fear is that you get so wiped out RIGHT before the race, especially for a fear-of-failure/procrastination-sensitive person like myself, and just completely go cold turkey a few weeks out. There is a lot of ligament, bone and muscle conditioning that happens in your legs when you are running this much that would start to ease off a bit, and them WHAM, you hop yourself into a 26-mile run and good night sweet joints.

NOTE: For the runners out there, we’ve had excellent success using the Vibram FiveFinger Classics a few times a week to strengthen the micro-muscles in our feet and get rid of join and ligament pain just about everywhere. TechCrunch also loved them.

I’ve been aware of this propensity so I’ve been pushing hard to avoid it. Last week I got a few runs in, this weekend I got 1 in and so far this week I’ve gotten 2 in. I’m actually really happy with myself right now about the marathon training — it’s incredibly time consuming if you aren’t already a runner (which I’m not).

So even though there was a big gap in my last update, I did do the self hypnosis 1 time during that gap and for the most part been sticking to some pretty solid habits that aren’t a piece-of-cake easy, but easier than they were a few months ago.

If you think about what self-hypnosis is doing, the forcible creation of new neural pathways formed around new (assumed to be positive) thoughts and ideals… it seems like one of those “Duh, of course it works” types of things — but there is such a stigma around it being hocus-pocus and magic, that everyone just dismisses it.

I also think a core component that not a lot of hypnotists tell people is that you have to WANT the change. If you don’t want the change, the neural pathways won’t form. Your subconscious, from what I understand, will stop that from happening because there is no conviction in the process.

In my case, there is a shit-ton of conviction in the process because I really want these things – I’ve made some exciting changes in my life recently.

Besides typical work-related stress we have our 20-mile training run tomorrow morning at 4:30am that I’ve been dreading for 2 weeks now… well it’s finally here and every time I think about it I want a poop a little bit.

We’ll see how things go after the run is done and the feeling of success / visit to the hospital is over. At least then I can start fearing the actual Chicago Marathon and not just the practice runs

Here’s to next week…

What I am sure of is that, in general, self-hypnosis has really worked for me in terms of getting to sleep and even staying asleep. Consistently, as you’ve read in this blog, I have been able to go t o sleep when I wanted and was able to stay asleep for at least six hours a day.

I think at the end of the day the best endorsement I can give self-hypnosis is that I plan to continue using it even after the experiment. I am going to keep up the sleep script and maybe add in some things about eating right and sticking with exercise and maybe throw in some great sex. The sky is the limit.

I started this whole thing a major skeptic and I am leaving it a believer. I have still never really answered whether or not I think it is really the hypnosis or more just fulfilling prophecies based on the desire for chance but what I have settled on is that it doesn’t make a bit of difference. The results are the same either way and they are positive. I am not going to waste time being cynical about something that has helped me sleep regardless of whether it is a placebo or the real deal.

So after a month, I give the book and the program my seal of approval and have already recommended it to a couple of friends.  It was an interesting trip and I am a little sad to be at the end but as far as self-hypnosis goes for me this is just the beginning. Thanks for reading.

I can remember when I was just a wee anxious thing, quivering and quaking at the sight of my own shadow.  Now I have received my street degree in self-hypnosis, and I have a new, less stressful lease on life.

When I started this project, I was really not the least bit convinced that this would be any more compelling than the “Psychic Blue Dot” that appears periodically in the National Enquirer.  If you concentrate and rub the blue dot, you are supposed to win untold sums of money.  It doesn’t work.  I assumed this wouldn’t work, either.  I was wrong.

It is a subtle process.  At no time did I wake up with a powerful new sense of invinsibility, but I did start to wake up having slept well, and I began to notice the absence of stress where it had always been before.  I had become so used to the idea that stress would stay on me like a bad tattoo, that it never really occured to me that I could do anything more than just cover it up.  It was really nice to realize that I have options. 

As I mentioned, I have decided to try another script – probably the one that promises that I will “make more money” (although, I am fairly certain that this is not at all dissimilar to the premise of “The Secret.”)  As with anything, if you put the intention into the universe, you will see your goal to fruition.  The important thing to remember is that it also applies to negative stuff, as well.  Just like the saying, “If you think you CAN or you think you CAN’T, you’re right.”

I encourage everyone to pick up a copy of the book – Instant Self-Hypnosis by Forbes Robbins Blair – and to focus on one area that you feel you could improve, and just try it.  It will require stepping outside of your comfort zone, but “nothing ventured, nothing gained.”  You will be surprised at how well it can work if you want it to.

In closing, thank you all for following me on my psychadelic self-hypnosis trip, and I wish you all buckets of success.  The big Clout detergent-sized buckets.  Gallons of it.  Now, off I go to start my new “lower stress, higher quality” life!

Besides, I am getting VERY SLEEPY…

I think much of the success comes from the fact that the script, whether you read it or listen to it, forces you to center yourself and focus on the issue at hand.  That is half the battle.  If your conscious mind recognizes that you have an issue, that probably means that your subconscious knew about it already, but handled it by causing a particular response to the stimuli – in my case, stress triggers – and not necessarily the response that is preferred.  Instead of kicking in the system of calming me down, my subconscious scans the input briefly, interprets it quickly, and responds not with a reaction that is the result of thoughtful introspection, but rather the physiological knee-jerk of adrenaline and fear.  These scripts serve to retrain that response process, and, in the immortal words of Garth Brooks, “it’s like trying to stop a fire with the moisture from a kiss.”  It will take lots of sloppy kisses, but eventually the fire will be put out.  I am tired, and this analogy makes perfect sense to me, but if you are reading this and it looks like this:  dncid slslgh lslein, cogddnnels GAR fluber, Tns Daodndn Fdnlso, then it probably means it really DOES only make sense to me at this point.

I am going to continue to listen to this script, because I need all the help I can get!

I don’t know if I spelled that right, but since my last post I’ve had little successes all over the place, and you know what they say about a bunch of little successes… it’ll give you diarrhea.

In my case no diarrhea, but the whole “dieting” thing is still going strong… I’ve had noticeably stronger will-power to not indulge every time I walk through the kitchen or get done with a meeting at work. I put “dieting” in quotes back there because all I’m learning to do is not over-eat by 10-80% at every single meal… most of the day I feel hungry and honestly about half the time it feels intentional like I’m choosing not to eat, it’s not a passive thing — BUT, the success portion is taking the shape of my being able to keep myself on the wagon.

I caved last night and ate some ice cream and cheese puffs, but instead of eating the entire Ben and Jerry’s, I only had about 1/4 of it… that’s pretty good for me.

I worked from 5am until I went blind from mental fatigue at 5pm, ran 10 miles and then came home. I was completely ready to go into indulgence mode and rape the fridge, but I was surprised… I got myself a glass of water and we watched a movie… and I was satisfied.

I’m hungry, and I would be more than happy to eat 12 Krispy Kreme donuts or half a pizza, but I have this sort of calm control… I want all that stuff, and it still sounds fantastic, but I am not dwelling on it, every minute of the day like I normally would be. Especially after a hard work day or a huge run — you know how the thoughts go: “I DESERVE that 2000 calorie meal, I worked hard” — talk about the worst mental habit to have ever.

That’s like teaching yourself to buy something really expensive every time you save a dime… it’s damning, especially in the long run.

So I did the script tonight, since it’s Wednesday, and I noticed that if I turn on the “Beach” setting on the Brookstone Tranquil Moments Sound Therapy Machine we have while I read, I get into that hypnotized/monotone state a bit faster. I don’t necessarily think it has to do with helping me visualize the beach scene at the beginning of the “Induction” script — I have always visualized that fine — it happens right after when stepping into the modern building, that’s my favorite part. I’ll notice my voice down-shift into a more controlled/monotone setting and I feel just a hair different. I think the sound therapy machine helps occupy the wandering part of my mind just enough so it doesn’t trail off thinking about garbage and distract me, so I can focus on the reading.

The one take away thus far that I’m noticing is not so much random/unpredictable success, like winning the lottery, it’s more along the lines of a calm dedication or persistence to my behavior that is allowing me to stay on-task longer and accomplish more during the day, thus giving me more successes… so that’s a pretty neat side effect.

Day 2 definitely looking good so far.

Update #1: I meant to mention, I almost didn’t write this post until tomorrow morning because I’m really tired… but after reading the script it just made sense that I write it right now. I fully expected to cop-out on myself, but I didn’t… so that’s something.

My sleep was good again though and I woke up feeling refreshed. As I write this, I am a little sleepy but I don’t think I am going to be falling asleep at my desk or anything.

My dreams were not as weird or disturbing, just very vivid. My first was me deciding to go look at an open house in an apartment building which was old and sort of run down in a really cool sort of way and finding out it was haunted. The whole of the dream was me trying to get over my fear of interpersonal interaction and actually asking them if we can investigate it for the book. When they started hedging I talked up our books and groups like they were the best things ever. Which, of course, they are.

The second dream had me taking on the role of Wolverine having to subdue mutant insurgents from assassinating a businessman with possible ties to organized crime as I was undercover with him. Some other super hero was with me and I don’t remember who but the rest of the insurgents were actually other X-men who had been brainwashed. I am not sure when Chris Claremont started writing my dreams but it was pretty awesome.

Tomorrow night is one of my nights off and I will be able to sleep as late as I want before karaoke so hopefully I will get a lot of rest for the last day of the experiment. I am sure you are all waiting with baited breath.

Nothing special really happened either. I took my friend to the airport after work and picked up my girlfriend from work, did my script, ate something and then went to bed around 8:30. My girlfriend left to go check in on her dad after his surgery and came back around noon. I woke up briefly to ask how he was doing and then, miracle of miracles, I went back to sleep. I didn’t wake up again until 5:30.  And I felt really great and really refreshed. I showered, ate some soup and hit up Gamestop for Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2, which I was excited to do but again, much like with Batman, my excitement for going and getting the game did not hamper my sleep the way it might have in the past.

When I did the sleep process, I didn’t even make it to the countdown. I visualized the beach and the sun and thought about the countdown and that was it. When I went back to sleep after Summer came home I got to 98 on the countdown. BAM!

One aspect of this whole thing that has emerged that I didn’t anticipate and frankly don’t like much is the weirdness of the dreams. I can’t say they are nightmares exactly, they are just mildly disturbing and strange. My dreams today had me as a wealthy magnate of some kind in a Vincent Price sort of mansion with servants and such. I apparently had two pet snakes and for some reason, said snakes ran wild in the house and liked to sleep in bed with me. The disturbing bit came in when I discovered these snakes, who looked like bull snakes or some other non-venomous garden snakes, had little rattles on the end of there tails which made them pit vipers and thus poisonous. I tried to remove them from under the covers of the bed in which I was sleeping but they kept slithering right back in as, apparently, they ‘loved’ me and liked to snuggle. And you know, there is only so much arguing you want to do with venomous snakes. I suspect that this had to do with my cat Daisy getting under the covers all the time and that when I woke up Thunder was curled up at my side but still, it was disturbing.

Disturbing as the dream was I do have to mention a couple of things about it. The first is that, as I have mentioned, I used to have re-occurring nightmares about snakes. I had these things for years and I was terrified of them, just completely terrified. Not only would they wake me up but I didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of going back to sleep afterward. Now, I seem to be having snake dreams but they don’t bother me that much. For the snakes to be in bed with me, a scenario that has played out many times in dreams, is just that much more remarkable because that would have normally mean that I was going to be up for the next day or so. This time I just kept on sleeping and only mildly vexed in my dream that I had somehow managed to collect a couple of venomous pets. I kept thinking in the dream ‘well the must have had their venom glands removed or something because otherwise what the hell would I be doing with them in bed with me?’ Ah dreams.

Second, I was actually dreaming about sleeping. I think if we are dealing with breaking into the sub-conscious and slipping passed the bouncer then dreams about sleep itself is significant given that dreams are essentially a downloading and processing of information by our sub-conscious. I am not sure what dreaming about sleep says exactly, I just find it noteworthy.

Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to keep this trend up. I am liking nine hours of sleep for sure. Hopefully we can start going steady.

I don’t really understand why I choose to postpone something that I already know makes me feel better.  Significantly.  Even as I was going to bed last night, I felt so wound up because I knew I would have to get up and walk my son to the bus stop – something that I have already described as a stressor. 

One of the takeaways of this exercise in the long term needs to be “it doesn’t work if you don’t do it.”  It needs to be treated like any other maintenance program.  If you have high blood pressure, you can’t just take a few high blood pressure pills and call your blood pressure “controlled.”  The same applies here.  You have to keep reinforcing the information into your subconscious in order for it to be disbursed into the synaptical pathways.

I am definitely going to listen to it tonight.  It just doesn’t make sense to skip this part of my routine.  That is the same as me choosing to have anxiety.  I don’t like the feeling of anxiety gnawing on my solar plexus with dull teeth. 

Just keep on keepin’ on.

Even with how tired I was, I ran through the sleep process anyway because often times being tired and sleepy has very little to do with whether or not I can go to sleep. I was out before I got to 95. In this case, I stayed out too.

The dreams were pretty crazy though. Something about having to save four of my friends from indoctrination into a cult which was in turn trying to mess up my life only to have them remove the transmission from my car while I wasn’t looking. It was weird.  I don’t know if I blame the self-hypnosis though because I DID watch the True Blood season finale right before bed and the leader of the cult was Steve Newlin, leader of the Fellowship of the Sun. So I think that was it more than anything else.

I spent today with my friend from out of town and my girlfriend. We went to El Charro for a late lunch where in a creepy waiter took it upon himself to flirt mercilessly with my girlfriend. I am not sure in what universe asking if someone is going to share their order with you is a viable option to coax digits but it was not appreciated. Of course, I am not the sort of dude to make some kind of scene about this sort of thing. I have an attractive girlfriend. It happens. I am not going to pound my chest like a gorilla and do some kind of preening behavior on her to shower ‘ownership.’ I am insecure but not THAT insecure.

After that we went to Yikes toy store where I purchased a bath tub stopper with a floating newspaper boat attached. After that we had a second round of frozen yogurt from By the Ounce as my friend was quite taken with it and then made our way to the mall for the sorts of nick knacks you are supposed to bring people back from vacations.

After all that, I am sitting at work staring at my computer screen listening to music channels on Pandora and hoping that I can make it through my shift. Thankfully it is short since I have to take my friend to the airport at 6:30 but it is going to be a struggle. My failure last night is coming to collect on its bill and I am not very happy about it. Oh well, it could be worse and my job could be difficult and tiring.

I will say that the Success script is my favorite… it’s very empowering and intense. The Self-Confidence one I feel lame reading, because it’s not masculine to not be self-confident, but I figure it’s good for me so I do it. As for the Procrastination script, it’s very straight forward and I think a perfect balance between the other two.

My pattern thus far has been to read Success then one of the other ones before reading the Wake-up and coming out of self-hypnosis. The entire process takes about 8 mins I think.

Something worth noting is that while reading the Induction, that gets you into the self-hypnotic state, right after the part that talks about the ocean and the beach and you get inside the building to take the elevator down (it’s an illusion for conquering your subconscious) I notice the tone of my voice shift noticeably. It gets really serene and calm.

NOTE: This is not the first time I’m reading these scripts though, I’ve been dabbling for a month on and off. The first time I cracked the book I felt/saw no noticeable difference in myself while reading, now that I’ve done it about 10 times, I am starting to be able to recognize the shift into “suggestive state”.

Goal for the Week

One goal that I have for myself this week is to significantly decrease my portion sizes.

I’m coming off a week of the flu and lost about 5lbs for no eating — which is incredibly timely because I’m doing the Chicago Marathon next month and need to be as light as humanly possible.

I’m trying to ride the momentum from the flu forward through the week and just keep my intake down so I can keep a lower weight and hopefully loose a bit more before heading out for Chicago.

I’m a textbook “reward myself with tasty food” person. I work my ass off and then turn to a pizza, burger or other source of many more calories than I need as a reward as the day winds down. I’ve caught myself no less than 3x every day falling into that pattern, but surprisingly have been able to break that habit and turn towards a glass of water or something else with a bit more ease than I expected.

I’m feeling good about this so far, I know I feel very positive and confident when I finish with the scripts… I have to imagine after a month of this, neurons will be rebinding in interesting ways.

I love the Desert Museum but after a few hours in the blazing heat you want nothing more than to get the hell out of there and get some ice cream. Which is what we did. We went to By the Ounce frozen yogurt and I had a cup of taro frozen yogurt with Fruity Pebbles, Fruit Loops, Reese’s Pieces , sprinkles, mini-white chocolate chips and some caramel sauce.  We attempted to go to  Yikes! Toy Story in effort to get a bath tub stopper with a boat attached to it but we were foiled by it being Sunday and we were diverted to Bohemia art gallery.

My friend went back to her hotel, my girlfriend went to her parents’ house and I showered and watched the True Blood series finale. I reconvened with my friend so she could show me some Krav Maga she has been taking. We then met up with another friend and went to Ra Sushi followed by drinks at Hotel Congress. It was a full day.

Currently it is 1:25 in the morning and my girlfriend and I are struggling to stay awake as we both need to sleep during the day tomorrow so we aren’t facing this kind of torment tomorrow night at work. But it is really hard. It is funny to think about when I started this blog I was having a huge problem sleeping but now I am trying to stay awake. It would be so nice to go to sleep right now but I really can’t or tomorrow is going to suck. If only there was a script to stay awake…

After that we headed to the movie theater to meet another friend and saw 9. We then hopped to Extract. Both were  good but Extract was super awesome. After the movies, my girlfriend and I came home and I decided I needed to take a walk. So at 12:2o am I went for a roughly two mile walk.

I say all this to set up that when I got back from the walk I went to bed around 2am. I did my process and went right to sleep. My alarm went off at 9am and I felt pretty good. Seven hours of sleep is not bad and I actually felt refreshed. It was nice to sleep all the way through. I was sort of bummed when I had to sleep at night instead of the day time but I needed to do things during the day.  This means that now I am going to have to stay awake all night long to sleep tomorrow. It will be a long day today and tonight.

The last two days have been keeping with the status quo.  Stress is under control – ish, so more frequently I have nothing new to report.  Even though my 30 days of this experiment are drawing to a close, I am going to up the ante personally be trying a different script.  After reading Riyad speak so enthusiastically about the script for achieving success, I am inclined to give that a shot.  Now, I feel I need to define “success” in order for any new undertaking to be…well…successful.  By success, I mean I want to create lots of positive, cruelty-free cashflow.  I have bountiful success in most areas of my life, but I can always find a way to utilize more money, and so I would like to try that one on for size.

If I could generate more money for myself and my family, I could easily eliminate a few of my stress triggers, simply because money = choices, and it also equals not having to settle for a situation that may not be the most conducive to personal comfort.  I want personal comfort.  I HEART personal comfort.

In an odd way, this book of scripts kind of reminds me of when you pick one room in your house to clean and keep immaculate, but, in order to achieve that, you actually end up taking all of the clutter and stacking it up in the other rooms.  Now you have a fantastic living room, but you can’t even really walk through your kitchen without a struggle.  I have been working on decluttering the “stress” part of it, but there seems to be a lack of focus from the productivity part of my cluttered house. 

It’s time to invoke the powers of the emotional Dyson Ball.

Incase you guys haven’t been following the site regularly or aren’t familiar with what’s going on here, this is the gist:

• This site is focused on establishing in self-hypnosis really works
• Challenges have been issued to a few folks to try self-hypnosis for 30 days
• For now, we are using Forbes Blair’s book Instant Self-Hypnosis
• Katie and Patrick have been blogging for close to a month and are reporting mostly good levels of success
• So now I am committing myself to my own 30 day regimen

I’ve been reading Katie and Patrick blog about this process for the last month and see them go from “Is this crap real?” to “Hey, it works!” and I’m convinced there is something here.

When I originally picked up the Instant Self-Hypnosis book, I immediately honed in on the scripts pertaining to eating right and exercise, I know, how cliched… I make myself sick sometimes. In a move that hardly surprised me, after 4 or 5 half-assed days of reading the scripts (and actually having some success with them) I dropped the regiment. Naturally, I justified the broken promise to myself (mentally) by explaining how my schedule was unpredictable and I couldn’t make the time to sit down and focus on the script once a day. Naturally, this was all a load of crap, the script takes like 4mins to read. I was just protecting my delicate ego

ASIDE: A “script” is a self-hypnosis script to help you improve some aspect of your life. The Self-Hypnosis book referenced above comes with 30+ scripts in it for common things like better sex, self-confidence, better sleep, loosing weight, better memory and so on.

It was only around Day 20 or so of reading Patrick and Katie’s success with self-hypnosis that I sat down and decided to really think about what my problem was; and no matter how much I thought a rock-hard-six-pack was going to help me, I sincerely doubted that was actually my problem.

It took a good day of thought and analysis that I realized my problem is primarily with follow-through with promises I make to myself. Luckily I am a pleaser-personality, so my desire to make everyone around me happy enforces my commitments to others, but to myself… I break promises all the time.

Flipping through Instant Self-Hypnosis, I noticed an entirely different set of scripts looking more interesting to me this time through. No longer was I focused on the “Make more money” or “Have more intense workouts” scripts, but I was starting to hone in on the scripts that pertained to “Success” and “Procrastination”.

I think that underneath my half-assed-follow-through with self-improvement promises to myself is ultimately a fear of failure… a crippling fear of failure. A discomfort so deep that it’s just easier if I never try, because at least I can convince myself (through years of self-talk) that I COULD have done something… if I had tried.

That’s a lot less painful then actually TRYING something and failing horribly at it and needing to realize you just plain suck at something.

Anyway I decided on the following three scripts to juggling around (since they are all related) over the next 30 days, reading them 3-4x a week:

• Success
• Total Self-Confidence
• No More Procrastination

The “Success” one is by far my favorite… it’s a very intense/affirmative “I WILL succeed, I WILL be awesome” type of script that amps me up. Total Self-Confidence is a bit softer but I think it’s more of a longer term “shaping” script that will help in the long run. Lastly, “No More Procrastination” is really straight forward, but really works to provide the “proof” that will be required for the other two scripts to be successful I think.

In a way I think I’ve found the perfect trifecta of scripts to combine.

I hope to come out of this next 30 day period with a very subtle, but noticeable veil of confidence and success pulled over my eyes that I begin to see my life with every day instead of juggling “good days” and “bad days” like I do now.

Wish me luck, I’ll keep you guys posted!