‘MORE’ from Nic Askew on Vimeo.

A critical comment about the study stood out from the page for me. After all, we can’t have people feeling good for no reason, can we?

Ellen Mason, of the British Heart Foundation, suggested an association between heart disease and positivity may be of limited value. “We know that improving your mood isn’t always easy – so we don’t know if it’s possible to change our natural levels of positivity.”

Blimey, hold on a second Ellen! Improving mood isn’t always easy is it? Let’s make a post-hypnotic suggestion that it’s hard, then people might give up feeling good before they begin. It could get easier with practice. You know, there might be some benefits to that, maybe just maybe?

Now the second part of this statement really interests me – natural levels of positivity. Are there such natural levels? I know about half-full and emply glasses of course, and people’s ‘default settings’ vary of course. You complain it’s raining, I enjoy the opportunity to be closer in touch with nature. A ‘natural level of positivity’ though? Where does that ‘naturally’ come from? And “we don’t know if it’s possible to change.”. Er, we do. It is. Well so clients tell me anyway …

I’ll assume her point really is that wandering around smiling and feeling good won’t necessarily prevent or cure heart disease. And I agree, positivity won’t automatically do anything (and of course I’d better insert an instruction here to consult your doctor if you even suspect your heart needs a check).

Smile and be positive anyway though. It’s free and gives you more choices to be happy.

A client was telling me today about the goal planning he was eoncouraged to do by his employer. They tell him to plan in three-month chunks. They argue that three months is long enough to achieve something worthwhile, or to complete a project, and not too far into the future that you can’t see the end.

His question was about the bigger picture. Sure, you could live your enture life never lookig more than three months ahead. What would that do for you? Sometimes it’s great to imagine yourself rising above your life so that you can see your entire timeline. So that you can see what lies ahead from now until  – when? Well, at least until you’re heading towards your next major change, and it’s good to have an overview of your entire life.

That’s one reason my Personal Transformation programme is about finding life purpose. It’s a systematic way of addressing the rest of your life as a whole. Sure, your next three months can be a good way of starting, and then you can discover your next three years, and your next 30 years.

If you like to think about goals, well this is a way of setting the goals for your life. Or your outcomes. Or your results. Whatever terms you use. The key is to be able to life your life on your terms. And if (after Seth Godin) that means pushing your life reset button, then Personal Transformation is your way of doing just that.

That line was in Seth Godin’s blog today, and he was talking about his new book ‘Linchpin’ (Amazon aff.)

I’m posting that here because I’ve noticed that sometimes people – you? – back away when I ask a challenging question. Sometimes even a cheeky or what you might see as an impertinant question. Sometimes I notice inconsistancies in what you’re saying and I challenge those. Why? Because we’re not having a polite conversation. You’re wanting change in your life and you’re paying me to generate that change, or at least to enable you to find your way of changing.

So I’m creating leverage. I’m enabling you to break out of what you’ve always thought and think differently. Sometimes, often, that’s uncomfortable. If you want to stay comfortable and live the way you’ve always lived, don’t call me.

I’m completing the first draft of a new and f.ree report which is for men dealing with a midlife crisis. That’s where I’m discovering I can make my greatest contribution, based on the clients I’m attracting.

More details in a few days. I’m blogging about it now because I’d love to hear from you if you are a man dealing with your midlife crisis, or if you’ve been though such an experience. If there was one idea you wish you knew about when you were in the middle of your crisis, or if there’s one action I could help you with right now, what would that be? Let me know and not only will the report be even more relevant, I’ll arrange something special for all of you who reply on topic.

Thank you!

We’re all here for a reason so you could reflect on your special contribution to the world (we ALL have a special contribution to make). Or you could just relax and allow your mind to do some background thinking about how good next year is going to be for you.

Whatever works for you works for you.

Just have a great one!

With love,
Ian

Details of how you can book a private consultation are now at Just Be Well. You can find out more about NLP and hypnosis there too. I’m honoured to be a member of that highly professional team so I encourage you to have a look around.

I’ve renamed ‘Mind Trance-formation’ as ‘Mind Enhancement’ and re-written the page to give you an even better insight into how you can remove all of your limiting beliefs and become more focused. Expect to read much more about this in this blog over the next few weeks because the Mind Enhancement programme is going to be very active.

Hypnosis has a “very real” effect that can be picked up on brain scans, say Hull University researchers.

An imaging study of hypnotised participants showed decreased activity in the parts of the brain linked with daydreaming or letting the mind wander.

The same brain patterns were absent in people who had the tests but who were not susceptible to being hypnotised.

One psychologist said the study backed the theory that hypnosis “primes” the brain to be open to suggestion.

Hypnosis is increasingly being used to help people stop smoking or lose weight and advisers recently recommended its use on the NHS to treat irritable bowel syndrome.

It is not the first time researchers have tried to use imaging studies to monitor brain activity in people under hypnosis.

But the Hull team said these had been done while people had been asked to carry out tasks, so it was not clear whether the changes in the brain were due to the act of doing the task or an effect of hypnosis.

In the latest study, the team first tested how people responded to hypnosis and selected 10 individuals who were “highly suggestible” and seven people who did not really respond to the technique other than becoming more relaxed.

The participants were asked to do a task under hypnosis, such as listening to non-existent music, but unknown to them the brain activity was being monitored in the rest periods in between tasks, the team reported in the journal Consciousness and Cognition.

Default mode

In the “highly suggestible” group there was decreased activity in the part of the brain involved in daydreaming or letting the mind wander – also known as the “default mode” network.

One suggestion of how hypnosis works, supported by the results, is that shutting off this activity leaves the brain free to concentrate on other tasks.

Study leader Dr William McGeown, a lecturer in the department of psychology, said the results were unequivocal because they only occurred in the highly suggestible subjects.

“This shows that the changes were due to hypnosis and not just simple relaxation. “Our study shows hypnosis is real.”

Dr Michael Heap, a clinical forensic psychologist based in Sheffield, said the experiment was unique in showing brain patterns supporting the theory that hypnosis works by “priming” the subject to respond more effectively to suggestions.

“Importantly the data confirm that relaxation is not a critical factor.

“The limited data from this experiment suggest that this pattern of activity then dissipates (at least to some extent) once the subjects start to engage in the suggestions that follow.”

But he said the small study, which needed repeating in other populations, did not prove that people being hypnotised were in an actual “trance”.

Regarding that last comment – it will be interesting, one day, to know if people are in “actual ‘trance’” when hypnosed. But not that interesting really. When you come to me to be hypnotised because your mind needs to make some changes, you go away with those changes. The technicality of being in an ‘actual trance’ – is just a technicality.

Thinking problem? Yes – if you’re anxious, worried, depressed, fearful, have a phobia, a relationship issue, can’t sleep, or a million other things – well it’s because of the way you’ve learned to think (mostly – I know some problems are physical too, or even only, which is why I ask for your doctor’s details on my notes form and always suggest you check with him or her, especially if you’re already receiving treatment). So, if you learned to think one way and are not getting the results you want, then the trick is to think another way. easy. Okay, not necessarily that easy but definitely entirely possible.

I want to offer you some ways of getting started on changing your mind, so most days I’ll be posting a mind exercise in this blog. Feel free to subscribe to the RSS feed and receive all the updates, or get on the inside and subscribe to my newsletter (which goes out most Wednesdays) because subscribers (it’s f.ree) receive exclusive benefits, starting with an hypnotic MP3.

I write two other blogs – Signal Not Noise is my thoughts on life, the universe and everything. NLP, hypnosis, and a few Jedi mind tricks too. It’s my place to play a little. And I also write a blog on my other website, Ian Sharp Associates, which offers trainings for business and education.

In an interview published yesterday, Shirley Bassey and Tom Jones were described as ‘belters’. The interviewer, Simon Hattenstone, was corrected by Dame Shirley: “Belting is disrespectful, you know. Only my kind of singer is accused of belting. You don’t say that opera singers belt. I don’t belt. That’s just my voice.”

He asked: does Tom Jones belt? “He sings. He’s a singer. Amateurs belt. We’ve both learned our craft and we don’t deserve to be accused of belting.”

I think she was right to pick up on that. Language matters.

How do you describe what you do to yourself and others? Is your description a proper reflection of you?