Hypnosis can be beneficial even when you are over 50. Getting a good night's sleep, or conquering a phobia, are just two of the benefits you can bring to yourself with hypnosis. Others include: controlling pain, dealing with disease, positivity about surgery, reduction of medications, overcoming guilt, defusing disturbing memories, improving relationships with family members. Hypnosis for Seniors to Enjoy A Good Night's Sleep

There are two ways hypnosis can help you sleep better: by dealing with the symptoms or by dealing with the cause. The first can be done on your own, or with a hypnotherapist. The second usually requires the guidance of a professional.

Once you've learned the simple steps to put yourself into hypnosis (see, for example, detailed instructions in my book Health and Happiness with Hypnosis) you can give yourself positive suggestions about drifting into a deep, refreshing sleep.

Harold is a 75-year-old who had no trouble sleeping at night but who found he could no longer enjoy his afternoon nap. At the root of his difficulty in letting himself sleep in the afternoons was a fear that he might never awaken. This was easily dealt with by providing Harold with an audiotape that put him into a pleasant state of hypnosis, with positive suggestions about enjoying a deep, refreshing sleep and awakening at the time he chose. Now Harold drifts off to sleep whenever he wants.

With Hypnosis Grandparents Can Fly Without Fear

Some seniors don't see their adult children, or the grandchildren, very often because they live a long way away and the seniors are afraid to fly. This used to bother Amelia. But after three intensive hypnosis sessions with a psychotherapist she was no longer afraid to fly. Now Amelia even enjoys flying -- and sees the grandkids much more often. What Amelia learned, with the help of hypnosis, was to be calm and relaxed and to know, deep within, that she is always in control of herself. This was important because at the core of most phobias and panic attacks is an issue of control.

Hypnotherapy Puts Paid to 50 Years of Fear of the Dentist

Sometimes a person develops a phobia because of something traumatic that happened to him or her. Although this was not the case with Amelia, trauma had caused 60-year-old George to fear going to the dentist.

When George was a child he'd lived in a country where dental care was primitive and where children were far from coddled. The dentists' cold-hearted manner, the absence of explanation of what was being done, and the excruciating pain, left George with terrifying memories. As a consequence, he had avoided dentists for several decades. Now he needed urgent work to be done on his teeth. Despite rational reassurance that dentists in Canada are gentle and that modern dental equipment is virtually pain-free, George could not shake his phobia. Until a hypnotherapist showed him how to use the power of his mind to let go of that half-century of fear. And to be calm and relaxed while visiting the dentist.

Golden Agers Can Control Pain with Hypnosis

The main reason hypnosis can help you is that the perception of pain is highly subjective. And it (the perception) is under the control of brain processes which are directly influenced by hypnotic suggestions. These can be given to yourself just before entering self-hypnosis, or received as post-hypnotic suggestions from a therapist. In either case, this should always be done with your doctor's knowledge.

There are a number of techniques a hypnotherapist can teach you so that you can develop control over pain, rather than it controlling you.

Hypnosis Can Help Baby Boomers Deal with Disease

Much research has gone into the role of hypnosis in combatting disease. There is some evidence that some people are able to use the power of their subconscious minds to improve their physical health. While the ability of hypnosis to prolong life is a controversial topic, there is no doubt that disease-ridden people are able to use hypnosis to improve the quality of whatever time they have left.

There's no mystery to this: our ability to enjoy life, even while suffering from a serious illness, is largely determined by our beliefs. We each have our own views of disease and death. If those views are fatalistic and self-defeating, we subjectively suffer more. If those views are optimistic and self-enhancing, we subjectively suffer less. And hypnosis can make the difference.

Overcome Even 50 Years of Feeling Guilty

Often a senior has something he or she feels guilty about; perhaps something from much earlier in their life. Such guilt may become more acute as the end of life looms nearer. Hypnosis can help you exercise the courage necessary to take appropriate action to make amends. Or, if that is impractical, hypnotherapy can enable you to release the guilt feelings. This usually involves self-forgiveness. And for truly profound effectiveness, that has to be within not only the conscious mind, but the subconscious.

Hypnosis Can Remove An Elderly Person's Fear of Surgery

You can be much better prepared for surgery, and heal more quickly after the operation, by using hypnosis. My 8-blockages bypass surgery proceeded easily thanks to a personalized hypnotic audiotape. After the operation I was off pain killers in 2 days and out of the hospital 4 days later. A similar audiotape I made for a colleague about to undergo a serious operation likewise made the ordeal much easier on him.

Hypnosis enables you to have a positive view of the outcome of your surgery, to minimize the need for pain medication and to heal swiftly.

Seniors Can Reduce Their Meds With Hypnosis

Naturally your medications should only be reduced with your doctor's approval. It's possible that hypnotic suggestions permit your body to optimise its use of prescribed drugs. More likely is that the right hypnotic suggestions enable you to eat properly and to exercise sufficiently so that your need for drugs to, for example, reduce your high blood pressure, is minimized.

Hypnotherapy Can Defuse Disturbing Memories

Hypnotherapy is very effective in helping a senior who, many years ago, suffered sexual or other abuse. Even when the trauma has caused you decades of distress you can free yourself from its suffocating aftermath. This is done with the remarkable ability of hypnosis to, in a sense, rewrite your history. So you know the event happened, but you are no longer tormented by it.

For 55-year-old Henri, the emotional pains of childhood were as fresh as if they'd just happened. His father had made fun of him, his teachers mocked him, and other children had teased him unmercifully -- all because he was not bright and not athletic. He became shy, withdrawn and antisocial.

As an adult he continued to suffer until hypnotherapy liberated him from the deep feelings of humilitation. Henri learned how to use hypnosis to build his confidence and self-esteem. He changed the degrading messages in his subconscious and replaced them with uplifting ones.

Henri accepted that you can't change the past but you can change the future.

Hypnotize Your Way to Improving Family Relationships

Family conflicts can be the bane of an older person's existence. You can use hypnosis to end the symptoms. For example, in hypnosis, you visualize yourself behaving well with that son-in-law you detest. Even more therapeutic is to go to the cause while in hypnosis and deal with it constructively.

The changes you thus make in your subconscious bring peace to you -- and the family.

Never Too Old To Improve Your Life With Hypnosis

You're never too old to harness the power of your mind. A Senior -- just like a Junior -- can choose to stop NSH (Negative Self-Hypnosis) and create PSH (Positive Self-Hypnosis). A person of any age can change their present and future for the better.