Meditation vs Hypnosis

Meditation and hypnosis both use the focusing power of the mind to help people make lasting changes. Both practices can help one increase mental clarity, focus and concentration. Similar to other wellness practices like yoga or Guided Imagery, both meditation and hypnosis have many benefits.

Studies have shown that those who meditate on a regular basis actually show increased activity in the left frontal lobe of the brain, along with a significant increase in levels of happiness and positive emotions.

Meditation has many benefits, including helping provide you with peace of mind and greater happiness. While many people may be familiar with different ways in which they can improve their life, some don’t think of tools like meditation or hypnosis as tools that can be used to help them live a better life.

Meditation Facts

Meditation is really just a state of focus. While meditation is a wonderful way to quiet the mind, you can also meditate by using the concept of a single point of focus. If you have trouble sitting quietly and “turning your mind off,” you can try staring at the flame of a candle or focusing on a beautiful flower instead. If that is too challenging, you might want to try something called a walking meditation, where you walk and focus intently on the environment around you.

What happens during the process of meditation is that your brain activity goes down when you hold that single point of focus. Both meditation and hypnosis work by helping you shift the relationship of your conscious mind to the brain and the rest of the body. This shift occurs because of that single point of focus.

Meditation is a wonderful way to relieve stress and anxiety, and it can help melt away the layers of stress that tend to build up over time. In terms of stress management alone, nothing beats the simplicity of a simple meditation.

We usually only become aware of something like stress when it begins to overwhelm us in some way. When we sense danger, whether it is real or imagined, our body’s fight or flight response as well as our nervous system kicks into high gear.

Hypnosis Facts

Hypnosis might be thought of as a very deep form of meditation, but the main difference might be the directing of the unconscious mind towards a specific change. While the main focus of a meditation is often to quiet the mind or be present in the moment, both practices are very similar. Hypnosis does help someone override the conscious mind so that the subconscious mind can come to the forefront where changes are more easily made.

The practice of hypnosis is really just another form of focus, like meditation. However, hypnosis has a much different focus and outcome since it is typically directed towards a very specific goal like smoking cessation or weight loss. Some studies have shown that a short hypnosis session can be just as effective as several hours of sleep, which is quite amazing.

Both meditation and hypnosis can be used to help you make life changes. There are different kinds of meditation, from mindfulness meditation where someone is grounded in the present moment to a guided meditation that can help you visualize yourself making changes more easily.

Both hypnosis and meditation are immensely healing and beneficial. So more often than not, it comes down to personal preference. The best rule of thumb is to use the practice you are more comfortable with. Make a point to try both practices, and see which one resonates with you. Either way, you can’t go wrong.