By: Claire Hannum, Travel & Wellness Writer
If you’re eager to lose weight or if you have a less than ideal relationship with food, you’re not alone. Weight loss doesn’t have to be complicated! Tools like meditation and hypnosis have helped guide thousands of people along the path to weight loss, without all the resistance and struggle of crash diets. How can meditation and hypnosis help you lose weight? Here’s what you need to know.
Meditation can help you manage emotional eating.
Research has indicated that meditation can play a helpful role in weight loss. Meditation is a brilliant tool for managing stress, and when you’re less stressed, you’re less inclined to emotionally eat.
Meditation can also help you transition from a more reactive state of mind to a more proactive state. In the case of food, that makes you better equipped to plan healthier meals in advance rather than grabbing junk food as a knee-jerk solution when you’re hungry and in a hurry. (Unplug even has specific meditations to help you pause when you’re feeling tempted to reach for unhealthy food.)
When you regularly meditate, you’re more likely to consider how you’re feeling in the moments before and after eating. You’re better equipped to notice which foods make you feel most vibrant and which foods make you tired, and which feelings most trigger you to reach for unhealthy foods. Research has found that those who practice mindfulness for weight loss are more likely to keep that weight off once losing it.
Meditation can help you practice intuitive eating.
Intuitive eating is practice that involves choosing foods without guilt, listening to your body’s hunger and fullness cues, and savoring the joy of each meal. This practice has been associated with healthy and successful weight loss - and meditation can help you thrive at it.
When you eat intuitively, your focus is on enjoying the experience of each meal, and appreciating your body’s needs and capabilities. When you lose yourself in the taste, smell, and overall sensory journey of your food, you’re too busy living in the present moment to default back to unhealthy thought patterns around food. Unplug’s mindful eating and healthy eating meditations can help you hone in on this practice.
Hypnosis can transform the way you feel about food.
Research has indicated that hypnosis may be able to help people quit smoking, reduce anxiety, and improve their confidence. It’s no surprise, then, that research also points to hypnosis as a powerful potential weight loss tool.
In addition to its potential ability to modify behavior, research shows that hypnosis might be able to increase weight loss. If you want to dip your toe into the world of hypnosis, you might want to begin with visualization. Just like people visualize themselves slaying a big speech or sporting event before they begin, you can envision a day of positive food choices. Try this for a few days in a row and monitor any differences in how you feel.
Next, you’ll want to dive a bit deeper by trying a few hypnosis sessions, which draw upon the help of guided imagery and other techniques to help you kiss cravings goodbye.
Whether you’re drawn to hypnosis, meditation, or both, Unplug’s library of 500+ guided meditations has everything you need. Sessions in the app focus on everything from carb cravings to curbing overeating to reaching for healthier snacks. A more positive relationship with food - and maybe even a smaller waistline - is more connected to your mind than you might think.
