Adding suggestions for relaxation

At the same time as getting you to focus, and go into trance, you need to add suggestions to relax so that the experience gives you the maximum benefit.

The real secret of modern hypnosis

Not so long ago hypnotists would tell there subjects to relax and go into trance with statements like "Go into hypnosis", "your eyes are getting heavier" and "you will relax when I snap my fingers". Not surprisingly only a few people went into hypnosis this way as people often don’t like to be told what to do.

To get round this problem we use phrases that are more acceptable like "you could allow your eyes to get heavier" and "what would it feel like to be so relaxed right now". Statements and questions like these cause us to turn our thoughts inward and develop rapport and agreement because the phrases cannot be argued with. Here are a few more:

You could imagine relaxing totally while sitting in that chair

Your may want to keep your eyes open a little while longer

You could notice the way a hand feels

Perhaps you could even imagine using the word "perhaps" to start a sentence

Embedded commands

An embedded command is a command to do something that has been embedded inside a sentence. For example the command "relax completely" can be embedded inside the sentence "when people relax completely their body becomes very still". The command is usually emphasized subtly by either pausing either side of the command or by changing the voice slightly. Here are a few more examples:

You could notice the way a hand feels as you go into hypnosis

People often start to drift into a trance when they read a book

You could even find you drift deeper into trance by listening to the silences in between these words

Three magic words - "as", "and" and "like"

These three words allow suggestions to be linked together. This has the added advantage of making sentences longer, and people generally have to concentrate harder to understand longer what you are saying. If a person is presented with lots of long sentences, it is easier for them to "escape" into trance than to understand everything that is being said. Here are a few examples:

Perhaps you might notice how much you can relax and go into hypnosis as you sit in that chair, just by reading this sentence

When a person starts to go into hypnosis and they start to relax, quite often the lines around the sides of the eyes will begin to smooth out, and as cheek muscles start to relax allowing blood to flow differently around the different facial muscles, sometimes you can notice a change in the colour of those cheeks....

Notice that you can mix and match different techniques in the same sentence. Have a look though the last two examples and notice the way that the sentence have been structured to be able to use embedded commands.