WarpMyMind

Hi all,

Well, basically I was just interested to hear thoughts and experiences regarding physical effects of hypnotic suggestions. I'm sure we've all heard of hypnosis altering body temperature and even the wonder stories of boosting people's immune systems and halting or regressing tumor growth and whatever, though I haven't read any studies about this so I guess I don't know how credible some of this stuff is.

I was just asking because I'm working out a lot and was thinking of supplementing the regimen I'm on with suggestions to exercise more, get bigger, stronger etc. Obviously some of these would just be behavioural stuff, not physical, but I was thinking of trying out direct physical suggestions to see if they enhanced the physical development any. It would be difficult to kind of guage whether the growth is due to the exercise or to hypnosis though, but I guess it couldn't hurt?

Anyways, just interesting in reading anecdotes, research or whatever about the physical effects of hypnosis to see how viable the type of suggestions I'm going to try out might be.

Fixx wrote:...though I haven't read any studies about this so I guess I don't know how credible some of this stuff is.

I was just asking because I'm working out a lot and was thinking of supplementing the regimen I'm on with suggestions to exercise more, get bigger, stronger etc. Obviously some of these would just be behavioural stuff, not physical, but I was thinking of trying out direct physical suggestions to see if they enhanced the physical development any. It would be difficult to kind of guage whether the growth is due to the exercise or to hypnosis though, but I guess it couldn't hurt?

I wish I had the citation, but there's research that has shown that "visualization" of exercise was up to 30% as effective in terms of strength gains as actual exercise. I don't think the study addressed increasing the "dose" of their visualization versus the "dose" of actual exercise to make up the difference. In any case, this does give you something do do on days between workouts (assuming that you have non-training days).

Thirty percent might not sound like much, but consider that you can get your third of a workout while lying in bed or riding the bus, etc., and it starts to look better.

Somebody here is bound to have the citation on this one. Somebody?

-- Blink

Firstly, many thanks for the responses guys, what you've both said has been pretty interesting.

Blink,

Actually I did think (up to) 30% was pretty substantial - as you pointed out it's almost a third and would potentially be useful on rest days. To be honest, upwards of 10% would be a very significant benefit in my view. I've read about enhancing workouts with visualization and mental exercises, but, well, basically I guess I always regarded it as an ancillary, semi-substantiated kind of thing, and hadn't realized it could be so effective. As you said it would be helpful to see how they evaluated the benefits and came to a 30% figure. Having said that I'm set on including more visualization and hypnosis anyway, I mean I don't think it could be detrimental or anything to try it out. Besides, even after the “honeymoon period” I still really feel like I should be doing something on rest days.

MN_FriendlyGuy,

I've been using hypnosis for relaxation (and general mental improvement) quite a lot and now that you’ve mentioned it I can see how a relaxed state might aid muscle repair. Having said that I've never really known a great deal about the process - basically I've just been fuelling the muscle repair and building with the obligatory protein-rich foods and amino acids, but beyond high-school biology stuff and the odd body-building book/article I'm pretty ignorant on this. The psychological aspects are definitely something I will include and amplifying any existing positive reinforcement sounds like a good idea.

By the way the second link you provided was interesting, especially some of this stuff:

“The surprise is the amount of traffic the other way, from top to bottom, called feedback. There are 10 times as many nerve fibers carrying information down as there are carrying it up....

....The top-down structure explains a lot. If the construction of reality has so much top-down processing, that would make sense of the powers of placebos (a sugar pill will make you feel better), nocebos (a witch doctor will make you ill), talk therapy and meditation. If the top is convinced, the bottom level of data will be overruled.”

The implication seems to be that the whole feedback thing is likely balanced in favour of top-down, which I hadn't realized. Heh, testing out the “Stroop effect” stuff was also pretty cool. Moreover the perception changes seem to have been backed by hard science, which is good, as I sometimes think it’s difficult to know whether a subject is merely consciously complying with a hypnotist or if the subject really is in an altered state and the suggestions have genuinely penetrated.

Uh anyway, slight digression, but again, thanks both for the information. =)

Blink wrote:I wish I had the citation, but there's research that has shown that "visualization" of exercise was up to 30% as effective in terms of strength gains as actual exercise.

Blink,
I don't know if this is the study you were thinking of, but this is the one I remember. It involved basketball players visualizing free throws. Those that visualized free throws improved by 23%, while those that practiced improved by 24%.

http://www.llewellynencyclopedia.com/article/244

puckinwebguy wrote:Blink,
I don't know if this is the study you were thinking of, but this is the one I remember. It involved basketball players visualizing free throws. Those that visualized free throws improved by 23%, while those that practiced improved by 24%.

http://www.llewellynencyclopedia.com/article/244

That's not the citation I was thinking about, but it's a good one.

Given the nature of the discussion that's going now, this will be relevant to anyone serious about using free weights who is concerned about proper form and technique during lifting. After getting guidance on proper form and practicing a few times under load, it's possible (this article leads us to believe) to improve while not under load.

Any weight trainers want to comment on how cool it would be to know you had the skills right before you had weight on the bar?

After MN_FriendlyGuy's response, I'll clarify that the article I'm (mis)remembering mentioned visualization, not hypnosis (like the article cited by puckinwebguy), and I'm about 90% sure it was measuring strength gains, though they could have been doing some other biometrics (tape measure 'round the bicep or something). Even if this isn't a figment of my imagination and someone's able to find the citation, I don't know how much confirmation work has been done. If it's just one journal article, it doesn't give you science, it' gives you hope.

In any case, whether you can directly tell the muscles to grow or not, there are benefits, as previously noted on this thread, to augmenting a fitness routine with hypnotic practice.

-- Blink