In our fast paced world, we are constantly learning new things and we need to have a better memory to recall everything. Students need a better memory for study and passing tests. Most people need a better memory to be successful in their job, and we all need better memories to remember important dates and ideas. However, most people have a difficult time of remembering new ideas and facts. Memory deficiencies typically take place as we grow older, but there are other factors that impair our memories, such as fatigue, stress, depression, and concentration problems. Fortunately, there are a myriad of ways to augment your memory using easy mnemonic devices and hypnotherapy and memory enhancement.

Mnemonic devices are useful memory retention techniques. They appear in the forms of words, pictures, or other associations that help you link concepts and information to each other. Acronyms are a popular mnemonic device formed using the initial letters of words or parts of words in a phrase or name. Let’s say you want to remember a list of cheese, ham, eggs, soap, and salsa. You might use the acronym “CHESS” for cheese, ham, eggs, soap, and salsa. The acronym and the effort you put into generating it help you remember the list.

Acrostic sentences are similar to acronyms. You can use acrostic sentences to remember ordered lists or sequences of events. In an acrostic, you use the first letters, syllables, or words of a sentence to remember another message. In school, students are taught the acrostic sentence “Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally” to remember the order of operations in mathematics (Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication, Division, Addition, Subtraction).

Another well-known mnemonic technique is called the “Method of Loci.” The Method of Loci was used in ancient times to memorize speeches. In this method, you link information to visual cues along a path. First, you think of a physical pathway you are familiar with, such as the commute to work or a walk through your house. Imagine yourself moving along this pathway, and identify distinct landmarks that you pass by. Each landmark will correspond to something you need to remember.

Once you have your path and landmarks, you mentally associate a piece of information with each landmark. Another technique is the “chunking” method of memorization. This method is valuable in committing to memory a series of numbers, such as social security numbers, phone numbers, and dates. For example, you probably remember your social security number as three sets of three digits, or a set of three, two and four digit numbers. Using the chunking trick, you break up a large amount of information into “chunks” that are easier to handle and remember. Additionally, you can organize information into categories to help you remember more complicated things.

Now that you know these memorization techniques, you can utilize them when you are trying to remember information. To successfully form a memory, focus on what you are trying to remember, taking five to eight seconds to process the information. Eliminate distractions from your surroundings that divert your focus of attention from what you want to remember. Jot down the information, read it aloud to yourself, and try to use all of your senses when you are learning new things. If you can experience or associate the information with all of your senses, you will remember it better.

Stress may impair your ability to focus and memorize information, so you must relax! To cope with anxiety, you may be interested in using hypnotherapy to improve concentration, memory and recall abilities. Although memorization tricks are helpful, stress and lack of concentration are the main reasons why people are afflicted with memory problems and can stall your success using the techniques.

If tension and concentration problems are the cause of your memory problems, you can use hypnotherapy to improve memory and recall abilities significantly. Your memory will be greatly improved by combining memorization methods with hypnotherapy and memory improvement techniques. Hypnotherapy memory improvement techniques will help you relax and focus on information.

Hypnotherapy and memory tricks help enhance your short-term memory by increasing your alertness, so you will not forget things such as where you left your wallet or keys. Hypnotherapy and memory enhancement will also help you overcome stress that interferes with your memory, such as nervousness during a test or a presentation at work. Many students experience test anxiety, but this can be overcome by hypnotism therapy treatments. Likewise, many people “freeze” and forget things during public addresses, which is a problem that can be overcome by self hypnosis memory improvement.

Hypnotherapy is the best way for people to commit information to memory because it helps you relax and increases the ability to focus. You can make hypnotherapy and your memory work together to eliminate your memory problems. Someday, hypnotherapy and memory may become inseparable as people learn how hypnotherapy can make their lives better.

Alan B. Densky, CH has specialized in the practice of hypnotherapy since 1978. He offers hypnosis CD’s to improve your memory. Visit his Neuro-VISION memory techniques site for free MP3 downloads, and his blog for tips & tricks.

http://www.neuro-vision.us/Products/AudioMemoryHypnosisTapes.htm

We’ve all heard it or even said it before: “I’m not able to lose weight because of my metabolism.” It’s convenient to blame our unwanted weight on an abstract idea like metabolism, but let’s learn about the real importance of metabolism – and better yet, how you can get the most “burn” for your buck by recharging your metabolism.

In the most basic sense, metabolism encompasses all of the chemical and physical changes that take place inside the body’s cells. Most often, though, metabolism refers to the manner in which the body obtains and uses energy from what we eat, so it really does have an important function in weight loss and gain.

Not everyone is given the same metabolism, and our rates actually fluctuate over the course of our lives, so someone who blames their metabolism isn’t necessarily making excuses. Age affects metabolism, which will slow about 5% every 10 years after age 40, and by gender, as males typically burn more calories at rest than females, and by the amount of muscle mass you possess (more muscle generally means a higher rate of metabolism). Genetics also influences metabolism, not to mention having children, as well as whether a woman chooses to breast-feed.

In spit of all of the wild cards, the fact is that if your calorie intake surpasses your metabolism, excess energy will get stored in the body as fat. Though some of the aspects affecting metabolic rate can’t be helped, fortunately, there are ways to rev up the metabolism you are born with.

The first rule is to take in the correct foods in the right quantities. When you skip a meal, your body switches to starvation mode, which slows metabolism to keep calories, because it does not know when it will get food again. And when the metabolism slows, so does the rate at which you lose weight.

When you finally do get food after having skipped a meal, instead of using the calories in the food you’ve just eaten, your body transfers them to body fat to hold for the next “fast.” To keep your metabolism efficient, eat 4 – 6 smaller meals during the day and try to eat close to the same times each day. Most importantly, never skip a meal.

You can also step up your metabolic rate with exercise, including both aerobic routines and strength training. Aerobic activities, such as biking, dancing and running, burn more calories in the short term, while strength training will create more muscle, which improves metabolism and burns more calories in the long term – even when you are sitting still, muscle uses more calories to function than fat.

In fact, every pound of muscle requires 35 calories per day, while each pound of fat requires just 2 calories per day. Despite this, you might be surprised that the more weight you have, the faster your metabolism is likely to run. Simply put, the extra weight makes your body work more to maintain its processes.

This is partially why it is almost always easiest to drop weight when you start dieting, and is more difficult as you continue because, if you are significantly overweight, your metabolism is already at an elevated rate, so that even a slight decrease in calories will yield an immediate weight loss.

But what happens after that immediate loss, when a plateau occurs and motivation seems to go by the “weigh” side? Persistent compulsions and cravings can suddenly come back, and when they do, don’t overlook a valuable resource – lose weight self-hypnosis. Hypnotherapy can actually retrain your unconscious mind so that, in essence, you can eliminate food cravings. When we examine why we snack, recognizing why weight loss hypnosis works so successfully becomes evident.

For many of us, snacking has become a habit – maybe you do it unconsciously when you are watching TV or driving or when you are under stress. Hypnosis can actually reprogram your thoughts to stop those associations, leaving you to watch TV or drive without experiencing the need to eat.

One of the most successful weight loss hypnosis methods for breaking the snacking cycle is Neuro-Linguistic Programming, or NLP, which relies on negotiating with the unconscious mind and making it use the same thought processes that are creating your appetite, to eliminate your appetite. NLP takes many years of study and practical experience for a hypnotherapist to learn and master, but positive results can come very quickly and seem almost magical to someone who has always experienced cravings.

NLP can be just as important as exercise and motivation because, as you learned above, it can help make sure that you eat the right kinds of foods at the right times, and this is a vital part of turbo-charging your metabolism. If you wish to keep your metabolism at full speed and make sure that all of your exercise and hard work aren’t going to waste by yielding to your food temptations, weight loss hypnosis and NLP can be a secret weapon to eliminate your cravings altogether.

Alan B. Densky, CH has worked with clients for appetite control since 1978. Visit his enjoying weight loss hypnosis website to watch his Free self-hypnosis videos, or learn about his exclusive video hypnotism for weight loss DVDs.

http://www.neuro-vision.us/AppetiteControl1.html

The adage “no pain, no gain” simply is not true. Reflect on all of the times pain has stopped you from engaging in activities that you enjoy – perhaps running, playing tennis, fishing and even sitting can be impossible when you’re in pain. Did you gain anything from missing out on memories?

However, the adage that “Pain is all in your head” can, often, be true. If that is the case, then the cure is all in your head, too.

With self hypnosis, pain can fade away. Despite what you may think, hypnosis is simply a mental state where messages can connect with the unconscious mind more easily. The state of hypnosis is characterized by deep relaxation. In fact, with regular practice of a hypnosis pain elimination regimen, you will find yourself much more serene over all.

Pain indicates that something in your body is amiss. So pain is technically a positive thing. But after you have your physician give you a check up to ensure that the pain is not indicative of a harmful condition like a tumor, it’s time to manage or even eliminate the pain.

There is no danger in a self hypnosis pain relief program. You can not “get stuck” in a state of hypnosis. The worst that could possibly happen when you use hypnosis for pain management is that you might fall into a natural sleep state for 20 or 30 minutes- think of all of the times that discomfort has kept you from sleeping!

This isn’t to say that a self hypnosis pain management system is similar to sleep, which is the leading misunderstanding about hypnosis. If you are asleep, you’re unconscious. If you are not conscious, then you can’t hear anything. If you cannot hear anything, then the hypnotist can’t assist you. In truth, hypnosis is actually a state of keen awareness.

Even though you are consciously aware of everything, self hypnosis pain management programs can tackle both physical and mental causes and present many successful avenues to do away with pain.

Drugs only block the reception of the physical feeling of pain temporarily, but self hypnosis pain regimens can actually lessen the amount and strength of pain signals that you perceive. You can literally reprogram your body to distribute less pain-inducing chemicals to your receptors. This means that you can use fewer pain killing medications, or in many cases no medications at all.

Endorphins are opiate-like elements that are manufactured in the brain. They are the chemicals that cause athletes to have a high when they workout intensely. Using hypnosis, you can also learn how to program your brain to generate pain-relieving endorphins on demand and then distribute them to the painful body part where they are needed.

Thanks to endorphins, the brain is capable of inducing analgesia, which is a mild anesthesia, as well as complete anesthesia (numbness). Medical journals are full of accounts both in pre-anesthesia days, as well as in modern times, when invasive surgery has been done under hypnoanesthesia.

Hypnosis can also work to program the mind to direct your attention away from pain, which will make you perceive far less discomfort. Further, self hypnosis pain management programs can help our mind realize and understand that the pain is there, but not to let us feel it.

A qualified hypnotherapist will be familiar with how to fully address additional hypnotic suggestions that will assist in your recovery.

A highly effective hypnosis pain remedy comes from Neuro-Linguistic Programming, or NLP. No doubt that after living with chronic pain, you may be doubtful that a self hypnosis pain program will get the job done.

In many cases, NLP methods actually work far better for modern thinkers than traditional hypnosis does because it was developed for people like you who are conditioned to question and analyze everything. When we analyze, we tend to throw up barriers to the acceptance of post-hypnotic suggestions.

Feelings of stress always make us perceive far more pain than we are actually experiencing. One of the most successful NLP patterns for eliminating anxiety is known as the “Flash.” This method reprograms the unconscious mind to use mental images that create stress to actually trigger thoughts that cause feelings of relaxation instead.

After you’ve tried this technique, it will be difficult or impossible to think the thoughts that distress you, because your unconscious mind will instantly and automatically exchange them in a Flash for thoughts that relax you instead.

Pain relief and hypnosis go hand in hand. If you’re exhausted from coping with prescriptions that leave you incapable of driving or to fully experie life, or worse, of living with the throbbing, stabbing or shooting pulsations of discomfort, a hypnosis pain elimination program can provide safe, natural and instantaneous relief.

Alan B. Densky, CH has been helping clients with hypnosis pain relief since 1978. A famous authority in the hypnotherapy field, he offers migraine headache treatment CDs and free self hypnosis videos on his website.

http://www.neuro-vision.us/Products/AudioHeadacheMigraineHypnosisTapes.htm

One of the most common anxiety disorders is social phobia, a condition in which an individual is scared of being in a social setting. An individual with social phobia suffers from debilitating anxiety that affects their personal and daily life.

People with social phobia are extremely self-conscious and worried about what others may say or think about them. They are typically afraid of speaking up, out of fear that they will be criticized or judged. Those with social anxiety tend to look down on themselves or have negative feelings about themselves. They are often worried about being noticed by others and find social situations to be quite stressful.

Some people with social phobia may seem “shy,” but in the case of a phobia, this is taken to irrational extremes. For example, if you suffer from social phobia, you may hesitate to make a crucial call because you are nervous about talking on the telephone. You make the phone call, but you are so nervous that you “lock up” or forget why you called. Although it can happen to everyone sometimes, for a person with social phobia it may happen every single time, to the point where they find it near impossible to make any calls.

Maybe it is the night before an important meeting at work and you find yourself worried sick. You dread the idea of being in front of your supervisor and all your colleagues watching as you present a new idea or project. You can’t help but feel extremely embarrassed and self-conscious. Even after the meeting, you can’t stop overanalyzing everything you said and did. You are afraid that you humiliated yourself in front of your colleagues by stuttering or saying the wrong thing.

Perhaps you want to go to parties and make friends, but you avoid social gatherings because you are nervous about meeting new people. You find the crowds daunting and the idea of meeting someone new scares you. You worry about saying the right thing, or that you will get laughed at. You might stay at home very often because you are too scared to go out. These are only a few examples of the way social phobias can affect our lives.

Social phobias are irrational fears that can prevent you from achieving your professional goals or fully enjoying your life. But even those who realize their fears are irrational may not know how to rid themselves of their phobia.

People with social anxiety often want to be more outgoing and meet new people, but are too scared to try. Despite their conscious desires and best efforts, they can’t shake their fears because every phobia is seated in the unconscious mind. Ericksonian hypnosis therapy and Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) techniques are the most successful phobia treatments because they resolve issues at the unconscious level.

It is often hard for people with social anxiety to get cured because they can be reluctant to see a therapist or discuss their anxieties. This is why hypnotherapy programs are right for them. The programs promote a peaceful and confidence-boosting frame of mind in a privacy, without being intimidating or overwhelming.

The first stage in a good phobia program is relaxation therapy. Hypnotic therapy is a powerful tool for eliminating your stress and tension. When you are de-stressed, hypnosis techniques will help shape positive thoughts in your unconscious mind and get rid of your fears. NLP techniques are used to eliminate your fears by directly targeting the thought process that causes a phobia.

In conventional hypnosis therapy, specially worded post-hypnotic suggestions are used to address one unique phobia. The problem is, people often reject being directly told what to think or do, so conventional hypnosis therapy does not always work. A deep-seated phobia requires a combination of Ericksonian Hypnotherapy and NLP.

Ericksonian hypnotherapy techniques are more effective than conventional hypnosis therapy because they utilize suggestions that are not obvious to the conscious mind, instead of direct suggestions. These suggestions are placed in conversation, in different stories and metaphors, to persuade the unconscious mind to adopt a different line of thinking. For this reason, Ericksonian hypnotherapy is much more sophisticated than conventional hypnotherapy and far harder for the unconscious mind to reject.

A single program that utilizes Ericksonian hypnotherapy and NLP techniques can treat social phobia and any other phobia, in any person. This is because multiple techniques are combined to increase their effectiveness.

People are often amazed at the almost miraculous effects they can achieve using hypnosis therapy. Ericksonian hypnotherapy and NLP are excellent tools to help you build confidence and beat social phobia so you will be able to live your life to the fullest.

Alan B. Densky, CH pioneered several methods of social phobia treatment. He also offers hypnotherapy CD’s for specific phobias. His site offers many hypnosis for self-improvement CD’s, Free hypnotherapy videos and downloads.

http://www.neuro-vision.us/Products/AudioConfidenceHypnosisTapes.htm

Allergies are among the most common medical problems affecting Americans at present. An allergy is an immune system response to a stimulus from the environment. The body incorrectly sees the stimulus as harmful, and tries to attack it, causing the symptoms of an allergic reaction. The universal symptoms include an itching or runny nose, irritated eyes, coughing and wheezing.

One very widespread type of allergy is asthma. It is a chronic allergy that directly affects the lungs and air passageways in the body. The air passageways are easily aggravated by allergens and a thick lining of mucus builds up. Allergens and other stimuli can produce an asthma attack, including pollen, smoke, temperature variations and humidity variations. Commonly, an asthma attack consists of several respiratory symptoms, including coughing, wheezing, chest tightness and trouble breathing. Another symptom of asthma is shortness of breath.

Symptoms of asthma are caused by the air passages reacting to the allergen or trigger. When exposed to a trigger, the air passages become irritated and constrict, resulting in the respiratory symptoms. These symptoms can range from mild to ominous, depending on the severity of the allergy. Any asthma symptom can be frightening, and should be taken seriously.

Asthma is commonly diagnosed in childhood, because symptoms tend to manifest by the age of five. At present, it affects around 10% – 12% of all children, and has been steadily growing. There is no definitive known reason for the increase, but risk factors include exposure to cigarette smoke, other allergies and a history of other respiratory infections. Besides, the odds of being diagnosed are amplified in males and African Americans.

At present, there are many different types of asthma drugs and treatments that can efficiently diminish symptoms. Two major types of asthma medication are fast-acting medicine to treat symptoms during an asthma attack, and controlling medicine, which is taken repeatedly to lower the risk of having an attack. Short-acting Beta-2 Antagonists (SABAs) are bronchodilators, which is a type of fast acting drug that helps to open air passages and alleviating the symptoms of an asthma attack, and are commonly administered through asthma inhalators. This type of medicine does not treat the inflammation that causes an attack, but is efficient when taken during an asthma attack, and will last for 3 – 6 hours after it is administered.

Controlling asthma drugs are taken regularly and treats the underlying causes of the attacks. The most widespread types of this medicine are inhalers containing a steroid that reduces inflammation in the air passageways and lungs and Long-Acting Beta-2 Antagonists (LABAs). The results of long-acting asthma inhalers commonly last for twelve hours, and can lower the number of attacks that happen while the asthmatic is asleep. Many of the drugs have very severe side effects for some people.

Various types of asthma treatment alternative therapies are currently becoming more popular. Some alternative approaches focus solely on precautional care, like not smoking during pregnancy or around babies, incorporating a selenium-rich diet or eliminating sources of allergy causing substances in the home. Other treatment modalities include reducing weight, increasing Omega-3 consumption, reducing Omega-6 consumption, relaxation techniques, acupuncture and hypnotherapy. It is crucial to note that any type of alternative therapy is supposed to be used along with medical advice, as fast-acting medications are often required for a severe asthma attack.

One modality that is turning more popular is self-hypnosis or hypnotherapy. Hypnosis treatment of asthma has the purpose of causing relaxation, which can help to prevent or diminish your symptoms when having an attack. Other alternative types of asthma treatment also employ relaxation methods as a way to fight symptoms, such as with meditation programs.

Using self-hypnosis, the individual can treat the emotional elements of an asthma attack, which have the capacity to make an attack much more intense. It is human nature to become scared or feel threatened when we sense our air supply being cut off. This instinctual reaction in reality may intensify the severity of an asthma attack. Similar feelings of fearfulness and trepidation about having an asthma attack can really bring on an attack. These emotional causes and responses are handled with the asthma treatment method of hypnotism.

Hypnosis has been established to be an extremely useful asthma treatment. Either with a trained hypnotherapist, or using one of the many recorded programs available, one can quickly slide into a relaxing state, and start to take control over breathing and bodily functions. One of the most effective techniques is to learn how to utilize hypnotism to actually abort an oncoming asthma attack. The self-hypnosis method of asthma treatment is tremendously successful, and can work well for those who can’t take or do not want to take prescription drugs regularly. The choice of asthma treatment depends both on the seriousness of your symptoms and what type of treatment that works well for your symptoms.

Alan B. Densky, CH is certified by the NGH. He has perfected hypnotherapeutic techniques that are natural allergy cures. His Neuro-VISION hypnotism website offers a range of asthma hypnosis CDs and Free self-hypnosis videos.

http://www.neuro-vision.us/Products/AudioAsthmaHypnosisTapes.htm

Consider a life restricted by terror and panic, in which every movement is examined and even the unimportant decision is angst-ridden. Hours are exhausted analyzing daily obligations or situations that many people handle easily. According to the National Institute of Health, more than 40 million people in the United States who experience anxiety disorders are inflicted with this sort of life.

Concordantly, about 18 percent of those living in the United States have some type of a panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder or phobias, such as a social phobia, agoraphobia, or a specific phobia, which embody common fears of things such as heights, elevators or germs.

Are you among those people? Many people are not aware how to distinguish if their inherent fears have transformed into a phobia. A phobia is categorized as an irrational dread or fear. When someone encounters a phobia trigger, that person might grow panicked with increased heartbeat and respiration. Often, he or she might feel a choking sensation or their hands get sweaty. They may additionally have ringing in their ears and find they are unable to focus on the surroundings.

As with any unpleasant feeling, people may try great lengths to circumvent the feelings, settings and items that cause them. If a person has a social phobia, that person could evade people, or if it is a common phobia, such as spiders or coffins, those who have a phobia will aim to elude those triggers.

The anxiety disorder phobia could be one of the most complicated to solve because related coping problems commonly result from the anxiety phobia relationship, such as despair or substance dependence. In fact, many people who suffer from one anxiety disorder often cultivate other anxiety disorders.

Though it can be helpful to make an appointment with a mental health professional to identify your phobia and investigate the basis of it, the most important action is commencing treatment for the anxiety and phobia. Several therapies exist for successfully easing a phobia, including talk therapy, drugs, systematic desensitization, hypnotherapy and Nuero-Linguistic Programming.

Normally, drug treatments for anxiety and phobia treatment include sedatives, which actually exacerbate the problem because the medications do not treat the fundamental reason for the phobia. Other mental health professionals choose talk therapy; however, discussing or even thinking about the situation or environment of the fundamental anxiety phobia can generate a panic attack.

Traditional hypnosis-which simply helps the subject accomplish a relaxed state of hypnosis and then offering post-hypnotic suggestions or commands-can be very successful if the client is amenable to it. That said, many people with phobias reject the notion that they will be more relaxed and calm when they are faced with the environment or situation that activates anxiety from the related phobia.

Knowing the challenges and even hindrances of other forms of treatment for phobias, systematic desensitization can be an effectual therapy. It is the course of slowly desensitizing a subject to the trigger that produces the anxiety disorder phobia and ensuing panic attacks.

For example, if a subject wishes to rise above a phobia of dogs, she is asked to first be seated and think about a dog until she is secure with the picture. Then, she is given a photograph of a dog to view. Perhaps she moves forward to embracing a plush dog and so on until she is able to stay in the presence of a dog without the panic symptoms-possibly even touch it.

The key point is that, following each step, the subject recognizes that nothing harmful transpired and that she is safe. If at any time she feels fear or panic, the therapist asks the client to revert to the previous step until she has reclaimed a feeling of ease.

Thankfully, there is a tactic to make this process less painful and frightening: Systematic desensitization can be carried out as the client is in a relaxed state of hypnosis. While in a relaxed hypnotic trance, the woman would be asked to execute the same actions, however she would actually remain very peaceful as she visualized herself feeling relaxed and comfortable in the anxiety provoking situation.

Just like live systematic desensitization that happens without the assistance of hypnosis, if the client experiences any anxiety connected to her phobia, she is directed to step back to the previous action. The only negative aspect is that this technique can require a fair amount of time to bring reprieve from a phobia.

The quickest and most effective way to eliminate a phobia is a Neuro-Linguistic Programming practice called a Visual/Kinesthetic Disassociation. It commonly cures the client of a chronic phobia in only one session. The technique actually programs the client to disassociate, or mentally step outside of themselves at the point that they might usually begin their anxiety attack. The process literally separates the subjective emotions from the mental images that create the panic attack in the first place.

CONCLUSION: While any phobia treatment that someone takes on will entail work and commitment, systematic desensitization coupled with hypnosis can offer an effective cure. But the NLP Visual/Kinesthetic Disassociation can offer a solution that almost seems magical by allowing the client to overcome the phobia quickly with significantly less-perhaps even no-panic or discomfort.

Alan B. Densky, CH spent 30 years helping clients overcome irrational fears and phobias. He offers a successful phobia treatment based on NLP and hypnosis. Learn more on his website using his Free video research index.

http://www.neuro-vision.us/Products/AudioAgoraphobiaHypnosisTapes.htm