There are two ways; both are effective.
1. Behavioral (or cognitive-behavioral) route: This is what psychologists have been teaching their clients to do for over a century. It's not fancy, but it works: If you make healthy choices enough times, they become habits. Once a habit, it becomes easier (seemingly automatic) to make the healthy choice over the unhealthy one.
Used in psychiatry because it worked, this method is now proven by brain scans, in the continually developing science of neuroplasticity.
You may have heard some psychologists or behavioral change experts speak about writing goals or affirmations. Affirmations are positive, goal-directed phrases that are worded as if we have already achieved these goals.
An affirmation for someone whose goal is to cut out junk food to lose weight, may be, "Being slender and attractive is more important to me than eating foods that are unhealthy for my body". They are repeated--while the person is in a relaxed state--for the purpose of reprogramming negative thoughts and attitudes into positive ones in order to accomplish goals or change habits.
Have you ever awakened from a dream, then have it slip away the more you try to remember it? This happens because as you awaken, your brainwaves become higher in frequency, taking you out of the alpha state--the open door between the conscious and subconscious minds, into the beta --normal waking--state. (Children are in the alpha state most of the time, which is why they have direct access to their subconscious minds).
Experts suggest we review our goals or repeat affirmations just before bed or just as we wake up.The reason is at these times our brainwaves are naturally in the correct state--the alpha frequency-- for communicating with our subconscious minds. In alpha, the conscious mind is in abeyance, and we can speak directly to the subconscious mind.
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Neuroplasticity means the brain's structure actually changes, every day, due to experience. Our brain's wiring is genetic, but the connections the wires make is based on experience, which drives physical changes in various parts of the brain--sensory cortex, frontal lobes, temporal lobes, amygdala and hippocampus.
For example, if you walk into your kitchen and grab a cookie on a regular basis, it becomes almost automatic to do this, because --due to experience--you're making more and more connections in your brain between the kitchen and eating a cookie. That's the bad part.
The good part is neuroplasticity means we have the power to change the structure of our brains. How do we do this?
Have you ever heard that it takes approximately 21 days to make a habit "automatic"? If you place some carrot sticks on a covered dish, and start making a habit of eating them, instead of the cookies, for 21 days, it will actually become more automatic to choose the carrots over the cookies. Your brain will have more wiring connections between the kitchen and carrots, rather than cookies.
This method is nothing new; it is a succesful method of behavioral change. The problem is, it also takes a long time--and a great deal of willpower-- to set the good habit.
Unless....you cheat!
No, we're NOT crazy; we're human! We repeat these same patterns--healthy or not--because the strongest drive in humans is homeostasis--to stay the same.
Homeostasis is a protective measure. For example, our blood pressure and breathing rates automatically regulate themselves within a set range to keep us alive. If this didn't happen, we'd all die soon after a very stressful event or intense physical activity as our systems weren't built for constantly racing heartbeats and labored breathing; we would succumb to disease as the body would not have the opportunity to repair itself through rest; and our brains would suffer as attention, learning and memory require a relaxed state for optimum functioning.
While homeostasis is crucial for protecting our brains and bodies, it also can harm us. For example, If we diet too stringently in an attempt to lose weight, the body's metabolism slows, preventing us from burning off the extra calories. It does this as a protective measure against starvation. That's one reason why it's so hard to lose weight.
Homeostasis can also harm us emotionally, because the longer we are in an unhealthy situation, the more it feels "normal" and comfortable. The longer we're depressed, angry or are being emotionally or physically abused, the thought of changing this bad situation is more and more uncomfortable--actually signalling a threat!
2. Subconscious Route: Making the two parts of our brains--the conscious and subconscious minds --congruent, allows us to quickly and effectively adopt the habits we choose, and eliminate the ones we don't!
Our conscious minds may really want to end a habit--like smoking, but the subconscious mind may have other thoughts, such as, "if you stop smoking you'll gain weight". This belief prevents the person from fully committing to the non-smoking goal, because the subconscious mind is "protecting" him or her from gaining weight! We "cheat" by reprogramming the subconscious mind.
The conscious mind evaluates and judges. That’s its job. Without the conscious mind, we wouldn’t know whether $1000 is a good price for a candy bar or not. We wouldn’t know whether someone was conning us, because we couldn’t tell the difference between a fact and a lie, nor could we detect sarcasm, nor have our intuition speak to us that a person or situation is dangerous. Without the conscious mind we would have no critical thinking skills.
As important as the conscious mind is, there are times when evaluating and judging are actually harmful to us. For example, let’s say we’re having a bad hair day, none of our clothes are fitting right, and someone says, “You’re beautiful”. Very likely we’ll hear a little voice in our heads (conscious mind) saying, “Yeah, but it’s too bad I’m so fat!” If someone says, “You’re smart”, the voice may say, “Yeah, well why aren’t I rich?”
It isn’t that we are mentally ill or self loathing, it’s that we live in a negative society--with negative messages blaring from the TV, radio and everywhere we go. For women especially, we often bond with self-effacing remarks, like,” I LOVE your dress; I could never wear that because my arms/legs/buns are too flabby”. This unremitting negativity--internal and external-- pervades our lives without us realizing it.
No way! If we know this happens, we can guard against it.
The subconscious works very differently from the conscious mind. It accepts everything that is programmed into it, just like a computer. If incorrect information is programmed in, it produces the wrong result. It doesn’t know the difference between truth and fiction, and it doesn’t know whether what is programmed in will help or hurt us, because it has no ability to judge. It just accepts everything as fact until and unless it’s reprogrammed.
Tragically, when children hear messages like they are stupid or worthless, they carry these with them into adulthood. This is because, as children, they have direct access to the subconscious mind most of the time--the mind that cannot evaluate nor judge the validity of what is said to it. Even if these children become enormously successful and responsible citizens, they still believe the negative messages-- regardless of all the evidence to the contrary---unless they’re reprogrammed.
Why don’t they use their critical thinking skills as adults to refute the messages? Most often, they don’t even know they are there. They have lived so long with not feeling good about themselves that it feels normal. They don’t know to challenge those thoughts and that they CAN feel better about themselves.
There are several ways:
1. Write positive affirmations, then repeat them aloud when very relaxed. Our “Learn Faster” link above shows several choices of music CDs. Accelerated Learning, Comfort Zone and Ocean Suite bring you to a relaxed, but alert state, perfect for repeating affirmations.
2. Listen to music with subliminal affirmations. There has been much evidence that subliminal affirmations--positive phrases spoken below a level detectable to the conscious mind--are effective for reaching the subconscious. The “Learn Faster” link has music CDs with affirmations already included--both written and subliminal. If you listen to the CDs anytime during the day, then read and repeat the affirmations just before sleeping, you get a double-shot of positive, goal-related messages.
3. Make an appointment with a hypnotist. Hypnotists did not invent hypnosis. Hypnosis is a natural state hypnotists learned how to trigger at will, just like doctors didn’t invent the reflex action, but learned how to trigger it by tapping your knee.
We all enter into a state of hypnosis every day--just as we drift off to sleep and right before we wake up. Most of us enter into it more frequently:
Have you ever watched a really good movie and found your heart racing and breathing quicker and more shallow while the hero being chased by the evil villian? If so, you were hypnotized by the movie! Your conscious mind--the one that knows you were sitting in your living room--was in abeyance. The subconscious--which doesn't know the difference between fact and fiction--thought you were in the scary scene!
A hypnotist brings you into the alpha state-- putting the conscious in abeyance-- in order to program the positive suggestions YOU choose, directly to your subconscious.