Healing Through Hypnotherapy: A Personal Journey to Overcome Pain and Emotional Eating Challenges in Midlife

Have you ever felt trapped in a cycle of pain and emotional turmoil, desperately seeking a way to break free? Join host Heather Carey in this enlightening episode of Real Food Stories as she converses with Ethan Reisbord, a board-certified hypnotherapist who transformed his own life after suffering from debilitating migraines and depression due to post-concussion syndrome. Discover how hypnotherapy emerged as a beacon of hope, guiding Ethan towards healing by addressing both the physical and emotional aspects of his struggles.

Ethan shares his compelling journey, illustrating the profound impact of hypnotherapy on his life and the lives of many others. The conversation dives deep into the nuances of hypnotherapy, distinguishing it from hypnosis and hypnotism, and emphasizing its structured therapeutic approach aimed at fostering lasting change. With insights into the subconscious mind’s role in healing and behavior modification, Ethan sheds light on how hypnotherapy can be an effective tool for managing cravings, emotional responses to food, and enhancing impulse control.

As a culinary nutritionist, I resonate with Ethan’s holistic approach to health, exploring how our food beliefs and culture shape our relationship with nourishment. This episode not only offers valuable nutrition advice but also integrates healthy eating tips that can empower women, especially those navigating midlife and menopause. We touch on topics such as weight loss journeys, emotional eating, and the importance of mindful eating practices, all while celebrating the diverse tapestry of personal food stories and family food traditions.

Listeners will gain insights into the science behind hypnotherapy, including its effects on brainwave patterns and physiological changes, providing a deeper understanding of this transformative practice. Ethan shares success stories from his practice, showcasing how hypnotherapy has helped individuals overcome anxiety, OCD, chronic pain, and more, reinforcing the idea that healing is possible through a combination of mental and physical wellness.

Whether you’re intrigued by the potential of hypnotherapy or seeking guidance on your own personal nutrition journey, this episode is a treasure trove of knowledge. Join us as we explore the intersection of health, food, and emotional resilience, empowering you to make informed choices that nourish your body and soul. Tune in and be inspired to embrace your own healthy lifestyle choices and discover the joy of healing through food and mindful living.

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Transcript:

Speaker #0
Well, hello, everybody, and welcome back. And if you are just tuning in with me for the very first time, it’s so nice to meet you. And I’m really glad you’re here with me today. I am your host, Heather Carey, nutritionist, chef, mom, and a woman who has been around the block with food. I want to open up about real food in relation to health, weight, and our bodies so you can make peace with what you eat. Hey everybody, Ethan Reisbord is a board-certified hypnotherapist helping clients create lasting change. Ethan does this by unlocking the subconscious mind so that healing, improvement, change, and learning are possible at the deepest level of ourselves. A little personal background about Ethan, for over six months in 2021, Ethan suffered from debilitating migraines and eye dysfunction as a result of post-concussion syndrome. He worked with countless professionals in various modalities and nothing was working. So finally, he decided to reach out to his own hypnotherapist. Hypnotherapy took his body out of fight or flight and allowed him to finally begin the process of recovery. He is now fully recovered and now he helps his clients heal from a variety of different conditions, including anxiety, chronic pain. addictions, sleep issues, you name it, I think he can help you. And okay, Ethan, welcome to the podcast. I’m so happy you’re here because this is a subject that I’m really intrigued with. And, you know, my experience with hypnotherapy, not even hypnotherapy, I think hypnotism, I think there’s a difference between these two, is just a silly event that happened when I was in college. million years ago where the hypnotist put the entire room into like a kind of a trance. So that’s my experience. I know there’s a difference between like party tricks and then real hypnotherapy. So what I’d love to do is first just hear a little bit about your story and how you got into hypnotherapy because it sounds like it really cured you and then talk all about what it is exactly since you are the expert.

Speaker #1
Yeah. Well, thanks for the intro. That was really awesome. I appreciate it. So yeah, I mean, I, as you said, hypnotherapy healed me from a lot of not just chronic pain that I was experiencing, but the depression that came with it. As you mentioned, it was post-concussion and it was in my eye. So that meant light sensitivity was one of my biggest issues and triggers, meaning I was spending 20 hours of the day in my bedroom with all the lights off um and the blind shut and then it was like gaining the capacity to go out for those four hours through the day um so i can do things so there was a lot of depression as i was saying that started from not being able to do anything not being able to heal um that’s why i reached out to my hypnotherapist i was like can you just make me happy because i was so sad and unhappy with this place i found myself in life she did a really good job of explaining to me all the other facts that involve healing. We generally think of healing as this one, it’s just a physical thing, and maybe you take medicine or you go to PT and you start to see the results. What I didn’t know was that there are all these other factors subconsciously and internally that affect not just how we heal, but how we’re actually able to make changes. So she opened this path. It was so powerful for me to see the changes in myself. And I’ve since then have just gone forward in that direction. And now it’s my career.

Speaker #0
That’s pretty fascinating. So I have a couple of questions about that. So number one, you had your own hypnotherapist before you even had the concussion. I mean, so you were like already involved in hypnotherapy. It sounds like.

Speaker #1
Yeah. I was a vapor and a nicotine user in college. My dad and my aunt were hypnotized to quit nicotine like decades ago. And I basically made an agreement with my mom that when she couldn’t tolerate it anymore because it was after college. I was living at home when she couldn’t tolerate it. She tells me and I’ll get hypnotized. And I’ve been nicotine free since that point. So I had a person in a relationship already with someone who I was able to reach out and she did a fantastic job of explaining to me these other aspects and why I couldn’t recover. Right. And then facilitating the healing itself.

Speaker #0
So it sounds like you went to. you went sort of like mainstream medical, right, for your post-concussion healing, and nothing was really helping you.

Speaker #1
Yeah.

Speaker #0
Do you feel like at that point that your symptoms just became more like mind-body, you know, like that it was becoming more psychological? I know you said you were getting depressed also, but do you think it was just like this like… circle that you couldn’t get out of. And so the hypnotherapist, is that what she did for you, is to sort of like help to break that chain?

Speaker #1
Yeah, that’s exactly what it is. I mean, it’s people can go, like chiropractors can do great work. Hyperbaric oxygen theories can, oxygen chambers, I mean, can do great work, right? Neuro-optometrists and neurologists, like these are all people who are specialists in their field that are able to help some people, right? Medication is supposed to help. But when we find ourselves doing things that help other people or is supposed to help and we are still stuck, that’s to me an indication that there’s something emotional going on, that our body is not allowing ourselves to actually heal. Or it’s the nervous system that’s so messed up and so scared that we can’t even identify those first healing steps. Does that answer your question?

Speaker #0
Yeah, definitely. So. So why don’t we talk a little bit about exactly what hypnotherapy is and how it kind of retrains your brain in a way, because I think that’s the important part. And I think maybe you can help also distinguish between what’s like that like party hypnosis guy who comes to college campuses and really what hypnotherapy is.

Speaker #1
Right. So there’s like hypnotism, there’s hypnosis, and then there’s hypnotherapy. What you’re describing is like hypnotism, right? Like a cool stage hypnosis. It works on some people. It doesn’t work on all people. In a lot of ways, it’s kind of a, it’s a trick. It’s definitely working and they’re definitely hypnotized, but it’s not to the extent that it’s being presented. And then some people use hypnosis for therapeutic purposes to create changes. But for me, hypnotherapy is creating lasting changes. So a hypnotherapy session might be an hour. And for me, only 20 minutes of that is hypnosis. The rest of it is going to be something very similar to talk therapy or solution-based therapy. So we are identifying what’s going on, why we’re breaking it down. And then we’re using the hypnosis portion as a tool to facilitate the therapy. And that’s where I see lasting change really come. or not. I’m not snapping my fingers and saying, you’ll never eat junk food again. We’re identifying why do we eat junk food, right? What are the emotional changes, charges, and impulses related to junk food? Let’s use hypnosis to change that relationship, break it down, and develop new tools. So then the next time, like, you’re never going to live life and not see a chocolate bar, right? So hypnotherapy is you can see that chocolate bar and leave with the strength that you need, right?

Speaker #0
So. For you, you were a vapor smoker, right? And you have your dad, you said, and your aunt were both smokers. And you all had some hypnotherapy and boom, you never vaped again, right?

Speaker #1
Yeah, I did a six session program for nicotine. And we learned, right? So hypnotherapy is not a magic switch. I don’t snap my fingers and these things change forever. Right. I’ve seen incredible results in one session, but that’s not necessarily what it is. So I woke up the morning of my sixth session before I saw her and just felt like weird and kind of sick. And normally I’d wake up and the first thing I would do is smoke. And I was like, I don’t even feel like I should. And there was no thought in my mind about this is working or it’s hypnosis. I was just like, not really in the mood today and didn’t know why. Kind of bummed. I was like, today’s the last day I get to smoke and I don’t want to do it. Right. And then that was literally it.

Speaker #0
So when you say then, you know, when you talk about like. junk food or like you know getting going through hypnosis for junk food or sugar can it be that effective for things like food that i mean that that we’re almost more allowed to have right we all know smoking’s bad for us so that’s like an you know if you never smoked again great but certain foods right yeah that gets muddled a little bit because right right

Speaker #1
I mean, it does get muddled, but the thing is, it’s already muddled in the subconscious mind, Heather, because we can objectively say smoking is bad for us. And smokers know that. But if you have only managed your stress with cigarettes. then it is a very scary thing in the subconscious mind to quit smoking. It’s actually more dangerous to quit smoking in the mind of the subconscious because what do I then do if I’m put in a stressful situation, right? So it’s already muddled, unfortunately. So then when it comes to junk food, it’s very similar. To me, all of these things, whether it’s drinking or smoking or food, we need to create space, Heather, between the impulse and the action, right? So I said, if you go to CVS and you walk past, there’s a whole aisle of candy. It’s awesome to get to see it sometimes, right? It’s a normal, natural human response, especially if you love sugar, to have an impulse to want to get something. That is normal, natural human behavior. What we don’t have to then do is buy the candy and gorge ourself on it immediately after, right? And that’s the more we can create space between the impulse and the action, we actually have choice, right? Things like control that it feels like we didn’t used to have. And then we actually can create the life and the responses we want. We’re not hiding from junk food our whole life. We are identifying there’s an impulse, but we have the ability to flow through it as opposed to responding.

Speaker #0
This is just making me think about… drugs right now, like Ozempic or Munjaro and all these, you know, weight loss drugs that are out. And so, you know, you inject the drug and people say it turns off their food noise. Right. And so there’s a physical reaction that happens in your body. I mean, it shuts off certain hormones that make you, I think, want to eat more or it slows down, like gastric emptying. So like you’re fuller longer. Do you feel that hypnosis or hypnotherapy, sorry, can act as like one of these drugs, you know, and really help with like the impulse control over food and that food noise?

Speaker #1
Yeah. I mean, the first thing I just have to say is I’m not a doctor. And obviously you have to take the referral of what your doctor says. And I’m not suggesting hypnotherapy is an alternative to if a doctor says you should take Ozempic, I’m not saying to ignore your doctors. But yeah, there is. I mean, if we’re taking Ozempic so that we don’t even feel these hunger responses and these triggers, then, I mean, hypnotherapy is in a lot of ways, at least what I’m explaining right now, is a more holistic approach to it. Where we’re not eliminating the triggers, we’re shifting our relationship with those triggers. So if you go off the medication or you find yourself in a, you know, every day is different. If we’re high stress, maybe the triggers come more intensely, right? So I see this as more holistic and more long-lasting. Now, we haven’t talked about some of the cool stuff about hypnosis. There’s actually a research article that I can send you later about imagining eating and it filling you up, feeling full. In hypnosis, visualizing eating and feeling full. And just an aside, there’s studies about visualizing lifting weights and muscles getting bigger. That’s something Ozempic-esque in hypnosis. And another thing you can do, and I’ve done this now with food, but with cigarettes, is aversion therapy, which is connecting things that we really don’t like, like raw slimy chicken, to a cigarette. Right. So actually, for my client, raw slimy chicken wasn’t gross enough. We had to do dog poop.

Speaker #0
Wow. Raw slimy chicken didn’t didn’t do it.

Speaker #1
Didn’t do it for a while. In hypnosis, I was talking about, you know, dog poop and you can see the response and he hasn’t smoked since. For him, that worked really, really well. So there are more intense things that sometimes people want and are effective. But in terms of hypnotherapy and creating this lasting change, yeah, I think it’s a really sustainable alternative.

Speaker #0
So you mentioned a couple research articles. So I’m always curious about the science behind everything. You know, I think I’m… like kind of science first. So, so tell me a little bit more about the, just the science behind it. I mean, because I think, like I said at the beginning, you know, like for me, and I don’t know if this is for a lot, I don’t know, maybe it’s not a lot of people though, that hypnosis just seems like, you know, you’re getting sleepy of the clock, you know, in front of you, like the, you know, and like, it’s, it’s a little like that party trick.

Speaker #1
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker #0
You know, and there’s, so I just want to hear a little bit more about the science behind this modality.

Speaker #1
Yeah, so I always, like, I say I’m very happy to be a hypnotherapist in 2025, as opposed to, like, 1995, where I’d have to kind of. argue more and prove it more, where nowadays the science has caught up. So whether you want to look at someone like Dr. Joe Dispenza, who is a very well-known person in this field, he has a team of research, has a research team that observes in his studies, which is the same thing as hypnosis. And he’s just one person. So some of the things that happen when you go into the hypnotic state, well, your heart rate variability changes. If you’re a very depressed person, your heart rate… variability does not change a lot and it’s a very low baseline if you’re a very anxious person your heart rate variability doesn’t change a lot it’s a very high baseline what we studied is when we go into states where you can actually create change manifest release all these things that the heart rate actually starts to shift and this is called biofeedback it’s a it’s a well-known um science and study it’s very common with um in rehabs to help regulate the nervous system. So biofeedback is one of the studies that shows that there’s physiological change when you go into the hypnotic state. The other thing is brainwaves. So right now we’re talking, our eyes are open. We are in the beta state of brainwaves. If you were to close your eyes, you’d go into alpha. And when we go to sleep, we go into delta. These are known, established, scientifically proven facts. Well, when I were to… put you in the hypnotic state, Heather, your brain would start to fluctuate between this alpha and theta state. And people like Joe Dispenza and others, neuroscientists in their research have observed that this is the place where, you know, you might think manifestation’s a woo-woo hippie thing, right? But that’s actually the place where it’s possible, right? Where you can actually create these possible changes. It’s the difference between willing something and visualizing something, right? So if you… follow the correct steps and put yourself in this physiological state, then you’re in hypnosis. The brain doesn’t know the difference between fantasy and reality. That’s why you can visualize new behaviors and reinforcing them. And then when you go out and do it in real life, it’s not this brand new unknown thing. Does that make sense?

Speaker #0
Yeah, yeah, definitely. But tell me then if someone is resistant, you know, like you, let’s take smoking, for example. that they know they should quit smoking. They know it’s bad for them. They’re having some health problems, but they’re just really, they don’t want to quit. You know, like they’re kind of into smoking and like they’re going to try to dodge the bullet. And, but they’re willing to come to hypnosis, you know, and just hypnotherapy and have a couple of sessions with you. Do you think that they, is hypnotherapy a guarantee? that they will.

Speaker #1
Right. No, I mean, not hypnotherapy is non-industry of guarantee, unfortunately. And it is something that you see a varying effects depending on the person’s mentality and their own resistance. Right. So what I will say is a mom can’t send her kid, her high school student who’s vaping and say, make him stop vaping. The participant needs to want it. That being said, if you’re Going online, finding a hypnotherapist, you’re doing the paperwork and you’re paying and you’re going on to the Zoom, at least to some extent, at least consciously you want it, right? And if there’s subconscious resistance, that’s fine. That’s what this job is. That’s the field. We’ll go in and we’ll explore. That’s why there’s 40 minutes before the hypnosis to talk therapeutically and explore. So the bigger thing is if you notice resistance, giving yourself permission to be guided, as opposed to spending the entire time resisting. You know, if you sit back and close your eyes and say, I’m not going to do anything, you will not get hypnotized. That’s why I stage hypnosis and see some people it works and some people it doesn’t. The ones who it works, they deep down want it and are excited for it to happen.

Speaker #0
Now, I remember that time. I remember that time in college very well, actually, because I remember feeling like I was like sort of slipping into something and then feeling like I don’t really like this. Like, this is scaring me. And I kind of jumped out. but there was a few other people who got.

Speaker #1
who went much deeper right that they were made fun of because they were like the party like trick right right so everyone can be hypnotized it’s a matter of to what words and actions do you use and also hypnotherapy in a one-on-one setting is much more safe and secure and it’s a position where you know where you might have resisted stage hypnosis but you would probably be much more comfortable going into hypnosis in a one-on-one setting.

Speaker #0
Is it the same? Am I correct in thinking that, that like if I’m going through a session with you that I could jump out of it, like kind of get myself out of it?

Speaker #1
Yeah. I mean, I tell everyone before it starts, like, there’s no mind control. You’re going to hear and say everything I do. And if you don’t like the suggestion, I mean, I don’t give suggestions they don’t want. But if you didn’t like it, you can open your eyes and you can resist it. Like, this is a team effort, for sure. And there’s also a level of heightened awareness. Like, you might hear every word that I’m saying. It really does feel different for different people.

Speaker #0
Okay, so let’s go. Back to like the smoking again, you said it takes about six sessions. So you went through six sessions of hypnosis. Is that the standard?

Speaker #1
I like to say, I like to say six because it takes pressure off. The minimum, when I’m speaking with the client, I say that we want to identify what’s going on. We want to break down these past behaviors and responses. We want to learn something new, right? This new preferred behavior, and we want to reinforce it. And that. seems like a fair, holistic, all-encompassing process. So perhaps that’s four sessions. Perhaps we have learned this behavior based on this trauma we experienced as a child, and we have to go into this relationship then, right? It’s hard to say off the top of my head, Heather, what is going to be encompassed into each individual client. What we want is to be able to identify, break down, rebuild, reinforce. Could that take two sessions? Yeah. Four? Yeah. Six is a good target.

Speaker #0
Have you ever had a client who just didn’t work for them?

Speaker #1
Yeah. Those people, there’s generally other things going on. I mostly see it with older men, to be honest. hard-nosed older men who are like this type A, like I do, I solve, I fix, I accomplish, which isn’t what this work really is. It’s about learning how to process and flow and accept. So it comes more from the preconceived notions of what the results are supposed to look like more than anything.

Speaker #0
Yeah. So that sounds like that resistant client, right? Who’s just kind of comes in with this.

Speaker #1
It’s generally older people. It’s generally men. And which makes sense because of like what masculinity was in the past. It’s like we need to be this, this, this, that they don’t have that capacity to. They can learn it, but it’s not this built in thing to flow and accept. Right.

Speaker #0
So a lot of my clients, my listeners are women in midlife and the menopause transition. And so I think what a lot of them are. grappling with are weight, sleep issues, menopause symptoms like hot flashes. I don’t know if hypnosis helps that. Physical reactions, probably not. That would be a miracle if that was the case, if you said that was the case. But I mean, so let’s talk about just like, let’s talk about weight loss because this is a big one.

Speaker #1
Well, can I start at hot flashes because I just thought of something yes please I’m sure you can spend a lot of time arguing about what changes can be created in the body versus not. If you speak to Dr. Joe Dispenza, he will tell you that you can change the DNA sequencing of cancer so you don’t get cancer, right? And like there’s incredibly powerful, and he has proof in his research of stuff like that. What I will say about hot flashes is I imagine if you start to feel it coming, there’s some stress and resistance, frustration, maybe pushing it away. And I doubt that makes it. better, right? So if your anxiety or your relationship with something like hot flashes is exacerbating the symptoms, hypnotherapy will definitely help with that. A matter of noticing it coming, settling the nervous system instead of the stress reinforcing and exacerbating the symptoms, that’s for sure the type of quality of life improvements you would see. Sorry, but you wanted to start at weight, right?

Speaker #0
No, this is interesting because I just didn’t think that there was even something to talk about with hot flashes and hypnotherapy. But it sounds like maybe there is. I mean, my solution for hot flashes is to take estrogen, you know, is to go the medical route because that’s very proven.

Speaker #1
Right.

Speaker #0
But that’s not for everybody. That’s not for every woman. I mean, not every woman wants to take hormones and not every woman. can take hormones. So this is just a good alternative maybe to try if, you know, there’s no other options.

Speaker #1
Absolutely. It’s good for other options also. And it depends what level you want to get into it. But like people do believe and have studied that like. visualizing in hypnosis functions in the body actually improve those things. Immune disorders have been proven to decrease, go into remission. So you actually could dedicate sessions to visualizing increasing estrogen, increasing testosterone, and that’s possible. That’s a lot of sessions. That’s really working on building something holistic and natural, but it’s something that people are game for. And it all depends the level of what you want to buy into and what you want to explore. But, you know, in this field of alternative healing and epigenetics, they’re starting to become case studies. Okay,

Speaker #0
that’s interesting. Well, so let’s go back to then probably two subjects that you work with people on, which are sleep issues and weight loss. Or do you? I mean, do you see people? Okay, so let’s talk. Can we just?

Speaker #1
jump in with weight first yeah um weight there’s a few things that are going on that well a few things that could be going on um perhaps you’re just eating the wrong foods and it is uh an emotional issue you don’t have the impulse control etc um we’ve touched on that part right hypnotherapy can be really helpful with um creating the control eliminating impulse so you can actually do what what you, Heather, are telling people to do or what a nutritionist is telling people to do. The other part is, well, some people struggle to lose weight because of the functions that are actually happening in their body, whether it’s thyroid or other aspects, correct? And this is work that takes longer, but we can go in and begin to, through regulating the nervous system, creating more successful function of the body, letting the body do its job in the proper way. That type of mantra, when you incorporate it in hypnosis with hypnotic modalities, actually can be very effective. And that ties into my story where I did everything I was supposed to do right to heal myself and I couldn’t because the body wasn’t in a position to heal. And that is then when if the body is just not letting you lose weight, but you’re doing everything right, perhaps there’s something either subconscious going on. Perhaps there’s something… physiologically that we can begin to work on and shift.

Speaker #0
So you mentioned just impulse control and like working on impulse control with behaviors and losing weight. And again, I’m thinking about any of these things that you’re talking about, smoking, weight loss. And there’s a lot of people who do lose weight or quit smoking or stop drinking without hypnotherapy, without, you know, they just are, I don’t know, I almost see people as more like coachable. or like they just have a different mindset. Does that make sense? You know, so like, why are some people not that coachable and then maybe need your assistance?

Speaker #1
Right.

Speaker #0
I don’t even know if you can answer that. I don’t, it’s just that there’s, it just seems like there’s, there’s people who are like, okay, I need to lose 20 pounds and I’m like, I’m on it, you know, and, and they’re motivated and they’re, and they’re kind of driven to do it. They’re like sticking to their goals. There’s others who just lack the impulse control. I have lots of clients like that who just there’s no matter what I say to them, no matter like what we talk about in sessions to lose weight, they are so resistant. Right. Because it’s almost like I’m going to tell them what to do and they’re going to go do the opposite. I mean, it’s complicated. I know that.

Speaker #1
Well, if that’s happening, if they’re doing the opposite, right, that level of extremist, like that’s self-sabotage. That is something subconscious, whether it’s from their childhood or their early adult life, that they are learned. They have learned that in order to be the safest and most comfortable, I cannot change. I want to stay in homeostasis, even if that means unhealthy. But the other ask. And right. So if we’re living like that and we just haven’t learned those capacities, like there’s some people who struggle with it in all aspects of life. Right. And maybe they’re the self-sabotage. But. I’d also argue that someone who might struggle with what you’re describing with weight loss might have that capacity in other aspects. Like for me as a smoker, like I would never run out of a vape. I would always have a backup vape. Like for me, there was no, like even if I wanted to quit, like I did not have that willpower. But I have incredible willpower with other things. Like with work, I can sit down on the computer and work for five hours if I’m motivated and driven, right, to get it done. So it’s… To what extent have we chosen what is our coping mechanism? To what extent have we learned what to do versus not? It’s very rare that someone just has no capacity completely, right? So let’s find out what they have to strengthen.

Speaker #0
harvest that and bring it into other aspects of their life.

Speaker #1
Yeah, that’s true. I think that that’s a really good point, is that you can be really driven in some areas of your life and then be completely off the rails in others.

Speaker #0
And if you’re just not at all, then there’s something going on there, subconscious or from your childhood that we need to get in and explore. And it’s beyond food. It’s affecting other aspects of your life, right? And it’s releasing that is going to let you… live a more sustainable life.

Speaker #1
Okay. So let’s talk now about something like sleep, which I feel like feels very out of people’s control sometimes, because I mean, especially for women in midlife, like this, like waking up at 3 a.m. wide awake and not being able to fall back to sleep is like everyone, every woman’s dilemma, literally. So what do you do about that? Like something like that that feels like very out of. Yeah, this is not a matter of like willpower, motivation, being coachable, like, you know what I mean? Like, what do you do for that?

Speaker #0
So it’s there’s two parts. It’s falling asleep and sleeping through the night. And then it’s also what do you do if you wake up and you can’t fall back asleep? Resistance limits our progress and everything. So we wake up in the middle of the night, we can’t fall back asleep. And then are we spending the next hour frustrated and annoyed and rolling over and trying to fall asleep? counting the hours and saying, well, now I’m only going to get six, right? That thought cycle is very unhelpful for sleeping, for falling back asleep. Well, the hypnotic state actually puts you in that almost REM state. It’s very healing. So I teach clients self-hypnosis. So self-hypnosis is something very easy and low-key you can do. You’re up in the middle of the night, no pressure, just close your eyes. Follow these steps. And even if you don’t fall asleep, the body’s still in a position to rest, right? Maybe that takes the pressure off. And maybe without the pressure, it’s easier to fall back asleep. And the other aspect is sleeping through the night. And I get that that is, in menopause, just something that happens, right? However, a side effect of hypnosis is good sleep. People who I work with for random things will then note that sleep has improved. I also record the hypnosis of the sessions and send it to you. For a therapeutic portion, I want you to hear the whole thing. But in terms of sleep, if you listen to it before bed and it helps you fall asleep, great. Aside from the fact that hypnosis helps sleep in general, there are tools that you get early on in our work together that are going to help you fall asleep, stay asleep, or be okay if you’re up.

Speaker #1
Okay. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it sounds like at least that there’s something actionable you can do rather than… just be out of ideas or staring at the ceiling or, you know, just suffering. Right. Like you don’t have to suffer.

Speaker #0
Right. No, that’s the worst part about falling back asleep is like the pressure and frustration, at least in my experience.

Speaker #1
Yeah, me too. It’s super frustrating. So I asked you before if there was, you had like a failure rate with like some of your clients, but what about success stories? What are your, can you tell us like about some of your greatest success stories?

Speaker #0
Yeah. I mean, the most powerful change I’ve seen was in one session where I don’t, I think we were talking about it before. I’m in Costa Rica. So I met someone in Costa Rica who was from another country visiting and he was in the midst of a Crohn’s outbreak. Like he was, he has Crohn’s, has lived with it and was in the thick of it. I saw him once and he went into remission for like an extended period of time after, like months. That’s incredible. That is not even diving that deep into the therapeutic aspect, just the body responding to like the body being able to heal itself to do what it’s meant to do. Right. So that’s really awesome. I recently, and I can’t obviously give names or give the details, but I can talk generally. I worked with someone who experienced really severe OCD about germs who essentially had disinfectant wipes they were using on their hands. constantly so it was like really like ripping up their hand like severe severe severe and in a couple sessions she then told me that she was out playing fetch with her dog throwing the dirty toys and picking them up and not even thinking about it like you know that’s a silly thing for someone who doesn’t have ocd but this was a debilitating issue for her for years and then another story i’ll just give one more i’m working with a friend actually who Thank you. He had no surgery. For some reason, after the surgery, experienced weird burning, tingling, like lightning pain. On and off for three years. I had worked with him at the point where he had an outbreak of multiple months. It was rarely that long. I’ve seen him four times. He’s pain-free. And he said that this was the most radical. I mean, half our session is just him talking in the beginning about, oh, this is crazy. I can’t even believe this happened. Like just completely radical change and eliminating pain. So those are, you know, pain are great ways to explain like that is such a powerful, right? Like if Crohn’s can go away or. nose pain can go away. Like that’s OCD. Those are really powerful shifts.

Speaker #1
Those are really incredible stories. And I think it just says so much about the power of our mind. And I think what I love now about hypnotherapy is that it’s not invasive, right? You’re not taking medication or drugs or like doing anything. I mean, I guess worst case scenario is that you’re just not that receptive to it and it doesn’t work. But I mean, it sounds like if you

Speaker #0
you can get it to work right yeah and the side i tell everyone you’re here and the side effect worst case scenario is you feel very relaxed right and who doesn’t who doesn’t want that i mean right it’s non-invasive it’s non-pharmacological it is i work on zoom so you get to be in your home comfortable in your bed or your couch it’s it’s a very low-key thing it meets you where you are it’s it’s what you is going on in your life? What do you need to make the change and how are we going to facilitate that?

Speaker #1
So you work on Zoom and is there any difference between being in person with somebody or working online? Does it not make a difference? Because that’s really convenient for you.

Speaker #0
Yeah. If I work with someone in person, I might touch their arm, right? I might do something physical, but that’s it. All of the hypnotherapy healing I’ve experienced, the depression, the pain, the smoking, that was all done on Zoom. All the stories I just gave you, well, the Crohn’s was in person, but the OCD and the nose pain was all on Zoom. And there’s actually a research article from a couple years ago that online hypnotherapy is equally effective. So it’s a really, really cool thing that you can be met where you are physically and emotionally and have… a process that works custom for you specifically.

Speaker #1
So how do people find you, get in touch with you? How do you work? Do you talk with people first and kind of screen them to make sure that they’re good candidates? How does that work?

Speaker #0
I offer a free consultation so that I get to know better about what they’re experiencing, what they want to create, and also to make sure we’re at the right fit and it’s within a scope of practice. Like there are things like I can’t work with someone directly on like suicide. Like that’s… That is for a psychologist or a psychiatrist, right? So we have that first consultation. I give information about what it’s going to look like. A lot of the stuff we talked about, I’ll explain to them there. And then they book a session. We do it on Zoom and we work until we see resolution and sometimes one more session to just reinforce.

Speaker #1
Well, that sounds really great. I’m sold.

Speaker #0
Yeah.

Speaker #1
Yeah, I’ll get in touch with you soon. Work on some things. I mean, doesn’t everyone have something to work on, right?

Speaker #0
Right. Well, yeah, that’s the thing, exactly. So you can find me on Google, on my website, Instagram. It’s all the same. Ethan Rice Hypnotherapy, E-T-H-A-N-R-E-I-S, hypnotherapy, thewebsites.com.

Speaker #1
Yeah, I’ll definitely put all that information in the show notes so people can definitely find you easily. Well, Ethan, thank you so much. This has been really informative.

Speaker #0
Yeah. And.

Speaker #1
I think it’s going to be great for my listeners. I think they’re going to get a lot out of it. It’s very intriguing.

Speaker #0
Yeah, it’s the coolest. I love that I do something that, you know, it’s fun to talk about. I’ve seen the results myself. And I agree, if it just helps one of your listeners, then it’s going to be worth it and awesome.

Speaker #1
Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker #0
It’s a good chance to share.

Speaker #1
Great. All right. Thank you so much.

Speaker #0
Thanks.

Speaker #1
And as always, if you loved this podcast, please consider gifting me with a five-star review. It is so helpful for me to get the word out on real eating, our real bodies, and real food stories. Thank you so much and have a great week. Bye for now.