Articles and self-help - Change your state of mind

Use this hypnotherapy and NLP anchoring technique to change how you think, feel and act.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could switch on confidence, relaxation or creativity at the mere push of a button? Imagine having unlimited and instant access to your most positive states of mind!

This highly effective technique, which hypnotherapists and NLP practitioners often use to help their clients, is known as anchoring. But what exactly is anchoring? Quite simply, anchoring links an external stimulus to a specific emotion or state of mind. An anchor, which is sometimes called a cue or trigger, is used to create a neurological link between that stimulus and an emotion. It allows you to change your internal state at will. Read on to learn how you can do this.

I’m sure you’re familiar with the story of Pavlov’s dogs. Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936) was a Russian scientist who is famous for his experiments into reflexes or conditioned behaviour. In his research, Pavlov rang a bell every time he fed his dogs.  This stimulated the natural flow of saliva in the dogs’ mouth. Over a period of time, sounding the bell, without actually feeding the dogs was enough to make them salivate.

One of the earliest recorded studies of classical conditioning in humans tells of the story of an eleven month old baby boy: The little boy was given a white rat. At first he appeared to like the rat and wanted to play with it. Every time he moved towards the animal, the experimenter made a loud noise behind him. Understandably, this frightened the child. After only five attempts the child became terrified whenever he saw the rat. In other words he had anchored fear to the rat. The researchers were then able to remove the phobia using positive anchors. (Ref: Davison, G.C., and Neale, J.M., Abnormal Psychology, John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1986)

This state of mind can include things such as feelings of happiness or determination. Anchoring can also be used for interview nerves or helping you to overcome phobias or fears. It gives you control over how you react to external events. Since conditioning is at the core of learned behaviour it makes perfect sense to use a specific stimulus to create a desired behaviour or emotion. The possibilities are immense.

Anchoring uses repetition to create a trigger action, image or phrase (or any of the five senses) to create a chosen state of mind whenever you wish. The most common anchors used in a therapeutic setting are those of words and touch.  Examples of these can be the phrase “Calm and relaxed” or rubbing your thumb and the tips of your fingers together. However, any of the five senses can be used as triggers or anchors. When you use anchoring techniques you access feelings and emotions from the past and use a stimulus (anchor) to bring them into your present state of mind. With practice you'll be able to use anchors to bring about a desired state of mind easily and instantly.

Did you know that.....
	although anchoring is a very valuable tool which may be
		used as part of your hypnotherapy treatment, it's most
			often a naturally occurring everyday process

Anchoring frequently arises as a subconscious reaction -without you even being aware of it. If you think about it, you’ll realize that anchors which happen naturally play a major role in your life. Think about how you react to the ringing of your alarm clock; a certain tone of voice; the smell of your favourite food; the title music of a film that scared you out of your wits; someone wearing a perfume similar to that worn by your least favourite teacher – the list is endless. Each of these will induce a particular reaction. Some positive, some negative. These examples are all the results of naturally occurring anchors.

Now it's time to learn how to create some positve anchors.

Learn some NLP anchoring techniques

Basic NLP anchoring techniques are easy to learn and can be used anywhere. They can be even more powerful if the anchors are fixed in place while you are in a hypnotic state. But don't worry too much about that because you can learn anchoring techniques right now! Suppose, for example you want to feel calm in any situation. You could anchor feelings of calmness and relaxation to enable you to access this state of mind any time you wish.  To do this you would practise the steps below:

Use your anchor when your feelings of relaxation and calmness are at their strongest. This will create an association between that anchor and strong feelings of relaxation.

So there you are - five steps to changing how you think, feel and act. Now all you have to do is begin to enjoy the results!

You can create anchors for any other state of mind you want, such as confidence, success etc. Make sure that you create a different anchor for each state of mind. Otherwise, you’ll become very confused! With practice you’ll be able to use your anchors to bring about any positive state of mind easily and immediately.  Enjoy!

back to top >home >