How to influence people

My Job is to influence people.

I’m a Hypnotherapist and people pay me to influence the way they think and feel, so I’ve learned a few tricks along the way.

One of the least successful methods to get anyone to change is to tell them to, yet that seems to be what most people do most of the time.

Another thing people think will work is to explain things to people. They believe that if the other person just understands that what they are thinking/doing is wrong then they will change their behaviour. Unfortunately, this rarely works either. Take smoking for instance. We all know that smoking is damaging to us, and that we are likely to suffer ill health if we do it, yet there are still millions of smokers in the world. Telling them so stop doesn’t work. Explaining that it is bad for them doesn’t work. So what does?

Generally speaking, the best way of influencing someone (who isn’t hypnotised) is by leading by example.

If someone has a phobia of spiders there is a pretty good chance they were influenced into this way of thinking by someone close to them who was also scared of spiders. They saw this person freak out and subconsciously decided that this was a good way to react. Conversely if a person with an existing phobia is surrounded by people who are calm and relaxed around spiders, they may start to feel more relaxed themselves.

I had a client the other day who desperately wanted their partner to come for a hypnotherapy session with me. The partner was adamant that it wasn’t for them and refused point blank to even think about it. So my client booked 3 sessions with me to work on an issue she had. She went home after each session and told her partner how good it was making her feel and how much she was gaining from it. By the third session, he was asking if he could take her place.

When I was 11 years old I was told by a headmaster that the best piece of advice he could give me was to choose my friends wisely. It was a great piece of advice. Not only have my friends helped me through some difficult times and made good times better, but they have also influenced me. They have shaped my ideas and beliefs, they have led by example and I have learned so much from them. If I had chosen other friends, who knows where my life would have taken me. My advice to you would be to choose friends you respect. Choose friends you care about. Choose friends you want to be like.

If you want to influence someone be the example. Be their friend and show them by your words and more importantly your actions how good life can be. Show them what it is to be strong, caring, committed, healthy, reliable, responsible, fun, interesting and non judgemental. It may take some time, but you will be amazed at the impact it can have.

It’s all about balance

Christmas is not known as a season of balance. It tends to be about excess, decadence and over indulgence.

Personally I think that’s OK.

Being balanced all the time can get a bit bland – and maybe a bit of unbalance is sometimes required in a balanced life in order to balance things even more….

But here’s the thing about excess – you have to stop it before it starts to become normal.

I hope you’ve eaten, drunk and been Merry, but it’s time to thinks about redressing the balance.

I have a few friends who are going to be dryathletes in January – They’ve taken the pledge to steer clear of alcohol for a month. This is a great way of supporting your body and mind returning to a more healthy routine. Whether you have a problem with it or not, alcohol is a poison. You really do yourself a favour by keeping clear of it.

I don’t drink much as it is so going dry for January is fairly non eventful for me. I’m going to try to redress the balance of eating too much meat and sugar over Christmas. January is going to be about fruits and vegetables. Soups, stews and salads for me! I have to say I’m rather looking forward to it.

Have a think about what you may have been overindulging in and what you can do in January to help find your balance.

Lettuce – Rabbit food? Gorilla food!

Some people refer to lettuce as rabbit food, and that belittles it’s amazing value as a low fat, low calorie sources of vitamins and minerals that are essential parts of out diet. When people think of veggies in general they have a tendency to think of small cute animals eating them, but change your frame of reference – gorillas are vegetarian and you wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of one! There’s an old joke – what does a 400lb Gorilla eat at the salad bar? …. Anything he wants 🙂

Some things to remember about lettuce

1. It’s Low in Calories and has almost Zero Fat.

That makes it a great filler in a meal – whether you use it to bulk up a sandwich or to fill a plate of chicken or fish, it can help to give you a satisfying meal experience without overloading you with calories.

2. It helps Weight Loss

Lettuce contains fiber and cellulose. Besides filling you up, fibre improves your digestion.

3. Heart Healthy

Lettuce’s vitamin C and beta-carotene work together to prevent the oxidation of cholesterol. This prevents the build up of plaque.

4. Omega-3 Fatty acids.

Romaine lettuce has a two to one ratio of omega-3 to omega-6. That’s a great ratio.
The fat content in lettuce is not significant UNLESS you eat a lot–but we actually suggest you do!

5. Complete Protein

Romaine lettuce’s calories are 20 percent protein. Like all whole foods, much of this protein is complete, but the amount can be increased by combining with balancing proteins.

6. Helps with Insomnia

The white fluid that you see when you break or cut lettuce leaves is called lactucarium.

This has relaxing and sleep inducing properties similar to opium but without the strong side effects. Simply eat a few leaves or drink some lettuce juice.

7. Lettuce is alkaline forming

The minerals in lettuce help remove toxins and keep your acid/alkaline balance in order. Once you are balanced on this level there are a host of benefits including greater energy, clearer thinking, deep restful sleep, and youthful skin.

8. Low Glycemic Index

Lettuce has an average glycemic index of 15, but because it has so few calories, its glycemic load is considered zero. Foods with low glycemic indexes are great for anyone watching their blood sugars for medical reasons, or for weight management.

9. Whole Life Food

Lettuce is almost always eaten raw, providing us with many micronutrients not found in cooked or processed food. Eating raw food also adds vital energies not recognized by nutritional science.

10. Lettuce Tastes Great.

Even though lettuce is very low in calories, many varieties still have a sweet taste. To maximize benefits from your food you should really WANT to eat it with your whole body–not just your mind saying it is good for you. If you like the bitter taste you can find more bitter lettuce options, too!

So, if you’ve had a downer on salad, change the way you think about lettuce and boost your diet in a positive way.
If you need a hand to change your food habits, it’s worth giving Hypnotherapy a try. It’s an amazing way to have an easy and long lasting impact on your health.

Excellent Elderberries

At the end of the 19th century a sailor accidentally discovered that cheap port wine coloured with elderberries relieved his arthritis. This may have been the basis for a number of experiments on the medical benefits of elderberries.

Sambucus nigra – European or black elder – may be the cultivar most often used for medicinal purposes throughout the world and over decades and centuries of application. Modern research holds that elderberries may have anti-inflammatory, antiviral, and anti cancer properties.

They contain flavonoids which place elderberries in the category of “antioxidant-rich,” capable of preventing cell damage. One study suggested that the elderberry extract called Sambucol could shorten flu duration by up to three days.

Other traditional uses of elderberry flowers are as external antiseptic washes and poultices to treat wounds, and as an eye wash for conjunctivitis and eye inflammation. It’s been used for cosmetic purposes for millennia due to the reputation of distilled elderberry flower water to soften, tone, and restore the skin and lighten freckles. The flowers can also be steeped in oil to make a lotion that relaxes sore muscles and soothes burns, sunburn, and rashes.

Chemicals in both the flowers and berries may help diminish swelling in mucous membranes like sinuses and help relieve nasal congestion. Herbalists still use it to soothe children’s upset stomachs and relieve gas. Elderberries are reputed to have diuretic and detoxifying properties, and therefore considered good for weight management.

Some doctors recommend that pregnant and breastfeeding women avoid eating elderberries.

Elderberries are a very good source of vitamin A, providing 17 percent of the daily value, but that is eclipsed by it’s infection-fighting vitamin C content giving a massive 87 percent – reportedly more than any other plant besides black currants and rosehips. Other prominent ingredients in elderberries include iron (13 percent of the daily value) as well as potassium, vitamin B6, and lots of betacarotene.

The Food Standards Agency recommends cooking elderberries to destroy toxins present in the raw berries – some people find that eating raw elderberries makes them feel nauseous, while others suffer no ill effects.

Looking for things to do with elderberries – here are a few ideas from Wildcraft Vita

Delightful Dates

  Dates are Great….the fruit that is…not the going out with another person sort of date. I mean I’m sure that can be great too, but that’s not what this blog’s about.

The Date is the fruit of the date palm, thought to originate in Iraq, but now grown all over the world, from Australia to Spain, from China to America. Not surprising that it has spread so far when you know that it has been cultivated for at least 8000 years and even appears in fossil records from 50 Million years ago!

Dates provide a wide range of essential nutrients, and are a very good source of potassium. The sugar content of ripe dates is about 80% so it is pretty high on the Glycemic Index (between 30 and 50 depending on the type of date). That doesn’t make them particularly healthy, but it does make them a great ingredient in cakes where they can be used as a substitute for refined sugars. Banana and Date loaf is a classic ‘healthy’ cake and is ideal for using up browning bananas.The rest of the date consists of protein, fibre, and trace elements including boron, cobalt, copper, fluorine, magnesium, manganese, selenium, and zinc.

Having enough fibre in your diet can help to maintain a healthy gut. It is believed that one of the causes of colon cancer is that food has too slow a transit time in the gut leaving the the colon to interact with carcinogens for a longer period. Low levels of dietary fibre also lead to constipation and bloating as well as making it uncomfortable to go to the toilet. During times of life when constipation is more likely e.g. during pregnancy, it may be a good idea to increase your fibre intake, and adding dates to your diet is an easy way to do this.

There has also been a study which suggested that eating dates in the final four weeks of pregnancy has positive effects regarding labour. Women who had six dates daily were compared to women who did not eat dates. The date-consuming group had greater mean cervical dilation, higher proportion of intact membranes, higher proportion of spontaneous labour and shorter latent phase of labour.

Dates have even been suggested as a healthy and delicious way to reduce the levels of LDL cholesterol in the body, which is a major contributing factor heart attacks, heart disease, and stroke. Therefore, when taken twice a week, dates can seriously improve the overall health of the heart.

I hope you enjoy your dates this week – fruity or otherwise 🙂