So you want to try Ayahuasca and keep your sobriety date…
Join us LIVE on Instagram @arlinaallen Wednesday at 5:00pm MST to talk about this!
Previously we started a conversation about The Tim Ferriss Show, episode #521 with Dr Andrew Huberman, Neurobiologist out of Stanford.
This week we will continue by looking at the part of the episode that focuses on Hypnosis vs Ayahuasca.
There was a time when it was believed that brain development was complete by adulthood. It is now understood that our brains are constantly changing as a way to adapt to our external environment. This is called neuroplasticity.
This is fantastic news as it means that we can use neuroplasticity to change undesirable thought patterns and behaviours.
There has been a move to harness alternative therapies to do this. For example, I have been hearing a lot about substance assisted therapies like Ayahuasca ceremonies, sometimes referred to as “ten years of therapy in a night”, and the use of psychedelics like psilocybin and MDMA.
An alternative for those of us practicing abstinence, is hypnosis – not stage hypnosis but hypnosis as therapy by bringing together a high degree of focus and relaxation, which are the two components needed for neural plasticity to occur.
Remember last week we spoke about the two basic states of humans as being alert or relaxed. Dr. Andrew Huberman explains that to the extreme these can be defined as:
Stress or Excitement, demonstrated through:
- A highly contracted visual window
- Highly contracted time domains
- Space & time constricted to what’s going to happen next
Sleep
- Space and time are extremely fluid (anything can happen)
- You are essentially out of control mentally
- Whatever is going to happen is going to happen
So hypnosis brings these states together.
The high degree of focus means that the context is restricted, like looking at something through a telephoto lens, you are eliminating the surrounds so you are in a state of High Focus, remembering last week’s conversation, usually that degree of focus would equate to excitement or stress, but hypnosis is a unique state as you get a high degree of focus but you are also very relaxed.
Neuroplasticity is triggered by states of high focus followed by periods of relaxation later in deep sleep or Non Sleep Deep Rest (NSDR), and hypnosis brings these two states together at the same time making it effective in accelerating neuroplasticity.
Hypnosis has a high success rates in the changing of behaviours and thoughts. Huberman cites blinded control studies where 60-80% cessation of smoking has been achieved, where 90% have significant improvements with levels of anxiety & there has been a 50-75% improvement in the management of chronic pain and a high level of success treating trauma.
Substance assisted states involve the manipulation of both serotonin and dopamine release to change states, which in turn allows for people to see and appreciate novel associations that normally wouldn’t occur in waking states.
I have not tried Ayahuasca or MDMA, so I cannot share any personal experience from that, however I have tried hypnosis and the results have been amazing. I am not sure exactly what happened, but I do know that i have had a shift in lifelong thoughts about myself, which has drastically improved my quality of life (most of all inside my head)
If you would like to know more about hypnosis or if you are looking for a certified hypnotist, be sure to book a free consultation call with Arlina by visiting the soberlifeschool.com.
Written By Jennifer MacArthur
Leave a Reply