TEMPTATION is everywhere.
But whether your vice is chocolate, booze or a flutter on the horses, there’s a way of getting it under control.
Paul McKenna reveals the ultimate guide to curbing cravingsPR handout
World renowned hypnotist Paul McKenna, whose latest book, Freedom From Anxiety, has topped the bestseller lists, here reveals the ultimate guide to curbing cravings to Emma Pietras.
Freedom From Anxiety, by Paul McKenna, (Welbeck) £14.99 is available now. Paul is due to start a UK tour, Instant Confidence, a coaching event to help train your brain, on March 4.
Be a winner like Bear Grylls
PAUL says: “I remember asking Bear Grylls about his motivation strategy. And he said, ‘When I’m about to give up, I think about the pain of giving up and failing, which would be so immense’.
“He just goes, ‘I think to myself, if I quit now, how am I going to feel about myself? I’ll feel awful about it’. So that’s what drives him to keep going, which is a very interesting strategy.
Bear Grylls said: ‘When I’m about to give up, I think about the pain of giving up and failing, which would be so immense’
“So he’s going ‘I’m moving away from the pain of failing, and I’m moving towards the pleasure of succeeding’. It’s all about changing a feeling. And it’s not just escaping bad feelings. It’s chasing good feelings.
“The idea is that, say with a glass of Champagne, it feels special. But if you did it all day long, it would lose its ‘specialness’. So doing anything to excess, has a consequence.
“So I’m all in favour of things that make you feel good, as long as they don’t affect your long-term health.
“You want to think about the long-term win, not the short-term gratification. You think about the long-term win. It can be a very tempting thing to do a short-term thing, and then later on beat yourself up about it. Think about the long-term game.”
Make repulsion outweigh compulsion
PAUL says those with a sweet tooth often have “a special stash of choccies or cakes in the drawer”, which can make it even harder to resist.
He said: “When you want to resist temptation, what you’ve got is the feeling of compulsion on the one hand and then what you want to do is add in a feeling of repulsion, and one cancels out the other.
ShutterstockPaul says make repulsion outweigh compulsion[/caption]
“I get people to think about their particular favourite food, and then I get them to think about something that they personally find revolting.
“Not just something they don’t like, but something they’re revolted by. So it could be anchovies or broccoli or something like that.
“And I say, ‘I want you to imagine biting into your doughnut, or whatever it is, and inside it there’s anchovies, and you’ve got to imagine the taste and the texture of the two mixed together.
“And if you really want to tip the scales, you go ‘and there’s a few hairs from a barber shop floor in there as well’. And you see them getting revolted.
“Then to encode it, you have to get them to swallow it, and once they’ve swallowed it, their brain mixes compulsion with repulsion. And the one cancels out the other — but you have to have the repulsion slightly stronger than the compulsion.
“You can use this for anything that tempts you.”
Make a movie in your head
WITH an economic crisis, many are finding it tough coping with the doom and gloom — and that can lead us more open to temptation.
Paul said: “If you want to change how you feel, the only way to feel good or bad is to either remember something good or bad that happened or to imagine something good or bad.
“All day long, what we’re doing is creating our feelings by what we say to ourselves, and the movies we make in our head. So if we’re picturing failing at something we get ourselves all worked up and stressed.
“The idea is also that we warn ourselves about potential problems. So for example, I have a big presentation coming up in a few weeks and it’s a big deal.
“I’ve begun preparing because I had a feeling the other day, like, ‘hang on, walk out a stage, it’s hundreds of people, I need to make some notes’.
“So that feeling actually is a good thing, because it keeps me safe. The trouble is, you just don’t want to live in it. Spending all your bandwidth for thinking insightful thoughts will exhaust you and you’ll end up making bad decisions because you’ll be totally reactive.
“So what the world needs right now is to calm down.
“When you get those calm feelings, you can then pay attention to the movies you’re making in your mind if you’re not continually catastrophising.
“The technique I use is . . . step out of the movie, make it black and white, like it’s happening to somebody else.”
Tapping – Thought Field Therapy
TAPPING — or Thought Field Therapy involves tapping on specific points on the body while focusing attention on a specific emotion or problem.
Paul said: “I discovered TFT after somebody gave me a book about it. I was reading it on a flight and the person sat next to me said, ‘I’m dying for some chocolate’. I asked her why she didn’t just have some but she said she wanted to lose weight.
ShutterstockIdentify the problem you want to focus on, how you feel about it now, and create a set-up statement[/caption]
“I asked her, ‘On a scale of one to ten, how much do you want that chocolate?’ And she replied, ‘Ten’. I went through the tapping sequence in the book. Then I said, ‘Where’s your desire now?’ And she said, ‘It’s gone, I have no desire whatsoever’.
“There was also a nervous flyer on the plane so I asked if she would like to try it and afterwards she said she felt really calm.”
He adds with a laugh: “I’d spent years learning hypnosis and training and all you do apparently is tap yourself and you feel better. So there was a bit of me that felt upset about it.”
Tapping technique guide: Identify the problem you want to focus on, how you feel about it now, and create a set-up statement, such as, ‘Even though I’m craving chocolate, I honour my body and give it permission not to fall into temptation’.
With four fingers on one hand, begin tapping the Karate Chop point on your other hand. The Karate Chop point is on the outer edge of the hand, on the opposite side from the thumb.Repeat the set-up statement three times aloud, while simultaneously tapping the Karate Chop point.Take a deep breath. Now, tap about five to seven times each on the remaining eight points in the sequence, see diagram above. As you tap on each point, repeat a simple reminder phrase such as “my craving” to help you mentally focus on your issue.
Fast forward to the consequence
PAUL says: “Another technique is the fast forward, where you literally fast forward in your mind and think of the consequences of drinking or smoking, for example.
“I just say, ‘If you carry on doing this for the next ten or 20 years, where do you end up?’ They need to answer this.
“Then I ask, ‘If you stop, how much better is it?’ So you literally give yourself two futures. A bad one, one to move away from, and one to move towards.
“With things like alcohol, you can fast forward to the consequences of drinking or drinking too much, such as, ‘I might get really drunk, I’ll probably have an argument with my partner, I’ll wake up feeling hungover and probably feel awful about myself’. That provides some repulsion.
“Then, in a split second, think about the alternative, ‘If I don’t drink too much, I’ll wake up tomorrow feeling clear headed and I’ll feel good about myself because I’m in control, not the alcohol’.”
PAUL is fronting a Cadbury Creme Egg competition – How Do You Not Eat Yours – which sees the chocolate firm hiding 280 half milk, half white chocolate Cadbury Creme Eggs in stores around the country for the public to find to be in with a chance of winning a cash prize of up to £10,000. Read More