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Essentials: Using Hypnosis to Enhance Mental & Physical Health & Performance | Dr. David Spiegel

Nov 27, 2025 34m 57s 22 insights
In this Huberman Lab Essentials episode, my guest is Dr. David Spiegel, MD, the Associate Chair of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Director of the Center on Stress and Health, and Director of the Center for Integrative Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine. We discuss the science and clinical applications of hypnosis, including how hypnosis works in the brain. We examine the evidence-based uses of clinical and self-hypnosis for pain, trauma, phobias, sleep and stress, and explain how to gauge your own level of "hypnotizability." We also outline practical ways to access these tools, from working with a trained clinician to using structured self-hypnosis protocols.
Actionable Insights

1. Enhance Mind-Body Control

Use self-hypnosis to significantly enhance your control over both your mental processes and physical reactions, fostering a greater sense of agency.

2. Cultivate Cognitive Flexibility

Utilize hypnosis to develop cognitive flexibility, allowing you to easily shift perspectives, suspend judgment, and view situations from new angles for therapeutic benefit.

3. Reduce Stress with Dissociation

Employ hypnosis for stress reduction by dissociating physical reactions from psychological stress. Imagine your body floating safely while visualizing stressors on an imaginary screen, consciously maintaining physical comfort to regain control.

4. Confront Trauma Voluntarily

Deliberately and voluntarily confront traumatic situations to restructure your understanding of them and modulate your emotional responses, making the experiences more tolerable and fostering resilience.

5. Utilize Self-Hypnosis for Sleep

Use self-hypnosis to improve sleep quality, especially if you struggle with insomnia, as it has been shown to help individuals achieve better rest.

6. Treat Phobias with Hypnosis

Apply hypnosis to manage anxiety related to phobias, allowing you to engage in a wider range of experiences with the feared situation and build a network of positive associations.

7. Regulate Physiological Responses

Leverage hypnosis to control physiological responses, such as gastric acid secretion, by vividly imagining specific scenarios (e.g., eating food or relaxing), demonstrating the brain’s ability to influence bodily functions.

8. Enhance Focus with Hypnosis

Explore self-hypnosis training to improve focus and attention, as it can help prepare your mind to narrow in and concentrate more effectively on tasks, potentially benefiting conditions like ADHD.

9. Practice Short Hypnosis Refreshers

Integrate brief self-hypnosis refreshers, lasting only one or two minutes, into your daily routine for quick relief and reinforcement, as these short sessions can significantly improve your well-being.

10. Categorize and Reframe Pain

Actively categorize pain signals to discern their meaning, such as whether they indicate potential re-injury or simply a normal part of healing, thereby modifying how your brain processes and responds to the pain.

11. Reframe Problems as Opportunities

Shift your perspective on interpersonal problems or threats by viewing them as opportunities to take ameliorative action, empowering you to influence and improve the situation.

12. Blend Receptive, Active Response

When encountering challenges, combine receptive processing for deeper understanding with an active response to influence the situation, fostering personal growth and control.

13. Use Breathing for State Modulation

Consciously control your breathing patterns, particularly emphasizing slow, extended exhalations, to modulate your internal state, induce relaxation, and demonstrate greater self-control over bodily functions.

14. Assess Hypnotizability

Determine your capacity for hypnotic experiences by undergoing an assessment like the Hypnotic Induction Profile, which provides a numerical score (0-10) to guide personalized treatment approaches.

15. Perform Spiegel Eye Roll Test

Conduct the Spiegel Eye Roll Test by tilting your head back, looking upwards with open eyes, and then slowly closing your eyelids. Observing sclera (white part) indicates higher hypnotizability, while seeing iris (colored part) suggests lower hypnotizability.

16. Turn Inward for Focus

Signal your brain to turn inward by looking up and closing your eyes, allowing external distractions to fade and focusing on internal sensations to achieve a state of resting alertness and introspection.

17. Seek Licensed Hypnosis Clinician

For safe and effective hypnosis, consult a licensed and trained clinician in a primary professional discipline such as psychiatry, psychology, medicine, or dentistry, who can properly assess your needs.

18. Learn Self-Hypnosis Techniques

Acquire self-hypnosis techniques from a qualified professional to enable independent practice, facilitating continuous self-management for various concerns including pain, stress, and focus.

19. Use Reverie App for Self-Hypnosis

Download the Reverie app to access guided self-hypnosis exercises designed to help with pain, stress, focus, insomnia, eating habits, and smoking cessation.

20. Consider Hypnosis for Children

Explore hypnosis as a tool for children to manage fear and pain during medical or dental procedures, leveraging their high hypnotizability to help them focus away from discomfort.

21. Engage in Group Hypnosis

Participate in group hypnosis sessions, which can be a shared social experience that enhances individual abilities and therapeutic outcomes, as seen in collective treatments for various conditions.

22. Find Qualified Hypnotists

Locate well-trained hypnotists by utilizing the referral services provided by professional organizations such as the Society for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis (SCEH.US) and the American Society for Clinical Hypnosis.