Happy Mind: The Philosophy and Science of Happiness

Katherine Power asks hypnotherapist Jonathan Conway what role hypnosis can play in weight loss.

 

It's January again, the month of resolutions, when goals like losing weight and looking toned are on people's minds even more than usual – and that's saying a lot, considering a poll by Grazia this year found that the average British woman worries about her body every 15 minutes.
 
Making the same resolutions year after year suggests we may be wise to pick new resolutions, or change how we go about achieving our goals. Personalities like hypnotist Paul McKenna, author of I Can Make You Thin, have popularised the use of hypnosis to deal with the mental causes of weight problems. The general idea is that achieving the desired body weight will be easier if the unconscious mind can be made to cooperate.
 
Although few studies show hypnosis alone to have an effect on weight loss, the combination of hypnosis and behavioural weight management seems to be more effective than the behavioural treatments alone, and psychologists such as David Bolocofsky have theorised that hypnosis may act as a reinforcer, helping subjects to learn healthy food habits.

 

Katherine Power reviews Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert.

 

With style, and plenty of wit, Daniel Gilbert argues that what distinguishes humans from other animals is our ability to predict the future. Even so, our imagination does not always work wonders and we are often in the dark about what will make us happy – or unhappy. What's more, we are not much better when it comes to remembering past joys and sorrows.

 

"Despite the third word of the title, this is not an instruction manual that will tell you anything useful about how to be happy," says Gilbert. "Those books are located in the self-help section two aisles over, and once you've bought one, done everything it says to do and found yourself miserable anyway, you can always come back here to understand why."