Changing Eating Behaviors of Healthy Adults Through Hypnosis

Eating Behavior - Choice or Reconstruction of Past Experience? Changing Eating Behaviors of Healthy Adults Through Hypnotic Suggestions

There is a lot of research on weight loss. In spite of the research on the subject, obesity is a growing disease all through the world. The results of recent reviews and meta-analyzes show that psychological interventions had small effect on weight loss. The investigators propose a different approach to changing eating behaviors with relevance to weight management and hypothesize that participants in the active interventions will significantly improve their eating behaviors than the ones in the control group. The results will improve the psychological interventions for weight loss.

This is a randomized clinical trial consisting of four groups. According to the concept of Free Will, the decision of action is taken before being acknowledged and is made following the reconstruction of previous experiences. It can be inhibited immediately (max 100ms) after awareness. The investigators want to intervene based on this model using hypnotic suggestions to change eating behaviors. Participants were found through social media announcements. Three groups receive one session of hypnosis with induction and different suggestions and the control group receives only induction. The eating behavior is measured through computer tasks in which participants have the option to choose pictures of food. The task is performed before, during and after hypnosis and the measurements of eating behavior are taken at all three times.

Hypnosis formed from hypnotic induction (an adapted version from Barber Suggestibility Scale) together with hypnotic suggestions to experience amnesia for the food pictures they had just seen.

Hypnosis formed from hypnotic induction (an adapted version from Barber Suggestibility Scale) together with hypnotic suggestions about a future where they will control their eating behaviors.

Hypnosis formed from hypnotic induction (an adapted version from Barber Suggestibility Scale) together with hypnotic suggestions about a past where they have always controlled their eating behaviors.

The number of food pictures chosen by the participant in this single session intervention. The outcome is a measure assessing a change between three time points.

The intervention is delivered in one session. The outcome is measured: immediately pre intervention (0-2 min), during intervention and immediately post intervention (0-2 min).

Inclusion Criteria: Both gender Healthy Adults who want to change their eating behavior Exclusion Criteria: Severe mental illness <18 years A diagnosed eating disorder

Haggard P, Cartledge P, Dafydd M, Oakley DA. Anomalous control: when 'free-will' is not conscious. Conscious Cogn. 2004 Sep;13(3):646-54. doi: 10.1016/j.concog.2004.06.001.

Jamieson GA, Kittenis MD, Tivadar RI, Evans ID. Inhibition of retrieval in hypnotic amnesia: dissociation by upper-alpha gating. Neurosci Conscious. 2017 Apr 19;2017(1):nix005. doi: 10.1093/nc/nix005. eCollection 2017.

Oakley DA, Halligan PW. Hypnotic suggestion and cognitive neuroscience. Trends Cogn Sci. 2009 Jun;13(6):264-70. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2009.03.004. Epub 2009 May 8.

Kuhn S, Haggard P, Brass M. Intentional inhibition: how the "veto-area" exerts control. Hum Brain Mapp. 2009 Sep;30(9):2834-43. doi: 10.1002/hbm.20711.

Wolpert DM, Ghahramani Z, Jordan MI. An internal model for sensorimotor integration. Science. 1995 Sep 29;269(5232):1880-2. doi: 10.1126/science.7569931.

Haggard P. Human volition: towards a neuroscience of will. Nat Rev Neurosci. 2008 Dec;9(12):934-46. doi: 10.1038/nrn2497.

Terhune DB, Brugger P. Doing better by getting worse: posthypnotic amnesia improves random number generation. PLoS One. 2011;6(12):e29206. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0029206. Epub 2011 Dec 15.

Mendelsohn A, Chalamish Y, Solomonovich A, Dudai Y. Mesmerizing memories: brain substrates of episodic memory suppression in posthypnotic amnesia. Neuron. 2008 Jan 10;57(1):159-70. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2007.11.022.

Oakley DA, Halligan PW. Hypnotic suggestion: opportunities for cognitive neuroscience. Nat Rev Neurosci. 2013 Aug;14(8):565-76. doi: 10.1038/nrn3538. Epub 2013 Jul 17.

Stoeckel LE, Weller RE, Cook EW 3rd, Twieg DB, Knowlton RC, Cox JE. Widespread reward-system activation in obese women in response to pictures of high-calorie foods. Neuroimage. 2008 Jun;41(2):636-47. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2008.02.031. Epub 2008 Mar 4.