Self Hypnosis Step by Step: A Simple Guide for Beginners

Self hypnosis is a skill you can learn, not a talent some people are born with. It’s a bit like riding a bike. The first attempt feels wobbly, and every repetition makes it more natural.

If you want to understand what’s behind the state itself, it helps to first read up on what hypnosis is and how the trance state works. This guide builds on that. It’s the hands-on part of the bigger topic of how to do self hypnosis.

Self hypnosis step by step: the 7 stages

This guide takes you through seven stages, from preparation to waking up. Read it all the way through once before you start. Then you won’t need it while you practice.

1. Set the scene. Find 10 to 15 minutes when nobody will disturb you. Phone on airplane mode. Sit comfortably, feet on the floor, hands on your thighs. Don’t lie down, or you’ll drift off too easily in the beginning. Tell yourself silently what this session is for. One sentence is enough.

2. Arrive and breathe. Fix your gaze on a point on the wall, slightly above eye level. Breathe in deeply three times and breathe out slowly. Let each out-breath be longer than the in-breath. With every exhale, your shoulders drop a little. Feel the weight of your body on the chair.

3. Induction: close your eyes. Your gaze on that point grows heavy. Your eyelids want to close. Let them. Tell yourself: with my eyes closed, everything gets quieter. This is the transition. No competition, no forcing. You simply allow it.

4. Deepening: count down. Count silently backwards from 10. With each number, your body becomes a little heavier and warmer. Ten: your legs grow heavy. Nine: your arms sink. And so on, down to one. If thoughts show up, let them drift past like clouds and keep counting.

5. Hold the depth. Once you reach one, stay there for a moment. Picture a calm place: a beach, a forest, your own couch. An image that feels safe. The more concrete the image, the deeper you go. Smell it, hear it, feel it.

6. Speak your suggestion. Now comes the sentence you prepared. Say it silently, calmly, several times. Positive, present tense, first person. For example: “I stay calm and clear, even when things get tight.” Repeat it five to eight times. Let it work instead of pushing it. A posthypnotic suggestion can also carry the effect beyond the session itself.

7. Wake up: count up. Tell yourself you’re about to come back: awake, fresh, clear. Count from 1 to 5. One: your circulation picks up. At three, move your fingers and toes. At five, open your eyes. Stretch. This return is not a minor detail. It ends the trance cleanly and lets you step back into your day fully alert.

Important: never practice this while driving, operating machinery or doing anything that needs your attention. And if you live with a severe mental illness, this work belongs with a qualified professional, not in solo practice. Self hypnosis is a self-help method. It does not replace diagnosis or treatment by a doctor or psychotherapist. If you’re dealing with pain, anxiety disorders, sleep problems or addiction, please talk to a doctor or psychotherapist.

Why self hypnosis is mostly practice

Many people give up after the second try because they’re waiting for a special feeling and notice nothing spectacular. How deeply you go into trance depends partly on your natural disposition. How easily you get there, though, is something you can train.

Trance is a state you already know

You’ve already been in trance today. Driving a familiar route and suddenly pulling up at home with no memory of the last few miles. Watching a film so absorbing that you didn’t hear the phone ring.

That’s focused attention. A state in which the alert guard in your head goes quiet. Self hypnosis turns it into a deliberate technique. You create the state on purpose and put it to use.

Getting in gets easier with training

Research generally treats hypnotizability as a fairly stable trait. But that doesn’t mean you can’t learn self hypnosis. With focused practice, many people find it easier to slip into trance.

In plain terms: your first attempt says nothing about your potential. It only says you’re at the beginning. The skill matures through repetition, not through wishing it would work right away.

Why your brain needs repetition

Your nervous system learns sequences the way paths form in a forest. The first walk through the undergrowth is hard going. By the twentieth time, there’s a trail. The same goes for the sequence of cue, winding down and suggestion.

Every session wears the path a little deeper. Eventually the starting cue alone, a long exhale, closing your eyes, is enough, and your body knows what comes next. That’s why regularity beats everything else. The way you build habits follows exactly the same principle.

What the research shows

In studies, self hypnosis shows its best results when people actively practice it as a skill. That’s what a 2019 systematic review suggests.

Eason and Parris (2019) analyzed randomized controlled trials in a systematic review. Across the studies they included, self hypnosis showed measurable effects in a range of areas. These are study results under controlled conditions, not a promise for any individual. What mattered was the how. In their analysis, self hypnosis tended to perform better when participants had practiced it several times beforehand. For your own practice, that means: treat it as a skill and train it actively.

So what happens in the brain? Jiang and colleagues (2017) at Stanford University scanned the brains of 57 people during hypnosis. They found reduced activity in a region that judges whether something deserves attention, and a weaker connection to networks involved in self-reflection. At the same time, the coupling between control areas and areas that process body awareness was stronger. Put simply: the inner commentator gets quieter, and the link between intention and body gets tighter.

The authors describe the effect soberly: these changes in neural activity likely underlie the “focused attention, enhanced somatic and emotional control, and lack of self-consciousness” that characterize hypnosis. No magic. Measurable neurobiology.

Then there’s the physical side. The relaxation response described by Herbert Benson lowers heart rate, breathing rate and metabolism. Bhasin and colleagues (2013) found indications that regularly triggering this response goes along with changes in gene activity. This is basic research and makes no claim about healing effects. So when you use self hypnosis to reduce stress, you’re working with a well-documented physical mechanism.

These findings describe mechanisms, not healing effects.

Write your suggestion before you start

Write your suggestion before you go into trance. Once you’re in that state, your mind is too slow for wordsmithing. A good sentence is short, positive, in the present tense and in the first person.

The most common mistake is negation. “I’m not afraid anymore” plants the word afraid. Your unconscious hears the image, not the “not”. Flip it. Instead of “I’m not distracted anymore”, try “I stay on task”. Instead of “I’m not nervous anymore”, try “I stay calm and centered”.

Here’s a hypothetical example. Someone wants to feel more at ease before presentations. The first impulse is often something like “I’m not nervous anymore.” It’s phrased negatively and points attention straight at the nerves. Better: “I stand there, breathe calmly and speak clearly.” That sentence is concrete, physical and positive.

A strong suggestion ticks four boxes. It’s short enough to remember. It describes what you want, not what you’re avoiding. It’s in the present tense, as if it’s already true. And it connects to your body: breathing, standing, feeling. Write down two or three versions and pick the one that feels most right.

Self hypnosis techniques for beginners: staircase, counting, heaviness

Deepening techniques take you from light relaxation into real trance. The three most reliable are the staircase, counting backwards and body heaviness. Try them out and see which one suits you.

The staircase is an image. You’re standing at the top of a staircase with ten steps. With every step down, you sink deeper into calm. Ten, nine, eight, and at the bottom your safe place is waiting. Some people prefer an elevator, others a gently sloping path. Use whatever image feels natural.

Counting backwards, from stage 4, is the simplest technique: your mind has a small task, so it has no room to ruminate.

Heaviness works purely through the body. You move your attention upwards from your feet. Feet heavy, calves heavy, thighs heavy, until your whole body sinks into the chair. This technique is ideal if your mind struggles to switch off but your body responds well to sensations.

An honest note. Not every technique suits everyone. People who live in their heads often get in more easily through heaviness, because imagery distracts them. Give each method a few days before you judge it. And if you prefer guided practice, a hypnosis audio recording can make getting started easier, as a complement to your own practice.

How to tell it’s working

Trance usually feels unremarkable. No blacking out, no loss of control. More like a calm heaviness, a slight sense of being elsewhere, as if you’re sitting behind a thin pane of glass. That’s a typical sign that you’re going into trance.

Pay attention to physical markers. Your arms and legs feel heavy or pleasantly warm. Your breathing becomes shallower and slower on its own. Sometimes your eyes flicker slightly beneath the lids. You might feel a tingling in your hands. All of these are signs that your nervous system is winding down.

A second sign is your sense of time. Many people guess afterwards that they were gone for five minutes, when it was actually fifteen. Many experience this time distortion in trance. It’s a common sign, but not a requirement.

Don’t expect dramatic proof. The biggest thinking error is waiting for a wow moment. The effect shows up in everyday life, not in the session. Over time, many people notice small changes, such as staying calmer in tense situations. Often that difference only appears after several sessions. That’s why sticking with it matters more than any single attempt.

The 3 most common beginner mistakes

Most people don’t fail for lack of talent. They trip over three avoidable mistakes. Know them, and you’ll save yourself weeks of frustration.

Mistake 1: Giving up too soon. After two attempts with no noticeable effect, the thought creeps in that it doesn’t work. But your nervous system needs repetition to learn the sequence. Remember Eason and Parris: self hypnosis tended to perform better when it had been practiced several times beforehand. Give it a few weeks of daily practice before you decide.

Mistake 2: Negative suggestions. “I’m not afraid” strengthens the image of fear. Your unconscious hears nouns, not negations. Always phrase what you want, not what you want to get rid of. This one point often makes the difference between progress and standing still.

Mistake 3: Trying to force it. Trance comes from allowing, not from effort. If you force it, you tense up. And tension is the opposite of trance. Let go instead of pushing. When thoughts come, don’t fight them. Let them drift past.

If you want to dig deeper into the typical pitfalls, a dedicated guide to common self hypnosis mistakes covers them in detail.

From technique to system: your next step

This guide gives you the tool. But knowledge alone rarely changes much. Whether you stay calm before a presentation or can switch off in the evening depends on patterns that run deeper than any good intention. That’s exactly where hypnosis comes in.

If you’d like to feel what it’s like when someone guides you through trance, choose a free hypnosis on the topic that’s on your mind: a ready-made session on exactly the subject you’re dealing with right now. You can keep practicing your own self hypnosis alongside it.

If you want to go further after that, the next step is a free 1:1 analysis session, 45 minutes with one of our top coaches, in which all 11 areas of your life are analyzed in depth. From that, Hypnotic Rise takes shape: a program built only for you, with hypnosis sessions written only for you that you listen to in bed in the evening.