Nicholas Pollak

Every day of the working week, I spend a few moments deciding what I am going to write for my Twitter account, Hypno4you. I offer a motivational phrase or the benefits of hypnosis. Recently, I wrote, “Improve personal, work, sports motivation and performance with...

A new client asked me to help her manage pain she was suffering after knee surgery. Her physical therapist worried that she was not progressing sufficiently. Following repeated examinations, her doctors had assured her nothing was wrong physically. The problem, they concluded, was that she needed to get out of her own way, without explaining what they meant.

As a clinical hypnotherapist, I constantly hear stories about how people believe they became the way they are. They want to change the past in the vain hope it will ring in a bright future. It is hard to let go of negative behaviors that have been with you for so long.

A woman recently asked if I ever had dealt with emetophobia. I did not know it was extreme fear of vomiting. Her symptoms ranged from rapid breathing, to the sweats, nervousness, panic and a desire to run. They sounded like a traditional panic and anxiety attack, just a different trigger.

An increasing number of my clients want to talk to me about quitting smoking. Only some are motivated. How do I know which is which?

Handwriting analysis, an amazing art, is useful for me as a hypnotist. I always ask a client to tell me in cursive writing what he or she wants to accomplish. Unbeknown to them, I can look at their handwriting and determine immediately if a person is outgoing or shy, whether mentally or physically stimulated, a good communicator, has good self-esteem, is thrifty, is deceptive, is sympathetic. I also can tell...

After I recently was involved in an accident, my editor suggested it could be fodder. No, was my first thought, but I changed my mind. Every morning, rain, snow or shine, I walk my dog for three miles, and then I ride my bike for three or four miles without the dog. On a cold, crisp, sunny day, I was headed north along Beethoven, approaching the four-way stop at Short Avenue and Beethoven.

Some days present challenges that can make a day exhausting. You can be so emotionally overwhelmed that you slip into hypnosis by tuning out everything around you. Once a conscious mind becomes overloaded, it is ready to go into hypnosis. A somnambulist is a person who is...

Once we were busy with work, kids, wife and more. Suddenly, with the children grown, neither you nor your wife has the energy you used to have. It is harder to find pastimes that make you feel better about yourself. Nothing went wrong, though. You just grew old. Many of us find that as we age, we have less to do. Your newly idle mind might become the devil’s playground unless you are careful to direct your time toward constructive thinking.

I received a call from a gentleman who had been reading about selective mutism and how hypnosis has been used to resolve the issue. He wondered whether it could help his 10-year-old son who has been suffering from selective mutism since he was three.