‘Hypnosis can boost weight loss and save the NHS a fortune’ says Paul McKenna

Millions of people with obesity should be offered hypnosis on the NHS to help them change their eating behaviours and lose weight, Paul McKenna has said. The renowned self-help guru and hypnotist said medics were increasingly seeing the benefits of alternative approaches that can help patients address the underlying causes of their overeating.

Paul was speaking after research presented at the European Congress on Obesity in Istanbul showed an NHS clinic had successfully treated a child with severe obesity using clinical hypnosis. He said: “There’s no doubt that hypnotherapy for weight loss is a really good idea. Some people describe feeling like a switch was flipped in their mind and suddenly they just didn’t want to eat as much, felt motivated to exercise or became really conscious of what they were eating.

“A number of doctors have been saying publicly for a while, we should use these techniques in the NHS — we could save the NHS a fortune.

“Medical professionals are now looking at this and taking it seriously. It says to me that the world is now much more open to alternative approaches for all kinds of lifestyle changes.”

Around 16 million adults are living with obesity in the UK and a further 23m are overweight. Paul said millions could potentially benefit from hypnosis, although it is not guaranteed to work for everyone.

Clinical hypnosis involves a therapist guiding a patient to reach a state of focused attention and heightened suggestibility, then introducing suggestions tailored to their goals.

It is offered by some NHS practitioners for treatment of irritable bowel syndrome and chronic pain, but not recommended for weight management.

In a case study presented at the conference, a 13-year-old boy with severe obesity was offered clinical hypnosis alongside standard care at an NHS Complications of Excess Weight (CEW) Service.

Matthew Selman, a senior clinical psychologist at Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said the boy wanted to change and had been engaging with other methods but his weight was still rising.

In three 50-minute hypnosis sessions, he was supported to learn to eat for his body rather than his feelings, and to alter habits such as going to the cupboard and getting crisps after coming home from school. The teenager then continued using self-hypnosis for a total of four months.

His BMI score became closer to the normal figure for his age group and his body fat percentage fell from 66% to 55%. His anxiety scores also improved.

Mr Selman said: “It’s interesting to see even just a short number of sessions was enough for him to get this sort of change going.

“I’m very optimistic about the benefits. It’s clearly not going to be for everyone but when it connects with someone, you can see quite significant changes.”

Mr Selman added that two other patients offered hypnosis did not take to it. He now plans to try it with more young people to gather further evidence and better understand who can benefit.

Paul said the results were “terrific”, adding: “What I’m impressed with about this approach in Newcastle is that it’s rounded, using hypnosis alongside other techniques. But I would expect hypnosis to be a significant factor in helping people to reduce their weight.”

NHS data revealed this week that almost 6,500 children have been treated by CEWs for severe obesity, including more than 400 who were prescribed weight loss jabs.

Paul said it was a good idea to start working with children “before they establish all these terrible patterns of eating too much, trying to lose weight, failing”.

The behavioural scientist, 62, added: “Hypnotherapy is not about mind control. It’s about giving you more control over your mind and life so it’s a really good idea to start young before people have trained themselves over years to think, ‘I’m just an overweight person’.”

Paul pioneered a technique called the Hypnotic Gastric Band which has been used by millions around the world. It guides patients through imagining that their stomach has shrunk from the size of a football to the size of a tennis ball.

The hypnotist said: “It doesn’t work for everyone every time, but it seems to work for most people most of the time.

“It was originally designed for a clinical trial but we never got to the point where we measured whether people’s GLP-1 levels — hormones that signal satiety — actually increase. But in a way, it doesn’t matter. It’s perception.”

Paul has helped thousands of people quit smoking, overcome phobias, build confidence and manage anger.

He said many health problems linked to addiction, including food addiction, are thought to be caused by “inescapable stress” such as feeling stuck in a job or other life pressures.

Paul added: “Treating the anxiety — which is an epidemic level at the moment, we’ve come out of a biological pandemic and we’re in a psychological one — in addition to positive reinforcements for weight loss, is a much more holistic and smart way to go.”