Hypnosis has been around for a long time. Even though it has fallen in and out of favor with the general public, it has always regained popularity. The question almost everyone asks, though, is: does it really do anything for you?

The answer is yes.

Hypnosis can be used for both physical and mental problems. Want to quit smoking or drugs? Hypnosis can help. Want to lose weight, get over a phobia, or improve your general health? Hypnosis can help.

In fact, hypnosis can be used for many problems and for those lucky few who don't have any personal problems, hypnosis has added advantages.

By regularly going into a hypnotic state, you can realize many benefits. You can improve the quality of your sleep, your breathing, your mood and your immune system. You can also reduce stress and illness.

Deep breathing and the hypnotic state provide a level of relaxation that improves your sleep by training your body to achieve and hold a completely restful state.

Hypnosis also trains your body to breathe correctly. As babies, we instinctively breath with our diaphragms. This "belly breathing" is more healthy and more natural. But, through our tendency to hold our stomachs in and the overall poor air quality found in many areas, we have learned to do more chest breathing.

As a result, we are less healthy, have less energy and feel less well.

Your mood can also be improved through hypnosis. When you are in a deeply relaxed state (hypnosis), your brain releases the so-called feel-good chemicals that most everyone has heard about. These chemicals are natural mood lifters and can help lower stress.

Since one of the side effects of stress is a lowering of our immune system, lower stress will help our immune system. Because of how we live our lives, we can't avoid producing a lot of stress. This causes our bodies to be in almost constant states of "flight or fight". Our bodies do this to be prepared for problems, but we don't need to be on constant alert and it's also harmful.

Hypnosis puts the body into a relaxed state that relaxes this "flight or fight" status, lowering our stress and thereby improving our health and immune system and increasing our energy.

All these elements together will create a more balanced individual and allow you better opportunity to live a full and satisfying life.

To start gaining these benefits right away, you can begin with the simple task of re-learning to "belly breath". This can be accomplished quite quickly with only a few minutes a day.

To practice so that it becomes natural again, try the following exercise. If you take ten of these breaths, three times a day for at least a week, you will notice a definite improvement in your breathing.

To begin, find a comfortable place to sit down. You want to avoid lying down unless you are sure you won't accidentally fall asleep. You should also wear loose clothing that allows you to feel your stomach.

Once you are seated, put your arm across your stomach and relax. Then breathe slowly, like this:

Counting to two, breathe in through your nose. Then hold it and count to four. Finally, as you count to three, breathe out through your mouth.

While you are breathing, you should be aware of your stomach. When you breathe in, you should feel your stomach expand. If it isn't, try pushing it out as much as you can as you draw breath in through your nose.

When you breathe out, you should feel your stomach deflate. Again, if you are having trouble, try pushing it out.

After you do this often enough, you will again begin to breathe in this manner. Not only will it help you physically and mentally, but it will also help your efforts at self-hypnosis.

Self-hypnosis itself is also relatively easy. It largely requires you to practice it regularly. It only has three main components: progressive relaxation, visual imagery and eye fixation.

The belly breathing will help with the relaxation. You need only imagine yourself relaxing each part of your body individually, until you are completely relaxed.

Most people find it helps to have low or no lights and little to no noise or interruptions. You should also find a comfortable place and wear non-binding clothes. Experiment to see whether you do better with soft light or no light, relaxing music or no sound.

The other two aspects are very important as they allow you to focus and better help get you into a hypnotic state.

Eye fixation is simply resting your gaze on your target image and focusing on that and no other visual.

If you are adept at visualizing in your mind, you simply need to close your eyes and bring up your chosen picture (generally a calming image), staying focused solely on it.

If you are not able to visualize well enough, then find a mandala symbol or another relaxing picture that you can gaze at. Just remember to make it something that will not distract you from your purpose.

If you only take a few minutes a day to practice your belly breathing and put yourself into a hypnotic state, you will very quickly see an improvement, not only in your ability to perform belly breathing and hypnosis, but also in your health and mental state.