Can Hypnotherapy Cure the Munchies?

I’ve always known my bottomless pit was different. Flatmates over the years have routinely looked on with fascination as I spread my banquet out in front of the TV. Other people’s “I feel sick, I can’t eat anymore” limit is but a frustrating fraction of mine – I leave them in my stodge-filled, stomach-cramping wake. Whole loaves of sourdough with Lurpak scooped out the tub is my signature vice. Add weed into the equation, and I promise your mind would be blown. I do extreme gorging well, basically.

When I heard about one pal’s IBS disappearing after hypnotherapy, I set about to see if the same could be possible with my munchies. Zoe Clews has over 20 years’ experience in the field and agreed to take me on, with some caveats. It turns out that the munchies are an actual chemical reaction, so there’s a physiological element that can override subconscious suggestions in that moment. New research, published in Scientific Reports in December 2023, shows that cannabis even activates specific hunger neurones in the brain.

“It also increases the senses, so there’s heightened pleasure in eating, meaning the reward system gets fired up,” explains Clews. “Inhibitions are lowered, too, with increased reward and dopamine, which is why cognitive self-control goes out the window.” She warns that hypnotherapy can’t necessarily help with the effect (the munchies), but it can help with the cause (smoking weed).

I tell Clews I don’t want to cut out the desire to smoke completely, but she believes I’ve got enough of a history of sober overeating to work on for us to try to override weed bingeing at the same time. Apparently, my kind of extreme autopilot overeating – especially if I use weed as an excuse – likely means there’s much deeper issues at play. Maybe understanding the source of my stomach void could stop my reliance on snacks and weed for relaxation.

What is hypnotherapy?

First, let’s go into the actual process: Hypnotherapy is the use of hypnosis in psychotherapy. “When I’m working with clients, whether it’s OCD, a fear of flying or nail biting, we’re working to understand what’s driving it, then giving the subconscious new, healthier suggestions,” Clews explains. “All compulsive behaviour comes from the subconscious, which is much stronger than our conscious.”

For me, it’s having the thought that I do not want or need any more food, only to find myself going back to the fridge repeatedly. I’ve tried all the obvious tactics, like not stocking up my cupboard or trying to match my tempo to those around me, but nothing can stand in the way of going straight for the biscuits as soon as my dinner is finished, or – when weed’s involved – food being shovelled down my gullet until the moment I close my eyes in bed.

Obviously, lots of people stuff delicious crap into their gobs to soothe and regulate – how do you know if your habit, like mine, is worthy of seeing a professional? Well, there are certain signs: “Number one is compulsivity,” Clews says, meaning an irresistible urge to behave in a certain way, like planning to eat one meal and then finding yourself bingeing on food straight after. (Guilty as charged.) You might also discover it begins to affect your physical or mental health or find that you turn to food to comfort yourself “every time – or the majority of time” in times of upset and stress. Overeating leads to constant guilt, which, in turn, makes you do it all over again. It’s that binge-guilt-punishment cycle that hypnotherapy tries to break.

A compulsion can become stronger and harder to control as we get older – basically, these are old wounds shouting at us to notice them. “You might’ve been able to control cravings around food, alcohol, drugs, sex, or other substances and processes but now you can’t,” Clews says. “When that happens, the habit may well have transitioned into addiction territory and addiction is progressive.”

That’s why hypnotherapy partly focuses on healing what she describes as “inner child trauma”, the true driving force beneath the compulsion. Clews stresses the importance of recognising that experiences can be traumatic, even if they aren’t “capital T trauma, like abuse”. It can be as everyday as having a parent who works a lot, leading to someone’s belief being that they aren’t important.

“People always tell me they’re confused because they have a great relationship with family now, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that some legitimate needs weren’t met as a child,” Clews explains. “Your adult self is completely different from your inner child, but your subconscious doesn’t understand the concept of time until it’s negotiated with.”

In hypnotherapy, inner child work involves what Clews called “clearance sessions”, where you’re put in a relaxed hypnotic state and you respond to the hypnotherapist’s questions. Other sessions might involve “pure suggestion”, where you simply listen.

She often finds that pure suggestion is enough for smoking, nail biting and phobias, but if there’s evidence of “emotional wounding”, then it’s likely she’ll go deeper with inner child work.

“Anyone can start smoking cigarettes, for example – they’re really addictive. But the roots of food addiction or disordered eating are emotional,” says Clews. “They’re usually in childhood and there are so many different layers to it.”

What happens in hypnotherapy?

Session 1

I arrive at Clews’ glam West London townhouse office on a cold Wednesday evening, slightly wary of the prospect of being vulnerable. The office is decked out stylishly, in a Loaf show-home kind of way, with a velvet navy sofa and armchair. I settle into the former as Clews takes the armchair, and I reel off a bit of background and overview of my childhood. In the name of not airing out every item of my dirty laundry, I’ll keep some specifics to myself. But, more generally, she explains that how fellow overeaters spend quality time with their family can have a big impact on binge eating. For example, if you didn’t get much quality time and spent a lot of childhood on your own, then this might lend itself to using food to combat loneliness or boredom.

“There’s a hunger for something, and this has translated into hunger for food as an adult for you. For other people it could be shopping or sex,” Clews says. “That part of you actually doesn’t want food, she wants love – which sounds really hackneyed, but it’s true.”

Now, this doesn’t mean I wasn’t loved – I had a very fortunate upbringing – but let’s face it: It’s practically impossible for any of us not to have hang-ups from childhood.

She also suggests that one of our goals could be removing the association of weed with relaxing, as I’ve got into a habit of weed – much like tasty food – signifying the weekend.

Clews tells me to look up Overeaters Anonymous, which she admits is a bloody terrible name but can be helpful for learning to have compassion for yourself. “Because that’s what this is all about,” she adds. “You need to have compassion that this habit is a coping mechanism – overeating is a symptom.”

Now for the actual hypnosis: I lie down on the sofa with my eyes closed wearing big headphones over my ears that are connected to her laptop. She sits on her chair, also with headphones on, and speaks to me through the headset for about an hour. This is recorded for me to listen back when I go to sleep over the next week.

It begins like a meditation, with talk of a rose gold light filling the room. Then she addresses my inner consciousness, explaining that I don’t need food to regulate.

“There’s no thoughts in her head of bread and butter, chocolate, crisps,” says Clews in a melodic, breathy voice. “Whether you smoke weed or drink alcohol, you just don’t think in that same way that you did before.” Sleepy sighs pepper her sentences. “All of my suggestions grow stronger and stronger, last longer and longer, reach deeper and deeper, and no way is easier or more natural than this.”

I won’t lie, at times it sounded quite like that Little Britain sketch – “look into my eyes, not around the eyes, look into my eyes”. But mostly it was soft and dream-like, set against gentle background music that sounded like a lullaby or meditation backing track.

I drift in and out of consciousness throughout this session, waves dragging me into a deep half-sleep then back again, refocusing on Clew’s words. When the whole thing was over, I was extremely relaxed and sleepy. This was a lot more enjoyable than I’d anticipated.

Session 2

The next week, we try an old-school hypnosis technique which she calls IMRs, short for “ideomotor responses” – a way of communicating with the subconscious using finger movements. I sit upright with my hands out in front, as if playing piano, while Clews asks my subconscious questions. Supposedly, one of my fingers will jerk in response.

“It sounds a bit séance-y, but it’s nothing weird,” Clews assures, noting incredible results have been found for people with PTSD. The process starts like last time, with dreamy, meditative words and my closed eyes.

“Thank you for the small but powerful changes we’ve seen thus far, but I want to go further,” she says in her hypnotic voice. “I want to go deeper to set Becky free.” She asks my subconscious to raise a finger to indicate which hand signals “yes”, and which “no”. A finger jerks for each.

Now for the proper questions: “Can you, subconscious mind, recognise that Becky is no longer small, she’s grown and she’s surrounded by love and support?” My finger jerks “yes”. Clews continues asking questions about letting go of binge eating, and as “subconscious me” answers, I’m half-wondering whether I’m moving them on purpose. It’s easy for her to tell the difference between purposeful and involuntary movement though, apparently.

Next, she segues into another Little Britain interlude with: “In a moment, I’m going to click my fingers. When I click my fingers, I’d like you, the subconscious mind, to go inside and make the changes.” After a moment or two, we redo the whole process, focusing this time on weed. I know – it all sounds far-fetched but, in the moment, it felt quite powerful and hopeful.

 Session 3, 4 and 5

These next three sessions focus on inner child work. In the usual hypnosis position – lying down on the sofa, eyes closed, with the headphones on – I conjure up an image of my child self and am told to “meet her with the utmost kindness”. She encourages me to tell her things like: “Now you’re connected with me, I will listen. I’m going to give you love instead of biscuits. I’m going to give you attention instead of bread. I’m going to give you what you really need.”

There are various other exercises, like playing with my younger self and hugging her. Clews gets me to explain to her how much she’s loved and that the negative self-talk isn’t true; that she is enough. All this inner child work is a pretty exhausting and sad experience – a lot less relaxing than the pure suggestion sessions. After our final session together, I’m told to listen to a new pure suggestion recording every night for 21 days.

Hypnotherapy results

I’m not exactly expecting immediate results. As Clews warns me: “Food addiction is actually one of the hardest problems to tackle, because it’s not like you can simply stop eating altogether.” It can take longer for new ways of thinking to solidify, as the process needs to be slow and steady.

Still, the few days after my first session, I don’t snack after dinner. My flatmate even remarked that she was surprised to come home to none of my usual wrappers lying about. It was also the first Friday I didn’t smoke in months and months. Don’t get me wrong – I was an anxious and restless mess. I even shed a few tears while getting into bed when it finally sunk in that smoking was definitely not happening. I wondered how much of this quick progress was placebo, but you could say all therapy is placebo. Any progress is progress, right?

Over the next few weeks, I still had phases of snacking, but mostly just when high. It dawned on me that I didn’t remember the last time I’d let a snack derail my plans – AKA pressing the “fuck it” button, eating whatever junk I can find for the rest of the day and skipping the gym. I now have so much less guilt around sweet treats because I know it doesn’t mean the day is a write-off.

Admittedly, there’ve been times I wonder whether it’s all been in vain: There was a three-week gap due to illness where we couldn’t schedule regular sessions, plus celebrations like my birthday and Christmas that made me feel like I lost touch with it all. But changes have clearly happened: I’ve managed to cut down smoking weed to two out of three days a week. Two weeks after my last session, I did my first Saturday night not smoking, and my first ever weekend smoking only once. This is pretty huge progress for someone who usually is plotting how to find weed as soon as they touch down in another country on holiday.

But to answer the whole point of this very, very lengthy article: “Can Hypnotherapy Cure the Munchies?”, I guess not. The amount I binge when high really hasn’t changed much. But my relationship to food – and weed – sure has.

@beckyburgum