I've noticed that hypnosis has become more accepted in mainstream consciousness over the past few years. Whether it's used to help people to stop smoking, lose weight, increase their motivation or to do better at work, more and more people are learning how to hypnotize themselves and how to hypnotize someone else.

Being able to hypnotize someone is a valuable skill which you can use both in your personal and professional life. The basics are quite simple, yet you can develop the skill in many different ways. In this article you'll be shown a very basic technique which will allow you hypnotize someone.

1. Get a volunteer to sit or lie down somewhere quiet where you won't be disturbed. Ask them to be fully present in the room and notice how safe and relaxed they feel. When they are fully present in that safe feeling touch them on the shoulder and tell them that this is an anchor for that safe feeling and when you touch their shoulder in future they will instantly come out of any hypnotic trance feeling safe and secure. (If the volunteer starts to feel anxious at any stage, touch the anchor to make them feel safe)

2. Ask your volunteer to take a deep breath in and to slowly let it out. Then, using a very relaxed sounding voice, start telling them to relax different parts of their body. For example: 'Relax your feet, relax your ankles, relax you legs', moving along the body all the way to the top of their head. Make sure the commands don't follow each other too quickly but are spaced out to give the volunteer time to process them. You can repeat this part several times until the volunteer is completely relaxed.

3. In the same relaxed and low voice give the following suggestion. 'If you can, I want you to imagine what it would feel like to be in a deep hypnotic trance, and if you can't imagine that, just pretend imagining going deep inside yourself and into a deep hypnotic trance where you mind is completely calm and at ease. As you breathe in, and out let that hypnotic feeling cover your whole body, inside and out'.

4. Pause for a few moments to let the person you are working with to start imagining that, which will actually make them go into a deep hypnotic trance.

5. Now start saying positive affirmations to the volunteer as if they were the one saying them. Affirmations like: 'I love going to the gym, I love eating healthy, I'm confident I can reach my goals'. Do this for about 3 minutes.

6. Once you've done enough affirmations you can bring the volunteer back to the room using the following script: 'Integrating all positive things you've said about yourself into the deepest core of your being you might start to notice the clothes on your body, the warmth of the room, different sounds you can hear inside and outside. And as you hear those sounds you will start to wake up, slowly at first coming back to the room in which you are now. Counting down from 5 you will be fully awake and present back in the room at the count of 1'. Then slowly count from 5 to 1.

7. Find out how your volunteer experienced the session, what they enjoyed and what could be done better. Feedback like this will help you make the experience more enjoyable in future and you'll be able to help people more easily.

Remember, as with everything, practice makes perfect, even when it comes to being hypnotized. The more you go into hypnotic trance the better you get at it. This concludes this first lesson in how to hypnotize someone.