Rewire Anxiety in Minutes? The Hypnosis Breakthrough with Dr. David Spiegel

Change Your Brain Every Day

Dr Daniel Amen

Health & Fitness, Mental Health

4.7 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 2 March 2026

⏱️ 76 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Can anxiety really be dialed down in minutes? In this eye-opening conversation, we sit down with Dr. David Spiegel, Stanford psychiatrist and one of the world's leading experts on clinical hypnosis, to uncover how hypnosis is being used to rapidly reduce anxiety, reframe fear, and retrain the brain. Dr. Spiegel breaks down the neuroscience behind hypnosis—what it is, what it isn't, and why it works. You'll learn how focused attention can quiet the brain's stress circuits, how hypnotic techniques differ from meditation, and why anxiety may be more flexible than you think.

We also explore:

The biggest myths about hypnosis

2. How anxiety patterns get wired into the brain

3. Simple techniques you can start using immediately

4. Who benefits most from clinical hypnosis

If you've tried everything to calm your mind—or you're curious about science-backed tools for emotional resilience—this episode might change how you think about anxiety forever.

Use the code CHANGEYOURBRAIN20 at reveri.com for 20% off a yearly subscription.

Transcript

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0:00.0	During acute surgical procedures, if you taught people self-hypnosis, their pain reduced
0:04.1	to like 10 or 15% left, whereas it was 60% as high in the people who were just getting medication,
0:11.8	getting opioids. On half the opioids, the hypnosis group had far less pain and far less
0:16.6	anxiety. David Spiegel is a Stanford psychiatrist who has spent his career unlocking the neurobiology of therapeutic hypnosis. Today he explores the mind-body connection
0:25.6	to show us how hypnosis is used in clinical healing. With hypnosis, the more stressed you get,
0:30.6	the less control you have over your body. That's what you need for this. You're dealing
0:34.6	with your inner mental tension, not with your body, allowing it to do
0:38.2	what it needs to do. What are some daily hypnotic practices people can just put in their lives
0:46.6	to make their day better? What are the daily things we can do? Well, every day you are making your brain better or you are making it worse.
1:00.0	Stay with us to learn how you can change your brain for the better every day.
1:07.0	Your brain matters.
1:09.0	Amen Clinics helps people with brain scans and targeted treatment across 11 cities.
1:15.6	Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, D.C., Miami, New York, Seattle, Scottsdale, Los Angeles, Orange County, California, and San Francisco.
1:26.6	Learn more at AIMONclinclinx.com.
1:30.3	Tann and I are so excited to have Dr. David Spiegel with us,
1:35.3	who is a professor and associate chair of psychiatry
1:41.3	and behavioral sciences at Stanford University.
1:45.0	Dr. Spiegel is one of the world's most respected and published experts in the field of hypnotherapy.
1:53.0	He's also the director of Stanford Center on Stress and Health and the Center for Integrative Medicine.
2:04.6	You can already see he and I have so much in common. His contributions encompassed 13 books, 445 scientific journal articles, 175 book chapters,
2:16.2	spanning hypnosis, psychosocial oncology, stress physiology, trauma, so many different things.
2:26.3	When his team reached out, I actually saw the email and went, yes, we would love to have him on the podcast.
	...

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