Suggestion: What Is Its Influence And How Can We Use It To Our Advantage?
Are you a suggestible person? We all act under the power of suggestion. But how do suggestions influence us? Learn how to use autosuggestion to your benefit.
Sometimes we act in a way that does not seem appropriate to us in our behavior. On many occasions it is normal to be under the influence of the suggestions of others. But what is the power of suggestion?
The suggestion It has the meaning within psychology as that process that involves a person responding under the influence of others. There are different modes of suggestion since these modulations can be done verbally, visually or through any of our senses. In this way, mental suggestion plays a very important role in our collective behavior, since sometimes we are not able to see that we are acting under certain suggestions made by others.
What are the suggestions like?
There are different ways in which we can suggest to others or receive the suggestions from around us. In this way, a suggestion can be given in the following ways.
Deliberate or involuntary: When a person feels suggested deliberately by others can be an indication that can be beneficial to the person receiving the suggestion. For example, this can occur through a hypnotic suggestion to overcome a negative thought or overcome a traumatic situation. On the other hand, when the suggestions They are involuntary, these happen in most of our lives without us realizing it. So much so that most people act in a suggestive manner when others observe them. The best-known suggestion is the so-called Placebo effect, in which people believe that a medication benefits them when in reality it does not contain any substance that causes this effect.
Hypnotic: When there is a hypnotic suggestion Most people experience it through a hypnosis professional. In many cases, people can resort to this type of mental suggestion to try to approach problems from a completely different perspective.
Verbal or non-verbal: In many cases for suggest to others we must use our words. Even so, according to different research, it has been shown that a person can become suggestible without the need to use words.
The suggestions They can have a great impact on our lives even though most of them go completely unnoticed in our consciousness. According to psychologists, the power of suggestion can affect us in the following areas.
Sensations and perceptions: Magicians constantly use the suggestion to realize your optical illusions. So much so that to do their magic tricks they must be skilled at suggestive to the entire audience and make others pay attention to what they want. Many psychological studies show that someone who is suggested can perceive and feel emotions related to what they have been told or what others want them to see.
Implicit learning: The so-called Pygmalion effect is undoubtedly one of the most effective consequences of suggestibility during the learning process. Paying more attention or believing that someone can get better grades or results is one of the ways in which suggestion can affect us both positively and negatively.
Memory: The mental suggestion It can also improve our memory in some ways. This happens since emotions and memory go hand in hand. This way, if someone is suggested to feel a positive emotion around studies or experiencing an event, the person will remember it more accurately.
Attitude: The suggestions They can interfere with our way of acting in certain actions. The reason for this is precisely that depending on whether a person is more suggestible or not, he can modify his way of acting towards others on a higher level.
Medication effectiveness: As we have mentioned, the Placebo effect is one of the suggestions better known at a popular level. In it, suggestion acts by making certain patients believe that certain substances can have a positive effect on their health even though they do not have effective components against the disease they want to treat.
These are some of the effects of suggestion best known within psychology. Despite this, there are people who have a personality that is more suggestible to others. On some occasions the suggestion can interfere with the person’s life. When this occurs it is essential to consult with a professional psychologist.
How to use the power of suggestion to our benefit?
Although most of the suggestive experiences We receive them from others, the reality is that there are certain ways to use autosuggestion to our benefit. According to psychologists, you can do the following to benefit from mental suggestion.
Be in the present: In order to detect and use the suggestions In our favor it is essential to be in the here and now. Normally a person is suggestible when he is constantly thinking about the past or the future. When a person is in the present he manages to have control of his mind and avoids being suggestible to others. By focusing our attention on the moments we live, we can use autosuggestion to motivate ourselves to enjoy any aspect of our lives more.
Create a support network: Through the power of suggestion We can see that the people around us are very important for our mental health. Precisely for this reason, to take advantage of the power of suggestion we must be next to those who really believe in us and have a positive attitude. Thanks to its positive influence we will have more security and enjoy more self-esteem towards ourselves.
Have a flexible mindset: When we are not open to the world we tend to get stuck in our failures or mistakes and we fail to see the opportunities that life can offer us. That is why to take advantage of the autosuggestion we must be open to any results of our actions. Through flexible thinking we can learn more about what surrounds us and climb more quickly towards success despite adversity.
Remember that suggestion always works: In many cases it is normal suggest with the opinion or beliefs of others. Therefore, you must keep in mind that on many occasions you are suggested by opinion or by the environment that surrounds you. In these cases you should try to see what has influenced you and work on it to reduce your suggestive attitude as much as possible.
The suggestions They are part of our daily life. It is completely normal to experience suggestion on different occasions during our daily lives. For this reason, learning to control the power of suggestion will be the key to taking advantage of opportunities to grow in every sense.
