The conversation around hypnosis has shifted from stage acts and skepticism to boardrooms, locker rooms and red carpets. With professional athletes like Rory McIlroy and actors like Jennifer Aniston discussing their use of the technique, a Phoenix wellness center is seeing the practice gain new legitimacy as a tool for mental performance and anxiety management.
Athletes and entertainers are turning to hypnosis for performance, anxiety and phobias as research explores its growing role in mental wellness.
The biggest change may simply be that people are willing to talk about hypnosis as a serious tool for performance, confidence and automatic responses.”— Dr. William Deihl, Founder of Doc HypnosisPHOENIX, AZ, UNITED STATES, November 3, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — Athletes and entertainers are speaking publicly about hypnosis for performance pressure, anxiety and phobias as research examines its role in mind-body performance
From the fairways of professional golf and the ice of the NHL to the sets of Hollywood films, hypnosis is making unexpected appearances in discussions about mental performance, anxiety, confidence and the automatic responses that can derail success.
Notable athletes and entertainers have recently gone public about integrating hypnosis or hypnotherapy into their routines for handling performance pressure, phobias, anxiety and mental preparation.
For William Deihl, who founded the Doc Hypnosis Wellness Center in Phoenix, Arizona, this increasing visibility signals a major shift in how the public perceives mental performance.
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“People used to think hypnosis meant losing control,” Deihl said. “What is changing is that athletes, performers and everyday people are beginning to look at hypnosis as a way of working with responses that already feel outside their conscious control.”
This trend is developing alongside a broader interest in sports psychology, visualization, nervous-system regulation, mindfulness and other methods aimed at addressing the psychological side of athletics and high-pressure careers.
Scientific inquiry into hypnosis is also starting to catch up with the cultural buzz.
A 2025 systematic review of therapeutic hypnosis and sports performance evaluated 13 studies and reported promising associations involving athletic performance, injury recovery and psychological distress, while researchers emphasized that larger and more rigorous studies are still needed.
For Deihl, who has accumulated more than 12,000 professional hypnosis session hours, the growing conversation carries significant weight.
“Elite performers understand something the general public is beginning to recognize,” Deihl said. “Having the skill and knowing what to do doesn’t always mean the mind and body will respond the way someone wants when pressure arrives.”
Rory McIlroy and the Search for a Mental Edge
Professional golf offers one of the most prominent recent examples of this trend.
Before Rory McIlroy’s 2025 Masters victory, The Athletic reported that McIlroy had experimented with hypnosis in March 2024 with Richard Bandler as part of his continuing quest to refine his mental approach to the game.
McIlroy described being conscious during the hypnotic experience and said he came away with a sense of clarity around issues he had been making larger in his mind.
His comments were not framed as a claim that hypnosis caused his subsequent success.
Instead, they highlight a familiar pattern among elite athletes: the relentless pursuit of ways to enhance the mental side of performance once physical skill is already mastered.
That distinction matters to Deihl.
“At an elite level, a golfer usually doesn’t need somebody to explain how to swing a golf club,” he said. “The question becomes what happens when pressure, expectation or an automatic response interrupts something the athlete already knows how to do.”
NHL Goaltender Jakub Dobeš Turns to Hypnosis
The application of hypnosis in professional sports extends well beyond golf.
In 2026, Université de Montréal reported on Montreal Canadiens goaltender Jakub Dobeš and the use of hypnosis in his mental preparation.
According to the university’s report, Dobeš works with mental coach Pete Fry, who uses hypnosis as part of the goaltender’s preparation.
Université de Montréal professor David Ogez explained that hypnosis techniques used with athletes can share similarities with medical applications, including reducing anxiety, improving concentration and changing automatic thoughts.
For a professional goaltender making split-second decisions under immense pressure, the objective isn’t learning how to stop a puck.
It’s reaching a mental state in which trained responses can execute with less interference.
Hypnosis Enters Olympic-Level Competition Preparation
American Nordic combined athlete Annika Malacinski has also spoken publicly about incorporating hypnosis into her weekly routine.
In an interview published by the International Ski and Snowboard Federation, Malacinski described using hypnosis to create a mental state that feels calm, confident and comfortable, then attempting to access that state at the top of a ski jump.
She described the mental side of performance as an area she continues to develop while pursuing higher levels of international competition.
This example illustrates how hypnosis is increasingly being discussed not simply as a remedy for a problem, but as a component of proactive mental preparation.
Hypnotherapy and the Return of Stephen Bunting
Professional darts player Stephen Bunting has also spoken openly about the role hypnotherapy played in rebuilding his mental approach to competition.
In a 2025 Sky Sports interview, Bunting discussed working with hypnotherapist Chris O’Connor after a difficult period in his career.
Bunting described developing coping strategies that contributed to changes in how he approached competition and pressure.
His story is particularly relevant because darts requires extremely precise, highly rehearsed motor performance under public scrutiny.
As in golf, archery and other precision sports, conscious over-control can sometimes interfere with automatic movement.
When a Skilled Athlete Suddenly Cannot Perform: Understanding the Yips
The phenomenon known as the yips may be one of the clearest explanations for why athletes are looking beyond purely mechanical coaching.
The yips can cause sudden jerking, freezing or loss of fluidity during a movement the athlete may have performed successfully thousands of times.
They are particularly associated with golf but can also affect baseball, darts, archery and other precision activities.
For the athlete, the experience can be deeply frustrating.
The conscious mind knows what to do.
The skill exists.
The automatic response changes.
Doc Hypnosis has increasingly focused on these kinds of performance interruptions.
The Phoenix practice reports working with athletes connected with professional golf, Major League Baseball organizations, endurance competition, equestrian sports and other high-performance environments.
Deihl views hypnosis as complementary to coaching, sports medicine and physical rehabilitation rather than a replacement for them.
“If the mechanics are wrong, the athlete needs a coach,” Deihl said. “But when the athlete has already demonstrated that they know how to perform the movement and something automatic begins interfering with it, that becomes a very different conversation.”
Research Begins Examining Hypnosis and Athletic Performance
The growing interest among athletes is increasingly accompanied by formal research.
A 2024 study published in Frontiers in Psychology examined a hypnosis intervention among 19 elite downhill mountain-bike competitors.
Following the hypnosis intervention, researchers reported significant reductions in race-related somatic anxiety and subjective stress, along with increased self-confidence.
The study involved a relatively small group and does not establish that hypnosis universally improves athletic performance, but it provides another example of researchers studying hypnosis within real competitive environments.
A 2025 systematic review subsequently examined research on therapeutic hypnosis for athletic performance, injury recovery and psychological distress.
The review found promising associations but also concluded that stronger randomized trials, larger samples and standardized protocols are needed before firmer conclusions can be drawn.
Deihl believes that balance is important.
“Hypnosis doesn’t need exaggerated promises,” he said. “The interesting part is that researchers, athletes and practitioners are asking better questions about what happens when automatic mental and physical responses interfere with performance.”
Hollywood Is Having a Similar Conversation
The same movement is visible outside sports.
In 2025, actress Jennifer Aniston spoke publicly about using hypnosis while addressing a long-standing fear of flying.
Aniston described previously using superstitious rituals before boarding airplanes and said hypnosis involved letting go of those rituals. She reported that the change had been going surprisingly well.
Her experience illustrates another area in which hypnosis has historically been explored: phobias and conditioned fear responses.
The conscious mind may understand that commercial air travel is statistically safe.
The body can still respond as though danger is imminent.
That gap between conscious knowledge and automatic response is central to much of Deihl’s work.
“A person with a fear of flying usually doesn’t need another explanation of how airplanes work,” Deihl said. “They already know the statistics. The challenge is that the automatic response isn’t listening to statistics.”
Reese Witherspoon Talks About Anxiety and Hypnotherapy
Actress and producer Reese Witherspoon also discussed hypnotherapy publicly in 2025.
During an appearance on the Las Culturistas podcast, Witherspoon described herself as a high-anxiety person who had experienced significant panic attacks.
She discussed trying different strategies and said her work with a hypnotherapist gave her tools that changed how she approached anxiety and performance-related pressure.
Hypnosis should not be interpreted as a replacement for appropriate medical or licensed mental-health treatment.
However, Deihl believes public conversations like these are changing perceptions of hypnosis.
“When successful people talk openly about using hypnosis, it challenges the old stereotype,” he said. “These are people whose careers depend on performance. They aren’t looking to lose control. They’re looking for more control over responses that have become automatic.”
From Mental Health to Mental Performance
Deihl sees a broader distinction emerging between traditional mental-health treatment and what might be described as mental-performance work.
People do not necessarily seek hypnosis because they have a psychiatric diagnosis.
An athlete may want to perform freely under pressure.
An executive may want to speak confidently in front of an audience.
A traveler may want to reduce an automatic fear response.
A smoker may want to change a deeply established habit.
A performer may want to stop experiencing stage fright.
Someone experiencing chronic stress may want additional strategies for changing automatic patterns.
These concerns can overlap with mental health, but they also extend into performance, behavior and personal development.
That broader positioning may help explain why hypnosis is appearing in conversations involving professional athletes, actors, executives and individuals who may never have considered traditional hypnosis before.
New Research Extends Beyond Sports
Research into hypnosis is also extending beyond athletic performance.
A 2026 systematic review and meta-analysis of mindful hypnotherapy found reductions in psychological distress and stress compared with control conditions, although the researchers emphasized the need for additional clinical studies across a wider range of populations and conditions.
Separately, a 2025 meta-analysis examining hypnosis during invasive medical procedures found reductions in anxiety and pain compared with standard care across 20 randomized trials involving 1,250 patients.
These studies do not mean hypnosis is appropriate for every person or condition.
They do demonstrate that hypnosis is being investigated within contemporary research rather than existing solely in entertainment or popular culture.
Phoenix Becomes Part of the Broader Movement
While the public examples may come from professional sports and Hollywood, the same questions are being explored at Doc Hypnosis Wellness Center in Phoenix.
The practice works with adults seeking support around stress, smoking and vaping cessation, confidence, fears, unwanted habits, sleep, public speaking and performance.
Athletic work includes performance anxiety, the yips and situations in which a previously automatic skill becomes disrupted under pressure.
Doc Hypnosis serves clients throughout Phoenix, Scottsdale, Paradise Valley, Glendale, Tempe, Mesa, Chandler, Gilbert, Peoria and surrounding Arizona communities, while also working with clients who travel from outside Arizona.
Deihl believes Phoenix is well positioned to participate in the growing conversation around hypnosis and mental performance.
“People are starting to realize that mental wellness isn’t only about what happens when something goes wrong,” he said. “It is also about how people perform, adapt, recover and respond when pressure shows up.”
More Than 12,000 Hours of Observing Automatic Behavior
Deihl’s perspective comes from more than 12,000 professional hypnosis session hours.
Across athletes, professionals and everyday clients, he says one pattern appears repeatedly:
People frequently know what they want to do before they understand why something else keeps happening automatically.
That may involve a golfer unable to release a putt smoothly.
A smoker reaching for a cigarette during stress.
A speaker whose heart races before an audience.
A traveler experiencing fear before boarding a plane.
Or a professional who performs confidently in one environment and freezes in another.
“The problem isn’t always a lack of knowledge,” Deihl said. “Sometimes the problem is that knowledge and automatic response are operating on two different tracks.”
An Emerging Trend, Not a Replacement for Care
Doc Hypnosis describes hypnosis as a complementary approach.
It is not presented as a replacement for medical care, psychotherapy, psychiatric treatment, sports medicine or professional coaching when those services are appropriate.
Instead, Deihl sees hypnosis occupying a growing space between mental wellness, behavior and performance.
The public conversations involving athletes and entertainers may be helping accelerate that shift.
What was once associated primarily with entertainment is increasingly being discussed alongside visualization, mindfulness, mental coaching and other performance-focused approaches.
“The biggest change may simply be that people are willing to talk about it,” Deihl said. “Once successful athletes and performers say they have used hypnosis, other people begin asking what hypnosis actually is instead of assuming they already know.”
About William Deihl
William Deihl is a third-generation hypnotist, professional trainer, speaker, author, radio host and founder of Doc Hypnosis Wellness Center in Phoenix, Arizona.
With more than 12,000 professional hypnosis session hours, his work focuses on individualized hypnosis, automatic behavioral patterns, performance, communication and personal change.
His performance-focused work includes athletes experiencing the yips, performance anxiety and other automatic responses that may interfere with established skills.
About Doc Hypnosis Wellness Center
Doc Hypnosis Wellness Center is a Phoenix-based hypnosis and complementary wellness practice serving clients throughout the greater Phoenix metropolitan area.
The center provides individualized hypnosis for stress, unwanted habits, smoking and vaping cessation, confidence, fears, sleep patterns, personal performance and athletic performance concerns.
Doc Hypnosis also provides professional hypnosis education and training.
For additional information about hypnosis, athletic performance, the yips or Doc Hypnosis Wellness Center, visit DocHypnosis.com.
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Website: DocHypnosis.com
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Why it matters: As elite competitors and public figures normalize hypnosis for performance and anxiety, the practice is moving from fringe entertainment to a credible complementary tool in the broader mental wellness conversation. With clinical research beginning to back these personal accounts, hypnosis may soon become a standard part of how high performers — and everyday people — manage the automatic responses that hold them back.
