Hypnosis can be traced back as far as 3,000 years to the Evers Papyrus of Egypt. But Franz Anton Mesmer helps us to understand better modern hypnosis. While I know you are wanting the history on self hypnosis, you must first understand the history of hypnosis as self hypnosis is hypnosis minus another party hypnotizing you. After all stress can lead to many health problems such as stroke, heart disease, high blood pressure and even a heart attack just to name a few of the bad health problems associated with stress. Another bad problem with stress is that it makes us cranky and less desirable to be around. With self hypnosis you can get rid of all these unpleasant things in your life. There are some great books out there that will give you a starting point and help you to expand on your knowledge of self hypnosis. Self-Change Hypnosis by Richard Mackenzie is a great book to help you get started in using hypnosis to rid yourself of negative thoughts and opinions of yourself. In his book he will break down what self hypnosis is so that even a beginner can understand and get started. They have advanced on their knowledge to better be able to teach individuals how to use that knowledge themselves. After attending a session with any one of these experts you will have a clearer understanding of how self hypnosis works and what you can and can not expect with the use of self hypnosis. Thus showing that men seemed to lean more toward traditional methods more so than women. Most hypnotists that work with people who want to stop smoking boast a high success rate. This high success rate generates them more and more clients all the time that are seeking to stop smoking. So why then are these hypnotists able to flourish with such lack of doubt in their methods within the majority of the publics mind? As it stands you mind will latch onto so much and then only store so much of that. Then when you need to recall those details your mind only allows for so much of the stored information to be recalled. So you must retrain your mind to grasp things differently. Once you have retrained your mind, you will see how much easier it is to remember details and such of an event.