Relationships & Heartbreak · Hypnosis session
How to Stop Thinking About Someone: Give Your Attention Somewhere to Go
Their street on the drive to work. A song in the supermarket. And every time, the same instruction to yourself: don’t. This page shows why that order tends to backfire, gives you four free steps that hand your attention somewhere else to go, and offers a guided recording for a steady daily routine.
One safety check before anything else.
If they frighten you, or you are afraid to leaveSometimes a person stays in your head because part of you is tracking them for your own safety. If a partner or ex frightens, controls, monitors or hurts you, that is not a thinking problem, and this recording is not meant for it.
- 1800RESPECT — 1800 737 732, or text 0458 737 732. Any hour, including for stalking and monitoring.
- In danger now, call 000.
- Relationships Australia — 1300 364 277, for counselling on your own or together.
And if low mood has lasted weeks, is stopping you working or sleeping, or you have had thoughts of not wanting to be here, see a GP. A Mental Health Treatment Plan opens up to 10 individual Medicare-subsidised sessions a calendar year through Better Access.
Free and confidential, open now. Tap to call.
Stop Thinking About Someone
Twenty-two minutes of guided focus for when one person keeps taking up your thoughts: a steady routine for practising the free steps, with ninety days to decide.
US$18.95one-off · no subscription · about A$27
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The publisher reports 2,110 purchases of this title.
Chosen by Ernest McLeodClinical hypnotherapist. An Adelaide practice, seeing clients across Australia by video. Fourteen years in practice. About Ernest →
Is this how they turn up?
- Their profile opened, closed, and opened again inside a minute
- A street name, a brand of beer, a song, and there they are
- Mid-conversation with someone else, you are composing a reply to them
- The number deleted from your phone, and still known by heart
- They are the first thought on waking, before you know what day it is
Three or more and this page is yours. Never actually went out with them? The crush page below may fit better.
Why do I keep thinking about my ex?
Mostly because it is recent, and because you did not choose it. In 2009 Field and colleagues compared 192 students after a recent breakup. The most distressed had broken up more recently, had not been the one to end it, found it sudden, felt rejected and betrayed, and had no new relationship. They also reported more intrusive thoughts, more trouble controlling them, and worse sleep.
A snapshot, so it cannot say which caused which. But a head full of someone is an ordinary part of a hard breakup, not a sign you are doing it wrong.
And it usually passes. Verhallen and colleagues checked on 87 people every two weeks for 30 weeks after a breakup: most were resilient or recovered, and 8 stayed distressed. The slow and stuck groups scored higher on a habit of ruminating, going over it and over it. Small sample, one country, but the most hopeful result here.
How do you get a person out of your head?
Not by ordering yourself to stop. In 1995 Wegner and Gold had people talk aloud about a past partner, then try not to think about them, then talk about them again. Suppression did not clear the person out in either group they studied. What the research does support is less contact, less checking, and somewhere specific for your attention to go instead.
The detail matters. People who no longer wanted the relationship talked about the old flame more after pushing them away: a rebound. People who still wanted it showed no rebound in words, but their skin conductance rose, a measure of bodily arousal. Over them, forcing them out brought them back; not over them, it moved them into your body. Neither group got the quiet the instruction promised.
Stop Thinking About SomeoneUS$18.95 · instant download · full refund within 90 days if it isn’t right.
Opens the publisher’s checkout in a new tab. Or keep reading — the free techniques below cost nothing.
What does a recording add?
A set time, most days, to sit back, let your body settle and practise letting their name pass through without a fight. It doesn’t ask you to banish them. It gives you a guided time to let their name come and go and to rehearse moving your attention elsewhere, which is what the suppression research favours over forcing.
Yim and Derbyshire’s 2026 review of hypnosis for pain, the largest recent one, split its studies by how hypnosis was given, and whether a live clinician, a recording or self-hypnosis did the delivering made no meaningful difference. Those were pain studies, not studies of heartbreak, but they are the best evidence available that a recording is not a lesser copy of an appointment. In a 2000 study of irritable bowel syndrome, Forbes and colleagues set a tape against six live sessions. They judged the tape “probably inferior” to live hypnotherapy, but recommended it as a second-line option on grounds of “ease and economy”. That was IBS, not heartbreak.
What is in the Stop Thinking About Someone session?
A single session of just under twenty-two minutes, and Roger Elliott narrates. By the publisher’s account it is for anyone who cannot stop thinking about one particular person, whether an ex, a crush or someone who wronged them. It is built around relaxation and rehearsing attention on other goals. There is no audio preview of this title.
Stop Thinking About Someone
US$18.95About A$27 · one-off, no subscription.
- 21 minutes 58 seconds, narrated by Roger Elliott of Uncommon Knowledge, publishing these since 1998
- Instant MP3 download plus the publisher’s app, unlimited listens
- No audio preview on this title, so the refund window stands in for a sample
- A daily routine to pair with muting them and the free steps below
Opens the publisher’s secure checkout · no account needed
Will it make you forget them?
No, and it doesn’t claim to; no recording erases a memory. What it offers is a calm, regular time to practise letting the memory come and go. You stay aware throughout, can stop it at any moment, and a suggestion you disagree with does not take. Not while driving or using machinery, and if you have epilepsy, check with your doctor before you start.
How do I remove someone from my mind and heart?
Slowly, and mostly by starving the reminders rather than fighting the thoughts. Sbarra and Emery gave 58 young adults beepers after their relationships ended and signalled them at random for 28 days to fill in an emotions diary. Love faded in a steady line. Contact with the former partner slowed that fade, for sadness as well as for love.
Then the phone. Marshall surveyed 464 people in 2012 about keeping tabs on an ex on Facebook. Checking went with more distress, more longing and less personal growth. Simply staying Facebook friends went with less longing. A link, not a cause, but it points at the checking, not the connection.
What can you do about it for nothing, starting today?
Four things, drawn from the studies above, one with a warning attached. They aim at what the research keeps pointing to: fewer ways back to the person, and something better for your attention to do. The recording is a good place to practise the first.
- Stop issuing the order; give your attention an address
When they arrive, do not argue. Name it in three words (“there they are”) and put your attention on something that needs your eyes or hands: a crossword clue, a podcast with a plot, the washing-up done properly. Langeslag and Sanchez found in 2018 that distraction made heartbroken people feel better, though it did not reduce their love feelings. The trade-off: it improves the hour, not the attachment.
- Cut the checking before you worry about the connection
Mute them, archive the chat, take the app off your home screen, and hand a friend your password for a month if that is what it takes. Marshall found the checking, not the friendship, went with longing. If you share children or a workplace, contact is logistics: short, on topic, one channel, set times.
- Write the list of their flaws, once, in daylight
In the same 2018 experiments, dwelling on an ex’s negative traits reduced love feelings and also made people feel worse at the time. So use it on purpose: five minutes, pen and paper, the things that genuinely did not work. Then close the notebook and do something pleasant. Never at two in the morning.
- Write about who you are now, not about why it ended
Larson and Sbarra assigned 210 recently separated young adults to four research visits over nine weeks, reflecting on the breakup, or to just two. The reflecting group rebuilt their sense of self more, and that went with less intrusion and loneliness. But in a 2013 trial of 90 separated adults, those already searching hard for meaning did worse, up to nine months on, after intensive emotional writing. So: one page on what you have got back. Not an essay on why.
If it is worst at two in the morningLying awake drafting messages to them is night worry in a particular costume. The racing mind page has tools for it, including getting up rather than wrestling with it in bed.
What the research says about hypnosis and heartbreak
No controlled trial has tested hypnosis for this. PubMed searches on 25 September 2026 pairing hypnosis with breakup, heartbreak, unrequited love and related terms found none. The nearest is one small 2026 trial of in-person Ericksonian hypnotherapy for bereavement grief: 39 students, about 13 per group. That is a different loss, with a therapist in the room rather than a recording, and it has not yet been repeated independently.
The publisher’s own figures: in business since 1998, and 2,110 purchases of this title.
Self-reported, and a count of purchases, not of outcomes.
Who is this session wrong for?
First, anyone described in the box at the top. Beyond that, it is not the right place to start if:
- They frighten, control or monitor you, or you are afraid to leave.
- You check their profile every day and are not ready to stop; step two comes first.
- Weeks of low mood, or work and sleep have started to slip.
- They wronged you, and the main feeling is anger rather than longing.
- Thoughts of not wanting to be here. Lifeline, 13 11 14, today.
The third and fifth are GP conversations first. The fourth has its own page below.
Free and confidential, open now. Tap to call.
Common questions about not being able to stop thinking about someone
How long does it take to stop thinking about someone?
There is no honest single number, and the popular eleven weeks has no source anyone has verified. In one Dutch study that followed 87 people for 30 weeks after a breakup, 38 were resilient, 22 recovered quickly, 19 slowly and 8 stayed distressed. The slower groups ruminated more. Time does most of the work, at very different speeds.
Why do I think about them more when I try not to?
Because suppression tends to backfire. In Wegner and Gold’s 1995 experiments, people who were over a past relationship talked about the old flame more after trying not to think of them. People still attached showed no rebound in words, but their skin conductance rose. The research points to giving attention somewhere specific to go, rather than ordering it away.
Should I unfollow or block my ex?
The evidence points at the checking rather than the connection. In Marshall’s 2012 survey of 464 people, keeping tabs on an ex on Facebook went with more distress and longing, while simply staying Facebook friends went with less longing. If you cannot stop checking, remove the access. If you can leave it alone, a mute may be enough.
What if I cannot avoid them, because of children or work?
Then some contact is unavoidable, and the aim is to keep it to logistics. Sbarra and Emery found contact with a former partner slowed the fading of both love and sadness, so the less of it that is personal, the better. Keep messages short, on topic, in one place and at set times, and skip the look at their profile afterwards.
Does hypnosis work to stop thinking about someone?
The session gives you a regular, guided time to settle and practise moving your attention off the person, which fits what the suppression research suggests. It has not been tested in a controlled trial for this. The closest is one small 2026 trial of in-person hypnotherapy for bereavement grief, with 39 students, which is a different loss and not a recording.
What if it makes no difference?
You have 90 days to email the publisher your order number for a full refund, no questions asked. One refund per customer. There is no audio preview of this title, so that window stands in for one. Give it a fortnight of regular listening alongside the free steps before you decide either way.
If a different page fits better
- Relationships and heartbreakEvery session in the group, sorted by what actually happened
- Get Over a CrushIf it is someone you never actually went out with
- Racing mind at nightIf they mostly arrive after the light goes off
- ForgivenessIf the someone wronged you, and it is resentment keeping them there
Whatever you decide, mute them today and take the app off your home screen. One minute, and the step the research points to most directly.
Where these numbers come from
- Wegner DM, Gold DB. Fanning old flames: emotional and cognitive effects of suppressing thoughts of a past relationship. J Pers Soc Psychol. 1995;68(5):782-92. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.68.5.782
- Field T, Diego M, Pelaez M, Deeds O, Delgado J. Breakup distress in university students. Adolescence. 2009;44(176):705-27. PMID: 20432597
- Verhallen AM, Alonso-Martínez S, Renken RJ, Marsman JC, Ter Horst GJ. Depressive symptom trajectory following romantic relationship breakup and effects of rumination, neuroticism and cognitive control. Stress Health. 2022;38(4):653-65. doi:10.1002/smi.3123
- Sbarra DA, Emery RE. The emotional sequelae of nonmarital relationship dissolution: analysis of change and intraindividual variability over time. Pers Relatsh. 2005;12(2):213-32. doi:10.1111/j.1350-4126.2005.00112.x
- Marshall TC. Facebook surveillance of former romantic partners: associations with postbreakup recovery and personal growth. Cyberpsychol Behav Soc Netw. 2012;15(10):521-6. doi:10.1089/cyber.2012.0125
- Langeslag SJE, Sanchez ME. Down-regulation of love feelings after a romantic break-up: self-report and electrophysiological data. J Exp Psychol Gen. 2018;147(5):720-33. doi:10.1037/xge0000360
- Larson GM, Sbarra DA. Participating in research on romantic breakups promotes emotional recovery via changes in self-concept clarity. Soc Psychol Personal Sci. 2015;6(4):399-406. doi:10.1177/1948550614563085
- Sbarra DA, Boals A, Mason AE, Larson GM, Mehl MR. Expressive writing can impede emotional recovery following marital separation. Clin Psychol Sci. 2013;1(2):120-34. doi:10.1177/2167702612469801
- Çınaroğlu M, Yılmazer E, Ülker SV, Çinar F. Effects of Ericksonian hypnotherapy versus cognitive behavioral therapy on prolonged grief among university students: a randomized clinical trial. Int J Clin Exp Hypn. 2026;74(1):93-120. doi:10.1080/00207144.2025.2464747
- Yim TH, Derbyshire SWG. A systematic review of hypnosis for clinical pain relief. Eur J Pain. 2026;30(8):e70369. doi:10.1002/ejp.70369
- Forbes A, MacAuley S, Chiotakakou-Faliakou E. Hypnotherapy and therapeutic audiotape: effective in previously unsuccessfully treated irritable bowel syndrome? Int J Colorectal Dis. 2000;15(5):328-34. doi:10.1007/s003840000248
- Australian Government Department of Health. Better Access initiative. health.gov.au
Ernest McLeod — clinical hypnotherapist. An Adelaide practice, seeing clients across Australia by video. Fourteen years in practice.
- ICHP
- FELLOW, ASCH
- IICT MEMBER
This page sets time, less checking and a guided routine side by side. In the research, time and less checking carry much of the load; the recording gives your attention a regular place to go. More →
Twenty-two minutes, no preview, and ninety days to decide
A guided twenty-two minutes, most days, to pair with muting them and the four free steps.
US$18.95Instant download · 90-day refund · about A$27
Results vary from person to person, and hypnosis does not replace medical care or treatment. It is self-help audio, not a diagnosis and not a substitute for professional care, and no recording makes you forget a person. If low mood after a breakup has lasted weeks, see your GP. If a partner or ex frightens, controls, monitors or hurts you, call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732. In immediate danger, call 000.