Athletes and entertainers are turning to hypnosis for performance

Athletes, actors and other public figures are openly describing hypnosis as a tool for anxiety, fear and high-pressure performance. New research and growing real-world use are pushing the practice further into mainstream conversations about mental performance.

Why it matters: - Athletes and entertainers are helping move hypnosis from a novelty into a tool discussed for performance pressure, anxiety, phobias and automatic habits. - The shift matters because many high-level problems are not about missing skill. They are about responses that interrupt skill under pressure. - Research is starting to examine hypnosis in sports, stress reduction and medical settings, which gives the trend more scientific visibility.

What happened: - William Deihl, founder of Doc Hypnosis Wellness Center in Phoenix, Arizona, says public interest is rising as more people consider hypnosis a way to work with responses that feel outside conscious control. - Professional athletes and entertainers have recently spoken publicly about using hypnosis or hypnotherapy for mental preparation, phobias and anxiety. - Public examples include Rory McIlroy, Montreal Canadiens goaltender Jakub Dobeš, American Nordic combined athlete Annika Malacinski, darts player Stephen Bunting, actress Jennifer Aniston and actress-producer Reese Witherspoon. - Doc Hypnosis Wellness Center works with clients in Phoenix, Scottsdale, Paradise Valley, Glendale, Tempe, Mesa, Chandler, Gilbert, Peoria and nearby Arizona communities. - The practice also serves clients who travel from outside Arizona.

The details: - McIlroy experimented with hypnosis in March 2024, as reported by The Athletic, before his 2025 Masters victory. - McIlroy said he was conscious during the experience and came away with a clearer view of issues he had been making larger in his mind. - Université de Montréal reported in 2026 that Dobeš uses hypnosis as part of his mental preparation with coach Pete Fry. - Université de Montréal professor David Ogez said hypnosis techniques used with athletes can resemble medical uses, including reducing anxiety, improving concentration and changing automatic thoughts. - Malacinski told the International Ski and Snowboard Federation that she uses hypnosis weekly to create a calm, confident and comfortable mental state before ski jumps. - Bunting discussed in a 2025 Sky Sports interview how hypnotherapist Chris O'Connor helped him rebuild his approach to competition after a difficult period. - Bunting said the work gave him coping strategies that changed how he handled pressure. - Aniston said in 2025 that hypnosis helped her address a long-standing fear of flying and let go of superstitious pre-flight rituals. - Witherspoon said on the Las Culturistas podcast in 2025 that hypnotherapy gave her tools to manage anxiety and performance-related pressure. - Deihl says his practice has worked with athletes connected to professional golf, Major League Baseball organizations, endurance competition and equestrian sports. - Doc Hypnosis says it focuses on performance anxiety, the yips, stress, smoking and vaping cessation, confidence, fears, sleep, public speaking and unwanted habits. - Deihl says hypnosis is complementary to coaching, sports medicine, rehabilitation, psychotherapy and psychiatric treatment when those services are appropriate. - Deihl says he has more than 12,000 professional hypnosis session hours.

Between the lines: - The public examples all point to the same pattern: when physical skill is already in place, the problem can become the mind-body response that appears under pressure. - That is why hypnosis is being discussed alongside visualization, mindfulness, nervous-system regulation and sports psychology rather than as a stand-alone fix. - The language from athletes and performers is also changing perception. Hypnosis is increasingly framed as a method for control, not surrendering control. - Deihl argues the core issue is often the split between what someone knows and what the automatic response does in the moment.

What's next: - Research will likely keep testing hypnosis in real performance and clinical settings. - A 2024 Frontiers in Psychology study of 19 elite downhill mountain-bike competitors reported lower race-related anxiety and stress, plus higher self-confidence after a hypnosis intervention. - A 2025 systematic review of therapeutic hypnosis found promising associations with athletic performance, injury recovery and psychological distress, but said larger randomized trials and standardized protocols are still needed. - A 2026 systematic review and meta-analysis of mindful hypnotherapy found reductions in psychological distress and stress, while also calling for more clinical studies. - A 2025 meta-analysis of hypnosis during invasive medical procedures found lower anxiety and pain across 20 randomized trials involving 1,250 patients. - Doc Hypnosis expects the public conversation to keep expanding as more athletes and entertainers speak openly about using hypnosis.

The bottom line: - Hypnosis is gaining traction because it is being positioned as a performance tool for automatic responses that coaching alone may not fix.