“?The greatest discovery you’ll ever make, is the potential of your own mind.” ?
I’m going to walk through how to practice the Silva Method based on the instructions in Jose Silva’s book:
The Silva Mind Control Method.
I skipped his book when I was younger because I thought it was about trying to control other people’s minds.
I didn’t realize the point of his book was to control your own mind and develop better mental abilities.
It turns out Jose Silva taught the Silva Method to CEOs to help them gain an advantage through better creativity and innovation.
Key Takeaways
- Mind Control for Self-Improvement: The Silva Method centers on self-mind control for enhancing your creativity and innovation, not influencing others.
- Alpha State Creativity: The Silva Method advocates accessing your Alpha state to boost your creativity and reduce stress, distinguishing it from typical active, Beta state thinking.
- Professional Advantages: CEOs and professionals use the Silva Method for competitive benefits in problem-solving, innovation, and enhancing creativity.
- Enhanced Visualization: The Silva Method visualizes while in the Alpha state to bypass your limiting beliefs, offering a clearer, more creative thinking process.
- Brainwave Optimization: The Silva Method targets various brainwave states for comprehensive personal growth, from Alpha’s relaxed alertness to Theta’s deep meditation benefits.
What is the Silva Method?
The Silva Method, developed by José Silva, is a self-help program designed to enhance your cognitive and intuitive abilities through meditation, relaxation, and visualization techniques.
The core objective of the Silva Method is to help individuals access more of their brain’s potential, which Silva believed could lead to improved problem-solving abilities, creativity, and overall mental and physical well-being.
The point of the Silva Method is to reach a deep Alpha state where you achieve better levels of creativity and imagination.
Why Practice the Silva Method?
One of the key components of the Silva Method is the practice of entering the Alpha state, and even Theta state.
Alpha state is a level of consciousness associated with relaxed, yet alert, brainwave activity typically occurring at frequencies between 8 to 14 Hz.
Practicing entering the Alpha state you achieve several benefits:
- Enhanced Relaxation and Stress Reduction: The Alpha state promotes deep relaxation, helping reduce stress and anxiety levels, which can have positive effects on physical health and emotional well-being.
- Improved Focus and Creativity: Accessing the Alpha state is thought to enhance focus, creativity, and the ability to generate new ideas. It’s associated with a state of “flow,” where you can more easily tap into your creative potential.
- Increased Intuition and Problem-Solving Abilities: The Silva Method teaches that the Alpha state enables you to better access your intuition, leading to improved problem-solving skills and decision-making abilities.
- Better Memory and Learning: The relaxed yet alert state of Alpha is conducive to learning and memorization, facilitating the absorption and retention of new information.
- Enhanced Mind-Body Connection: Practitioners of the Silva Method believe that entering the Alpha state can help you use the power of your mind to positively influence your physical health and accelerate your healing processes.
The beauty is that by practicing the Silva Method, you are practicing mindfulness and relaxation.
What are the Brainwave Levels?
Brainwave levels refer to the electrical activity in the brain, which can be measured by frequency in hertz (Hz).
These brainwaves are typically categorized into several states, each associated with different levels of consciousness, mental activities, and states of being.
Here’s an overview of the main brainwave levels and their characteristics:
- Gamma Waves (30 Hz and above): Heightened perception, learning, and cognitive functioning.
- Beta Waves (14 to 30 Hz): Active thinking, focus, problem-solving, and stress.
- Alpha Waves (8 to 14 Hz): Relaxed alertness, stress reduction, and enhanced creativity. A bridge to your subconscious.
- Theta Waves (4 to 8 Hz): Light sleep, deep meditation, creativity, and emotional processing.
- Delta Waves (0.5 to 4 Hz): Deep sleep, healing, and restoration.
Why Not Just Practice Visualization?
Why not just practice visualization the same way Olympic athletes, people in sport, and leaders do?
This is the part that got my attention.
Typically, when people practice visualization, they are in a Beta wave state, which is alert and active thinking.
Its where limiting beliefs can get in the way, along with fear and anxiety.
It’s where stress lives.
But when you are in an Alpha state, you can be relaxed and more creative leading to more breakthroughs and creative brilliance.
Let’s take a deeper look…
Alpha State vs. Beta State
Being in an Alpha state, compared to a Beta state, can lead to feeling less fear and fewer limiting beliefs, as well as fostering greater creativity.
Here’s why:
Alpha State Characteristics:
- Relaxed Focus: The Alpha state is associated with relaxed alertness, mindfulness, and a calm, meditative state of mind.
- Reduced Anxiety: Being in Alpha reduces stress and anxiety levels, as it is linked to the brain’s resting state, which promotes feelings of calm and relaxation.
- Enhanced Creativity: Alpha waves facilitate more creative thinking and problem-solving because they allow for a freer flow of ideas, without the constraints of highly focused attention.
- Lowered Guard: In Alpha, the mental filters and barriers are lowered, allowing for less critical and more expansive thinking, reducing the impact of fear and limiting beliefs.
Beta State Characteristics:
- Active Thinking and Focus: The Beta state is associated with active, analytical thought, attention to external activities, and engagement with tasks.
- Higher Stress Levels: Prolonged periods in Beta, especially in high frequencies, can correlate with increased stress, anxiety, and overthinking.
- Limiting Beliefs: The heightened alertness and analytical thinking in Beta may reinforce limiting beliefs and fear, as the mind is more likely to focus on potential problems and risks.
Transitioning into an Alpha state can be particularly beneficial for activities requiring creativity, learning, and relaxation, as it allows for a more expansive, less judgmental mindset, paving the way for innovative thinking and reducing feelings of fear and self-doubt.
How To Practice the Five-to-One Silva Method
I’m going to walk through as simply as possible how to practice the core part of the Silva Method to enter the Alpha state and even Theta.
Jose Silva called the Five-to-One method because you are basically training yourself to go into Alpha by counting backwards from five to one.
Here are the steps to practice the Five-to-One Silva Method:
- When you awake in the morning, go to the bathroom if you need to.
- Set you alarm for 15 minutes in case you drift off to sleep.
- Close your eyes and look upward, at a 20-degree angle. The position of the eyes alone will trigger Alpha.
- Count backwards slowly, in two second intervals, from 100 to 1.
- Practice visualization (see below).
- Practice coming out of Alpha (see below).
Focus on what it feels like to be in the deeply relaxed, but focused and aware state.
How To Practice Visualizing a Mental Screen
According to Jose Silva, right from the beginning, from the very first moment you reach your meditative level, you should practice visualization.
Visualization is central to the Silva Mind Control method.
The better you learn to visualize, the more powerful your experience with Silva Mind Control will be.
Silva writes:
“The first step is to create a tool for visualization, a mental screen.
It should be like a large movie screen but should not quite fill your mental vision.
Imagine it not behind your eyelids, but about six feet in front of you.
You will project onto this screen whatever you choose to concentrate on.
Later there will be other uses for it.”
Project Something Simple onto Your Mental Screen
When you reach your meditation level, practice projecting one image on your Mental Screen.
Visualize it in 3 dimensions and make it as real as possible.
Silva recommends starting with something simple like an orange or an apple.
Silva writes:
“Once you have built this screen in your mind, project onto it something familiar and simple, like an organ or an apple.
Each time you go to your level, stay with just one image; you may change it the next time.
Concentrate on making it more and more real–in three dimensions–in full color, in all its details.
Think of nothing else.”
Practice Schedule for the Five-to-One Silva Method
It will take about 7 weeks to go to lower levels of Alpha consistently, and then reach your Theta state, according to Jose Silva.
Here is the practice schedule:
- First 10 mornings: Count down from100 to 1.
- Next 10 mornings: Count down from 50 to 1.
- Next 10 mornings: Count down from 25 to 1.
- Next 10 mornings: Count down from 10 to 1.
- Next 10 mornings: Count down from 5 to 1.
How To Come Out of the Alpha State
According to Jose Silva, it’s best to practice one consistent method for waking up from the Alpha state.
He said by practicing one way, it will give you a greater degree of control versus coming out spontaneously.
Here is what you will say mentally and do to come out of Alpha state:
“I will slowly come out as I count from one to five, feeling wide awake and better than before. One — two— prepare to open your eyes—three—open eyes—four——five—eyes open, wide awake, feeling better than before.”
What Does the Silva Method Feel Like?
According to Jose Silva, in his Mind Control classes, students show a variety of reactions in their first experience from “That was beautiful” to “I didn’t feel a thing.”
Silva said that the difference is less in what happened to them than in how familiar they were this this level of mind in the first place.
For example, it was very familiar to me simply because of listening to self-hypnosis programs growing up to get an edge in school, work and life.
According to Silva, and I already knew this, but the feeling should be more or less familiar to everyone.
The reason for this is that when we awaken in the morning we are often in Alpha for a while.
To go from Theta, the sleep level, to Beta, the awake level, we must pass through Alpha and often we linger there through our early-morning routine.
What if You Feel Like Nothing Happened?
If you feel that nothing happened during this exercise, it simply means you have been in Alpha many times before without being particularly aware of it.
Silva says simply relax, don’t question it, and stay with the exercises.
How To Practice the Silva Method Sitting Up
Once you’ve learned how to reach your level with the Five-to-One Silva Method in the morning, you are ready to enter your level any time of day.
All you need is ten or fifteen minutes.
Because you’ll be entering your level from Beta, the awake state, rather than a light level of Alpha, like in the morning, you need a little extra training.
According to Silva, here’s how to enter your level with the Five-to-One Silva Method any time of day you choose:
- Sit in a chair or on a bed with your feet flat on the floor. Let your hands lie loosely in your lap. If you prefer, site cross-legged in the lotus position.
- Hold your head well balanced, not slumped.
- Concentrate on one part of your body then another, to consciously relax it. Start with your left foot, then the left leg, then the right foot, and so on, until you reach the throat, the face, the eyes, and finally the scalp. (You’ll be amazed the first time you do this how tense your body was.)
- Pick a spot about 45 degrees above eye level on the ceiling or the wall opposite you.
- Gave at this spot until your eyelids begin to feel a little heavy and let them close.
- Start your countdown from 50 to 1.
- Practice visualizing your Mental Screen and projecting something simple on it.
- Practice coming out of your meditation level (Alpha / Theta).
Practice Schedule for the Silva Method Sitting Up
Here is the suggested countdown and practice schedule according to Jose Silva:
- First 10 mornings: Count down from 50 to 1.
- Next 10 mornings: Count down from 10 to 1.
- From then on: Count down from 5 to 1.
According to Silva, since you will no longer be limited to the mornings for this practice, establish a routine of meditating two or three times a day, about fifteen minutes a session.
Practice Creating a Simple Image More and More Vividly
According to Silva, the best thing you can practice is vivid visualization.
Silva writes:
“Using your mind, train your brain to go quietly into Alpha and to attend exclusively to the job of creating a simple image more and more vividly.
In the beginning, as thoughts intrude, be gentle and forgiving.
Slowly push them away and return to the single object at hand.
Becoming irritate or tense will bring you right out of Alpha.”
Experience a Deep and Durable Inner Peace
When you practice the Silva Method and reaching your meditation level, you can achieve a happy stillness of mind, and a deep and durable inner peace.
Silva writes:
“This then, is meditation as it is widely practice throughout the world.
If you do nothing else, you will experience what William Wordsworth called ‘A happy stillness of mind,’ and more, a deep and durable inner peace.
This will come as an exciting experience as you reach deeper levels of mind; then you will take it more and more for granted and the excitement will pass.
When this happens, many drop out.
They forget that this is not a ‘trip’ for its own sake but the first step in what may well be the most important journey they have ever taken.’
The Silva Method Can Tame the Monkey Mind
According to Silva, one of the best things you can do is tame the monkey mind, so you can use your mind to help you in a more controlled way.
Silva writes:
“It has been said that the brain is like a drunken monkey; it lurches willy-nilly from one thing to another.
It is surprising how little command we have over this brain of ours, despite the fine work it sometimes does for us.
At other times, though, it operates behind our backs, treacherously creating a headache, then a rash, then an ulcer to top things off.
This brain is too powerful, far too powerful, to leave out of control.
Once we learn to use our minds to train it, it will do some astounding things for us, as you will soon see.”
Master the Silva Mind Control Method to Master Yourself
The Silva Method transcends traditional self-help by leveraging the power of the Alpha state to unlock higher levels of creativity and problem-solving capabilities.
By shifting your focus inward and mastering your mind control, you can overcome limiting beliefs and tap into a deeper well of potential.
This Silva Mind Control method not only equips you with a competitive edge but also offers you a pathway to significant personal growth and mental wellness.
The essence of the Silva Method it its ability to refine your cognitive processes, making it a vital tool to enhance your mental capabilities and level of mental mastery.
The limits of your mind define the boundaries of your world.
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