Need to reduce stress, change a bad habit or lose weight?

Hyp-Yoga may be just the thing for you. It is a powerful combination of hypnosis and yoga that gives students faster, more effective results, says Carly Cummings, a co-founder of the three-year-old technique who lives in Omaha, Neb.

"A lot of our students who were on heart medication when they came to were taken off by their doctors after a couple of months with us,'' Cummings says. "Hyp-Yoga significantly allows you to create behavior changes.''

How does Hyp-Yoga help heart disease? By training students to relax, diet and exercise-all through hypnosis, which is delivered at the end of any style of yoga practice, including ashtanga and vinyasa, two popular forms of training. The classes are taught at yoga and fitness studios nationwide. Besides Nebraska, classes can be found in Milwaukee, Kansas City, Naples, Fla., and Carlsbad, Calif.

"Just being able to slow down and say, 'Oh, I need to take care of myself,' has been a big step for a lot of students,'' Cummings says.

Traditionally, classes begin with a yoga session, including full body poses and deep breath work. The relaxation and openness allows for hypnosis to occur on the topic of your choice (quitting smoking, losing weight, etc.)

Hypnosis is an intense form of attention awareness, the material reads, meaning it can open up the subconscious part of your mind that regulates your metabolism, heartbeat and emotions.

"Hypnosis brings us to a place were we are so relaxed that we can use 100 percent of our brain to focus on a task at hand,'' the material reads. "Hypnosis is not scary. It's very natural. In fact, the hypnotic state is really more common than you might thing. Any time you have gotten lost in a movie or book you have been in hypnosis. Daydreaming is a form of hypnosis, and so is zoning out when you are driving. You hypnotize your self all the time!''