My Hypnotherapy really works with Stress, Anxiety and Panic Attacks
Hypnotherapy for stress, anxiety and panic attacks.
Anxiety is one of the most common issues that I help clients with and the good news is that Cognitive Hypnotherapy is very effective in helping you deal with it.
We all experience anxiety from time to time, when we are faced with threatening or difficult situations. It is also something that can persist whether or not the cause is clear to us.
I sometimes use this example to explain Anxiety and Stress
"One way of thinking about your anxiety is to imagine your stress or anxiety levels as being like a bucket of water. If we keep adding stressors to the bucket (even tiny ones like the school run or commuting to work), over time it fills up until one day it overflows. When this happens we tend to see everyone and everything as our enemy or a threat to our survival."
Recently I've seen a big rise in enquiries for Anxiety and Stress.
It's not surprising with everything that is going on - every day seems to bring a new stress: Covid-19, the economy, "Will I have a job?", "How will we manage to pay our bills?". The future now lacks all the relative certainty it used to have and our lives have changed almost beyond belief. Older people worry more about their health, young people worry about their exam results - it seems, at times, to be an endless list of potential stress factors.
Some anxiety and stress helps us live a normal life.
Too much can damage our mental health
The questions I get asked most often:
Everybody gets feelings of anxiety and fear. The feelings and thoughts we get when we are anxious are caused by the mechanism that our bodies use to deal with a threat - it's a basic human survival reaction whenever a danger or threat is perceived - either consciously or unconsciously.
Anxiety and stress trigger the 'Fight or Flight Response', a primitive response, that is totally out of our conscious control. When this response is triggered, stress hormones - adrenaline, noradrenaline and cortisone - are released into the circulation. Our breathing and heart rates increase, blood is shunted away from our skin and gut to the large muscles in our arms and legs - which require extra energy and fuel for running or fighting - our pupils dilate and we become more alert. In other words we become prepared physically and physiologically to either fight or run away. The 'butterflies in the stomach' feeling that many of us associate with anxiety is this mechanism kicking in.
In anxiety, instead of this response being used to avoid immediate danger it is often wrongly, inappropriately and unconsciously activated during seemingly normal, everyday situations that the unconscious mind has perceived as being a threat - this is often unknown to us. Normally, once the threat has disappeared our body returns to its normal state and we can get on with our day - in anxiety, the unconscious mind remains in a state of high alert.
Anxiety is said to be abnormal if is out of proportion to the situation and/or it:
- Persists when the stressful situation has gone
- Appears for no reason - when there is no stressful situation
- Means you avoid everyday situations or activities
- Makes you feel plagued by fears that you know are irrational
- Makes you feel like danger and catastrophe are around every corner
- Makes you experience sudden unexpected attacks of 'heart pounding' panic
- Causes you to feel anxious to the point that you have to stop whatever you are doing
Stress, Anxiety, Panic Attacks - What's the difference?
Stress is something that will come and go as the external factor causing it changes. The external factor may be work, relationship or money problems, or something else entirely. But, as the external factor comes and goes so do your feelings of being stressed. Often people who are stressed cannot specifically identify the cause for themselves.
Anxiety is a normal, if unpleasant, part of life, and it can affect us all in different ways and at different times. Anxiety that never goes away or is triggered by ordinary events in our lives is a chronic condition for which you can get help.
Panic Attacks are sudden, acute and often paralysing incidents of anxiety. The body's response to stress goes into overdrive to the point where you can barely think or act - you become the 'rabbit in the headlights'. Sometimes people are able to identify the circumstances associated with the panic attack and can change their lives to avoid these. Sometimes a panic attack will start, seemingly, unprovoked.
What my client's have said.