If anxiety and overwhelm is controlling your life then you are not alone. It is estimated that over 9 million people in the UK suffer some form of anxiety and the figure is rising due to Covid, lockdown and months of home schooling. The gradual build-up of an anxious condition can be deceptive until we realise one day that we no longer behave or react the way we used to.
What are the signs?
- Excessive worry about everyday details
- A constant state of dread
- Feeling out of control
- Fear of public speaking
- Social anxiety
- Poor sleep
- Restless and unable to concentrate
- Constant rumination & circular thinking
- Inability to make decisions
- Feelings of overwhelm
- Panic attacks (racing heart, hyperventilation, nausea).
To make matters worse, anxious behaviour often affects important relationships in our lives, leading to loneliness and isolation. You may try and make yourself feel better by over-eating, drinking too much or spending more time than usual on social media but these coping strategies can lead to secondary problems like weight gain or alcoholism.
Get help!
If anxiety is blighting your life it is important to take action and do something about it. Living with anxiety for a prolonged period of time can eventually lead to a weakened immune system, digestive problems and even infertility.
Book a free 20 min Anxiety Relief call here and start your journey today.
Why do we get anxious?
Anxiety is a survival response to a perceived threat and it is generated by our limbic brain, also known as the fight-flight-freeze part of the brain. It will do anything to keep us safe and out of harm’s way. Unfortunately, this built-in survival mechanism is a little out of date. It was really very useful thousands of years ago but these days we don’t normally fear being eaten by wild animals or hostile tribes. We are instead bombarded by daily stressful situations that our brain mistakenly perceives as life-threatening.
How can hypnotherapy help?
Hypnotherapy is firmly based on neuroscience so it is useful to understand how the brain works. When we have anxious thoughts we can liken that to our imagination being hijacked by negative thought patterns such as ‘I’m not good enough, ‘I’ll never get married’ or ‘I’ll always struggle to make ends meet’. These negative thought patterns are often formed during childhood and reside in our subconscious mind where they tend to repeat themselves over and over. When we get triggered by people or situations that resonate which these subconscious beliefs, we react and start the negative thought spiral which often leads to catastrophising about ourselves, people or future events.
What happens in hypnosis?
During hypnosis, you will experience a deep and comfortable relaxation that will feel familiar to you due to the fact that we go in and out of hypnosis several times during the course of a day. Perhaps you’ve been staring out of the window of a bus and got lost in thought? That’s a form of hypnosis. When we are very relaxed and calm it is much easier to access our subconscious mind where all of our early programming and life experiences are stored. By experiencing gentle and positive suggestions during hypnosis, we can start to see life in a new way which in turn can help us to reflect rather than respond to stressful situations.
Clinical hypnosis has the ability to deactivate the fight-flight response which means you’ll feel calmer and more relaxed. This helps you to put things into much-needed perspective. You may be having a really bad day or even a bad week, but you also know that some weeks are better and that you are likely to have those weeks again – it does not mean your entire life is a write-off.