Stop fearing Anxiety with Hypnotherapy

Understanding Anxiety 

What is anxiety? We have become so used to hearing “I have anxiety”, or “I have anxiety disorder”, or “my child has anxiety” etc that we have almost forgotten what anxiety actually is. We have given it its own title. There are numerous Instagrammers and Facebook pages dealing with the subject. It’s  almost like it has become a monster in its own right.

But what is it really? It is just an emotion. It’s a normal every day emotion. It tells us that we need to be aware of something and pay it some attention. It can be what motivates us and helps us perform well – in exams or on stage for example. If we didn’t ever experience any anxiety, we would be one of two things – very strange or dead! Yet how does it become an emotion that takes over, that can stop us doing things or enjoying life?

The physiological symptoms that being anxious produces can be very unpleasant. When we think about it, we haven’t really evolved very much from when we were cavemen. We still react by going in to fight or flight – or sometimes freeze – mode. In those days we would have needed to either fight to get food, run away from danger or freeze to limit our chances of being spotted. The physiological responses – racing heart, feeling or being sick, having diarrhoea etc – are designed to make us faster and lighter. But they can feel really unpleasant, or in the case of a panic attack, really terrifying. So what happens then? You start to fear the fear. The feeling of being fearful is so unpleasant that you start to fear having it. Sufferers of “anxiety” often check in with these feelings regularly and it  becomes a vicious circle. They fear finding the feeling, which produces the feeling, which confirms to them that they have an anxiety disorder. This can often feel like it’s confirmed when they visit the doctor – who might test for any physical illness – but when they don’t find anything, they are prescribed medication to deal with the symptoms. So it can feel like a positive diagnosis of “anxiety disorder”, whereas in fact it is a negative diagnosis of anything medically wrong. And whilst the medication might help – and believe me I am not ever going to knock our hard working doctors – it actually only deals with the physiological symptoms and, as I said, confirms to the sufferer that they now have a disorder.

What if we didn’t fear the feeling? What if we recognised that it is just a physiological reaction to a thought or emotion? How many of us enjoy rollercoasters, or scare jump movies? If we think about it, those feelings are very similar to those of being anxious. Yet we enjoy them! When we stop fearing the feeling, guess what? We stop looking for the feeling. And so we can break the cycle.

.

Benefits of Hypnotherapy

Hypnotherapy can help with this. Hypnotherapy works by talking to the subconscious part of your mind. The part where all your belief and behavioural patterns are stored. Anything that you do or think automatically – or can’t do or think automatically – comes from your belief and behavioural patterns in your subconscious. Hypnotherapy is particularly good for anxiety, as unlike some other therapies, it doesn’t require you to dwell on the whys and the causes and the feelings that you have. As explained above, by focusing and dwelling on the feelings too much you can end up creating that very cycle which we want to break.

Getting Started with Hypnotherapy

I offer traditional hypnotherapy and the Control System. The Control System is a very direct form of hypnotherapy that doesn’t involve you being in a trance. I personally prefer it as I believe it can be quicker and more effective. If you are interested in finding out more, please read the reviews and my website. I also offer a free consultation; it’s really important that we feel comfortable with each other and that I feel that I have a good chance of helping you. By the end of the consultation I should have a good idea of what you want to achieve and whether your mind works in a way that is compatible with hypnotherapy. I can never give guarantees, but I will not charge you for further sessions if I do not believe that we have a good chance of success.

.