Using hypnotherapy for anxiety is highly effective, and can create lasting changes for a happy and healthy lifestyle. Anti-depressants and anti-anxiety drugs are usually only a bandaid over the underlying issue.
Hypnotherapy for anxiety can help find the underlying issue and remove it at the root cause. After experiencing long periods of social, performance or generalised anxiety, many of our clients say they feel lost, desperate, frustrated and worried.
The physical symptoms of a racing heart, shallow breathing, sweaty hands and a sickness in the stomach, together with the psychological symptoms of paranoia and mental ‘disconnection’, make for an incredibly unpleasant experience.
In the treatment of social anxiety, performance anxiety or generalised anxiety disorders, it is important to understand that consciously trying to control anxiety through rational thought alone can prove to be extremely difficult.
Hypnotherapy communicates directly with the unconscious mind to reassure and calm the reactions in the body. This is where anxiety stems from – your unconscious.
Unnecessary anxiety usually comes from your thoughts – it’s the thought of potential danger, not the actual danger, that causes you to feel anxious.
Firstly, the situation you are in creates a thought, that thought causes the anxiety. You may be in a shed where a spider could appear, you may even see a spider but it is the thought of a spider biting you or touching you that causes the anxiety. If you looked at the spider without any thoughts, there would be no anxiety. It’s the thought of the ‘potential’ danger that causes the anxiety.
This scenario works in many areas, the fear of losing your job are the thoughts you create ‘What if the boss doesn’t like my work?’ ‘What if I get fired’ ‘How will I pay my bills without a job’ – all these fearful thoughts create anxiety.
Being worried makes the unconscious mind want to find a solution, so it prepares the body to find a way out of a ‘dangerous’ situation by producing a hormone to prepare to fight or flight. (It still believes we are cavemen and have real life or death threats) This hormone is adrenaline which causes our heart to race, butterflies in our stomach, sweating and breathlessness. If we reassured ourselves with statements such as ‘I’m a good worker’ ‘I’m safe in my job’ then our body would remain calm and not produce anxiety provoking chemicals.
Anxiety can be made worse by escalating panic such as fearing the fear itself – by trying to avoid panic attacks and anxiety you now have a new fear. Not just worried about losing your job, or spiders, but worried you will have anxiety about losing your job or seeing a spider creates anxiety before the anxiety. Dreading the symptoms the fear causes in your body.
It then becomes out of control when you are avoiding all situations or things that cause discomfort. What started as anxious thoughts when talking to the boss becomes an avoidance of work altogether or avoidance of even leaving the house.
Every symptom you experience during a panic attack is a natural, harmless part of your body’s fight-or-flight reaction. All panic symptoms are the direct result of the hormone adrenaline which is metabolised in your body in less than three minutes. Its effects can go away just as quickly. Therefore, if you can stop your worrying thoughts, your panic attack will be over entirely within 3 minutes. The crucial step is to contest and refute any worrying thoughts you find yourself making about your panic symptoms.
Fortunately, there is a way to cope with this nightmare of anxiety and panic. The hypnotic instructions in this audio program can help you take control of your anxiety and learn to release it quickly and replace it with new healthy responses to old anxious thoughts.