If you happen to be one of the seven million people across the UK who suffers with panic attacks and anxiety, you’ll understand just how debilitating and exhausting this condition can be.
Anxiety can range from a persistent feeling of unrest and nervousness, right through to full-blown panic attacks which are so severe that the person experiencing them is genuinely concerned for their life.
While anxiety stems from a sensible origin (our body’s way of equipping us with more adrenalin so we can cope with dangerous situations), many of us have become caught in a cycle of anxiety which is not helpful when we try and cope with our day to day lives. Our ‘fight or flight’ response, which pumps us full of energy, increases our heart rate and prepares us for potential conflict, can become so elevated that even the smallest thing such as missing a bus or having to go outside alone can trigger disproportionate responses that hinder our daily lives to an extreme extent.
Beating panic attacks, with serenity and calm
The positive news is that hypnosis has been proven to be really effective in the fight against anxiety. A skilled and experienced therapist will be able to work with you to fully understand why you respond to certain ‘trigger’ situations in a negative way, and provide you with a really effective toolkit to make sure that your anxiety is relegated to a place where it only surfaces when it is truly needed to support you to deal with threats and dangers.
Overcoming the ‘fight or flight’ response
No matter how pressing or stressful situations in our life can be, we actually only need our pre-conditioned response very rarely. These situations (such as in a heated argument, where we need our brains to operate at full capacity to defend ourselves, or when we realise we need to run to avoid traffic) don’t usually crop up with frequency on a day to day basis. The trick for people suffering with anxiety is to re-programme the part of the mind which has persuaded our bodies to respond to all stress with a disproportionate amount of adrenalin.
Hypnosis does this by placing your unwarranted fears and anxieties back in to their proper perspective, reminding your body that there is actually no real benefit in reacting to most of our daily situations with an extreme panic response. For most of us with anxiety, we’ve forgotten to gauge situations with perspective, leading to a perpetual cycle of panic/anxiety.
Accessing the subconscious
Most of our instinctive responses are houses in a part of the mind which we can’t access through regular counselling or psychotherapy. This means that conventional therapies can be largely ineffective when it comes to facing our fears and understanding our conditioned responses to situations, which are leading to undue anxiety.
Hypnosis works by accessing the subconscious mind, and reminding it to allocate only a sensible amount of fear to situations to enable us to deal with them. So, rather than reacting to the fact that your partner is ten minutes late from work, for example, and your subconscious mind telling you that they have been in an accident, you can be effectively reminded to respond in a proportionate way – “I might text them just to check all is well”, rather than “I’m going to call all the local hospitals because it’s obvious something terrible has happened!”. In this way, hypnosis works with your innermost feelings and emotional responses, relegating them back to where they belong.
The five-step process for a life free of anxiety
I use a proven five-step process with clients looking to free themselves from anxiety and panic disorders. It’s effective, and works quickly and gently to enable you to regain your life. These are the steps I take with my clients:
Session 1: A full case history is taken and you will enjoy your first relaxation session using hypnotherapy. I will also teach you self hypnosis.
Session 2: You will receive a hypnotherapy session designed to remove the trigger of the anxiety / panic.
Session 3: At your third hypnotherapy session I will help you begin to take back the control and help to restore a calm and focused mind.
Session 4: I carry out a hypnotherapy session designed to help you release anxiety about anxiety.
Session 5: In your final session I install further confidence into your mind to help you move forward into the future free from panic and anxiety.
Can you imagine what you could achieve if anxiety was no longer holding you back?
Whether you suffer from phobias, OCD, panic attacks, General Anxiety Disorder (GAD), or any other form of panic disorder, the five-step hypnosis plan has the capability to set you free from your condition.
