The physical sensation of anxiety in your body might be your first clue that you are feeling anxious, the tight chest, lump in your throat, sweaty palms, churning sensations in your stomach. This awareness of anxiety might then cause you to become aware of your thoughts, you start trying to identify what the cause of this anxiety might be. Suddenly all your attention has be re-directed internally to your symptoms and thoughts, no longer present in the moment and planning your escape from this terrible situation.
We will look briefly at what creates anxiety in your brain and body, the different types of anxiety and how they might present, and what you can do about this, how hypnosis can help you to overcome the anxious panic and what a hypnotherapy for anxiety session looks like.
What is anxiety?
Anxiety is the response to a perceived threat, it is both psychological and physiological. If your life is in some kind of danger it is wise to protect yourself from that, stay safe, stay alive. It is an automatic and subconscious innate function of our brain to look out for our survival at all times. Whether we are aware or not our brain will scan the environment and our body for any sign of danger.
Anxiety is created when we become aware of a potential threat and need to create a strategy to deal with this, the physical symptoms we experience are a result of an increase in adrenaline and cortisol in preparation to act. We need to have more adrenaline should we have to run or fight, if we track this back to a time when we lived in caves and tribes the ability to act quickly was essential, running or fighting would have certainly saved our lives. Nothing has changed in terms of brain functioning, we still have a limbic system that is designed for safety.
The biggest changes have been environmentally, now we live in secure houses in a culture that generally promotes safety.
We can't remove this functioning however as it is still required, we still find ourselves in situations where quick action is needed to save us.
Humans can tolerate short term acute stressors, we are designed for this, the problem starts when we don't complete that stress cycle by accepting that the threat has ended, or we evaluate non-life-threatening stressors to be harmful.
What causes Anxiety?
Typical stressors that we encounter these days are moving house, relationship breakdown, job loss, financial difficulties, long-term illness, loss of loved ones.
These stressors tend to be chronic, experienced over a long period of time, due to this constant state of hyper-arousal in our body and worrying thoughts, feelings of hopelessness and uncertainty we may experience what is known as anxiety disorder.
It doesn't have to be a big life altering stress that creates the anxiety, we might have multiple micro-stressors in our life which build up and accumulate over time. The feeling of lack of control over our situation and environment, uncertainty over outcomes, dissatisfaction with the current situation can all lead to anxiety.
What are Anxiety Disorder symptoms?
The symptoms of anxiety are physical, emotional and cognitive, you might suffer from a range of symptoms that come and go. Some of the symptoms are listed below but there are many that can be linked to a constant hyper-arousal state. It is well researched that chronic stress effects the central nervous system and the immune system causing additional physical stress on the body.
Physical Anxiety Symptoms
Heart Palpitations
Rapid Heartbeat/Increased Pulse
Rapid Breathing
Chest tightness
Dizziness
Brain Fog/Forgetfulness
Stomach Cramps/Digestive Issues
Headaches
Tightness in Jaw/Bruxism
Muscle aches and pains
Insomnia/Tiredness
Emotional Anxiety Symptoms
Cognitive Anxiety Symptoms
What are the different types of anxiety?
There are several different types or sub-sets of anxiety, you may experience just one or several during the course of your life.
Generalised Anxiety Disorder
This is a term used to describe feeling anxious a lot of the time over various settings and situations. It is an excessive amount of worry and a feeling of being on-edge, jumpy, hyper-vigilant to your environment.
You might find yourself withdrawing from things you would have enjoyed in the past, find it more challenging to do your job, keep on top of day to day life, feel low energy, find it difficult to sleep, harder to maintain hobbies or activities.
Social Anxiety Disorder
This can look like dreading social events, over-thinking the situation and ruminating on what you said and did afterwards, you might come across as extremely shy or over-confident as a way of coping.
It can often result in avoiding situations that make you feel anxious like concerts, cities, parties, work events, group activities.
It can show up as a fear of public speaking or speaking up in meetings which can effect your work.
You might use alcohol or drugs to cope and give you more confidence in social settings.
The physical side of social anxiety might create sweating, blushing, shaking hands, upset stomach, excess wind - all of which will add to the anxiety and become a viscous cycle.
Panic Disorder
This is where you have frequent panic attacks, with no pattern, they can happen anywhere at any time without an obvious cause.
The physical symptoms can be:
Nausea
Feeling Dizzy
Feeling Faint
Hyperventilating
Heart Palpitations
Extreme fear
Feeling like you might die
Fear of lack of control
Dissociating - feeling like you aren't in your body
This can create anxiety around the potential panic attack in future adding to the general anxiety.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
This is an extreme anxiety disorder, the main symptoms are obsessional thinking an compulsive behaviours or rituals which can include thoughts.
An obsession is an intrusive thought or mental image that is repetitive and automatic. These can be challenging to disregard, causing distress and anxiety due to their disturbing nature.
A compulsion is a repetitive thought or action that is carried out in order to alleviate anxiety, like silently repeating a phrase in your mind to soothe yourself, or checking that the front door is locked.
You might believe that something bad will happen if you don’t do these things. You may realise that your thinking and behaviour is not logical but still find it very difficult to stop.
There are different types of OCD including:
Contamination – The fear that you have been in contact with something contaminated.
Checking – The constant need to check yourself or your environment to prevent damage, fire, leaks or harm or to find out if your intrusive thoughts were real.
Intrusive thoughts – Repetitive thoughts which may be horrific and upsetting
Hoarding – Not feeling able to throw away useless or worn out items.
Health Anxiety
Health anxiety is a pre-occupation with your wellbeing, predominantly your physical health. You might worry that you are ill, or that you are going to get ill, or have been in contact with someone who is ill. You might also worry about your loved ones wellbeing
Constantly scanning your body for signs of illness such as lumps or pain. Monitoring any changes in symptoms. Hyper aware of any symptoms and then catastrophising that the are part of a life-threatening illness or condition.
Looking for reassurance from others or from medical professionals that you are not ill and googling symptoms, repeatedly.
Concerns that health professionals have missed something or mis-diagnosed
Avoid health related content, such as TV soaps
Mental illness can also become an obsession worrying that the anxiety you feel is part of a bigger or undiagnosed disorder.
The physical symptoms of anxiety may replicate symptoms of illness which can be mistaken for signs of serious illness by those who have health anxiety.
How can hypnotherapy help relieve anxiety?
When we have worrying thoughts hypnosis allows us to respond in a calmer way, this helps to create a positive impact on the HPA axis and nervous system, which leads to reduced sympathetic activity and increased parasympathetic activity. It helps to create a feeling of calmness and safety which means you are able to respond with intellectual control and create a considered and informed decision.
Because much of the anxiety we face is actually at a subconscious level, we aren't aware of the thought cycles and the patterns we have created and inadvertently reinforced. It can feel like we have little control over the anxiety itself which adds to the feeling of lose of control and uncertainty and reinforces the unhelpful coping behaviours that keep anxiety alive.
Hypnotherapy both relaxes and calms your nervous system, reducing the physical sensations, cortisol and in turn helps you feel safer. When we feel safe the need to protect ourselves decreases and we are more likely to accept a new perspective and learn better coping strategies, new thought patterns and behaviours.
Hypnotherapy also uses the subconscious which is where these previous thought patterns are stored and accessed automatically. If we can create new patterns and re-wire the brain to choose these automatically then it allows us to create better outcomes for the future.
I also use a solutions focused brief psychotherapeutic approach in sessions, which works with the conscious and rational brain. We look at the future and how we would like things to be, how we would be coping better with situations with less anxiety, how we might be approaching these new situations with more confidence and self belief.
We don't need to re-visit past memories or situations to change how we think and feel, we can simply programme our mind much like a GPS to start to move towards the new destination.
The process of positive solutions focused thinking, positive action taking and repetition, combined with the subconscious use of imagination to re-process and create new memories and neural pathways for the future is extremely effective and fast acting.
What will hypnosis for anxiety do for me?
Hypnosis can be used to gradually introduce images and thoughts that you would usually find difficult under a relaxed and controlled state. This process, known as desensitization, can help to become more resilient to the anxious thoughts and feelings associated with that situation and therefore become less reactive to these triggers over time.
What Happens during a hypnosis session for anxiety?
Using the combination of solutions focused psychotherapy and hypnotherapy we work through your desired outcome or best hopes for the future. We break this down and look at the positive actions you will start taking to move towards this wonderful goal - as taking action is physically re-wiring your brain, teaching it how you want it to re-act and respond, giving it lived examples that it can choose to re-call in future. It is often the doing that creates the evidence that is required to cement those new thought patterns and change limiting beliefs.
We will use hypnosis then to visualise and imagine how you will be able to do this, we might use some positive re-framing where you actually imagine yourself doing and completing this new action. We might use some suggestions and metaphors to allow your subconscious to re-wire and create new positive associations and therefore connections in your mind.
I am also trained in NLP and EFT so we might use some of these techniques to further support you, giving you tools to stay calmer, focused, let go of emotions that are holding you back, remove the fear and anxiety, give you more confidence going into the situation.
Can Hypnotherapy cure anxiety?
Anxiety is not a disease it is a state of emotional dysregulation, it is actually extremely normal and helpful to feel anxious. We don't want to and can't remove our ability to feel anxious or have worries. They can support in making positive changes in our life, remove ourselves from unhealthy situations, protect us from real threats.
Instead we want to experience temporary and manageable levels of anxiety, where we can feel in control of ourselves and our actions.
What hypnotherapy will support you in is:
Reduce and manage effectively any physical symptoms of anxiety
Recognise and move out of negative thinking
Accept anxiety as part of life not a problem, and learn how to mange it
Help you to cope with life difficulties taking back control of your thoughts and behaviours
Worth with your nervous system, learning how to relax and your mind to be present.
Change your perspective on your past and look to the future more positively
Help you to create positive change in your habits and routines.
How many hypnotherapy sessions will you need to reduce anxiety?
It depends if you are coming with a specific goal - i.e. public speaking confidence, or with a desire to learn how to manage and reduce overall anxiety.
For a specific goal we can make a noticeable difference in only a couple of sessions.
For generalised anxiety, panic disorders and OCD we have to work with what is presenting and what is causing the most significant problems, it can be a gradual approach over multiple sessions.
I recommend a minimum of 6 sessions to deal with anxiety to achieve lasting positive change.
Can I hypnotise myself to stop anxiety?
Yes, all hypnosis is essentially you hypnotising yourself however during sessions you have the support of a trained therapist to guide you into hypnosis and to direct your visualisations to get the most out of the session. There are many techniques that you can practice and use after sessions to help manage and reduce anxiety.
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