Glasgow Anxiety Therapy

The symptoms of anxiety are caused by the flood of hormones rushing through your body - the body's way of preparing you for danger,  the fight or flight response. This response can be triggered by lots of different things. These symptoms can come out out of the blue. The fight or flight response happens instantly when we sense a threat. This could just be a preconscious recall of a difficult experience, triggered by smell, the sight of something linked to the situation, or a wide range of seemingly unrelated things. Whatever it is, if we sense danger, this hormonal response is triggered.

It takes a few seconds for the thinking part of the brain (the cortex) to process the situation and evaluate whether the threat is real, and if so, how to handle it. So the hormones get triggered quite a bit before your brain gets involved. If the cortex sends the all-clear signal, the fight-flight response is deactivated and the nervous system can relax. But if we now start worrying about why we felt this way, we can get those hormones racing again.

If you are menopausal, these symptoms can be purely related to the changing hormonal balance. They may feel like anxiety, but they are just physiological. They have no meaning. (Hot flushes can be managed by hypnosis.)

Cognitive behavioural hypnotherapy will help you to understand and manage anxiety symptoms, so that you get relaxed and comfortable again quickly.

Where anxiety has been with you for a long time, professional help is useful. I practice cognitive behavioural hypnotherapy, and this gives rapid results. Or your doctor can offer you cbt through the NHS.

Anxiety is physiological arousal triggered by the Stress Response. Powerful hormones are released when your body senses danger (real or imagined) and these hormones generate arousal and anxiety. Elevation of the chemical stress pathway (glucocorticoids - mainly cortisol) tends to be associated with depression, whereas elevation of the electrical stress pathway (epinephrine -mainly adrenaline) more frequently is correlated with anxiety.

But there is also a Relaxation Response. When you are relaxed, the hormone balance is changed to include naurally occurring benzodiazapines (sedative and relaxing) and cannabinoids, which work a bit like dopamine, and result in good feelings. Also released are  melatonin, which can help you sleep at night and be alert during the day.

You might wonder if all that is really worth knowing. Most of us who get anxious are getting into a routine of filling our bodies with stress hormones. These can build up in our bodies and cause long-term damage. There is quite a lot of information on this. But there is less talked about the real physiological benefits of deep relaxation.

If you are relaxed, you just cannot be anxious. The hormones won't let you do it. Learning deep relaxation is the first step to managing your anxiety. It is easy to learn. (I teach this and most of my clients are astounded at the impact). Just 5 or 10 minutes a day will do the trick. If you think about it, you probably spend hours a day feeling anxious.

Get started now on managing your anxiety. Learn how to really relax with hypnosis. Give me a call.