Glasgow Anxiety Therapy

 Anxiety appears in many forms. Whenever it comes on, whatever it is called, it is fear. It may seem extraordinary that a person may not be able walk to the end of his road, but that is the power of fear. It may be out of proportion, but it is paralysing.   But it doesn’t have to be forever. Anxiety in all forms can be treated. This text comes from the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

Anxiety has a purpose. It makes us more alert, more aware, more ready for action. The fight or flight hormones rush through our body, getting us ready for action. That’s very useful in the jungle. And a little bit can help if we have to give a talk to colleagues. Too much and you want to run away. That’s panic.

The good news is that you can learn how to regain control. Methods have been developed over the last 50 years or so, and proved to work. So take courage. Decide to take action. Because you can get better.

In hypnosis, you can look at the things that make you anxious and learn to respond in a different way. Because of course, anxiety triggers more anxiety. And fear of anxiety is paralysing too.

With the sort of hypnotherapy that I practice, you can expect to feel significantly better after just a few sessions, armed with some practical techniques that will last you all your life. You will rebuild your self-confidence as your anxiety recedes. Why wait?

If we think about nice things that might happen in the future, we will feel happy and relaxed. If we think about all the terrible things that might happen, then we are likely to feel low.

This is probably the most important thing to know when you are wanting to manage your anxiety.

You can try it out for yourself. Remember a time when you felt really good about yourself. Smile to yourself. How do you feel? Then think of a ghastly mistake you made in the past, and notice all the feelings. With me, it is a hot face and dry mouth, maybe with a sense of shame.

So, knowing that it is your thoughts, or your belief systems and attitudes that are making you feel this way, you can accept that if you change these, then you will change your feelings. Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) was developed to deal with just this sort of problem. If you want to have a go on your own, try David Burns' book The Feelgood Handbook. Or give me a call and try some cognitive behavioural hypnotherapy.

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.

In managing anxiety, one of the things to look for are distorted, dysfunctional ways of thinking and then find more helpful and realistic ways of thinking.

Albert Ellis, the founder of Rational-Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) identified one of the most common dysfunctional beliefs as “There is invariably a right, precise, and perfect solution to human problems and it is catastrophic if this perfect solution is not found.” (Reason and Emotion in Psychotherapy, 1962).

Intolerance of uncertainty has been shown to correlate with the presence of worry. There is also some evidence that intolerance of uncertainty precedes development of worry. So if we could be more tolerant of the reality of uncertainty, a lot of this worry would go, and we would feel happier.

Some chronic worriers prefer certainty about a negative outcome happening to uncertainty. "Just let it happen and get it over with". Perhaps knowing that something bad is going to happen helps some of us get down to planning how to cope, whereas uncertainty keeps us on edge. 

People who feel in this way compulsively seek to reduce uncertainty in their lives. They keep checking on the internet or asking their doctor or friends for information. They think about their worries constantly.   However, this quest for certainty seldom leads to satisfaction and people who suffer from chronic worry waste time trying to reach certainty, where none is available. Or procrastinate and avoid things because taking action might involve risk and uncertain outcomes.

The way to deal with this is to practice eliminating attempts to reduce uncertainty. Stop checking on the internet, stop seeking reassurance. Letting uncertainty become a normal part of life. Which it is. Hypnotherapy will help you achieve this goal.

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.

Chronic worriers probably try loads of ways to control their worrying. But somehow they don't work. The worries keep coming. Clearly these techniques are not working. What is going on here then?

What about trying hard not to think about the worry? We all know that if you are worried that you might keep looking at the spot on your friend's nose, you will be unable to keep your eyes off it. It is just the same when you try not to think about your worry. Your mind keeps coming back to it again and again. The more you try not to think about something, the more you tend to think about it.  Frustrating and depressing.

The thing is, that if you try actively not to think about something, you have to think about it in order not to think about it. Mmm. So that method is not going to work. The benefit of cognitive behavioural hypnotherapy as a treatment is that the toolkit of techniques is huge with something suitable for everyone.

Anxiety is the feeling of fear we all experience when faced with threatening or difficult situations. It helps us to avoid dangerous situations, makes us alert and motivates us to deal with problems. Worrying is one of the symptoms of anxiety. Anxiety disorders are common - nearly 25% of people will experience anxiety disorders at some time in their lives.

Everyone experiences feelings of anxiety at some point in their life. For example, you may feel worried and anxious about sitting an exam or having a medical test or job interview. Feeling anxious is  perfectly normal.

However, people with generalised anxiety find it hard to control their worries. Their feelings of anxiety are more constant and often affect their daily life.

The good news is that there is plenty of evidence to show that cognitive behavioural hypnotherapy is an effective treatment. Short term treatment with long term results.