HOW HYPNOTHERAPY WORKS
Fear
The word Fear is use to describe our emotional reaction to something that may be dangerous or scared. Sometimes the word "fear" is used in another way too, to name something a person often feels afraid of it may be water, flying, animals, heights and so on. Some people fear things or situations that make them feel unsafe or unsure in certain surroundings. And with fear it can cause anxious worries as well, which you may get other symptoms with in.​
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Hypnotherapy works by changing our thoughts and behaviours associated with the fear, and making it a more positive experience. Through using the power of suggestion and relaxation techniques, hypnotherapy can help you become a more relaxed, calm thinker, helping you to feel safe and in control of your fears. A hypnotherapist will tailor the suggestions to you, with the aim of helping you recognise what triggers your fear and why, as well as changing your reaction to it.
Phobia
A phobias is an exaggerated or unrealistic fear surrounding certain situations or object. If this situation or object is common in day-to-day life, the phobia can restrict a person’s life, phobias is a type of anxiety, making you feel scared and our natural body response will respond to it causing mental or physical responses holding them back from doing what you want to do and causing a lot of distress.
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Examples of some specific phobias:
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Animal phobias, spiders, snakes or dogs
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Environmental phobias – heights, germs, open water, deep water
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Situational phobias, flying or visiting the dentist
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Bodily phobias, having injections, vomit or blood.
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Sexual phobias, fear of getting a sexually transmitted infection or performance anxiety
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Other certain objects or food items as well.
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Agoraphobia - This is when someone feels anxious about being in a certain place or situation where it’s difficult for them to escape if they have a panic attack.
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Social phobia - Also known as social anxiety disorder, this phobia centres around social situations and interactions with people. Sometimes they avoid speaking to people
Hypnotherapy can help to communicate with the subconscious mind and change the way you feel and behave towards your phobia.
This process will involve putting you into a very relaxed, hypnotic state. I will talk you through this and you’ll be in control the whole time. If you’re unsure where your phobia came from, you may spend some time getting to the root of the phobia and remembering the event that triggered it if you had one, it can be from a young age. Some different techniques are used.
Stress
Stress is when we feel under a lot of pressure maybe at home, work, school with exams and struggles, and that’s when we are unable to cope. Feeling stress can take a toll in your physical and mental well-being. We can’t always control the stressful situations, but we can control our reactions to it. This is where our fight, flight and freeze response comes from – our natural body response when we're stressed or anxious. Some other symptoms: feeling anxious, overwhelmed, easily irritated, angry, low in self-esteem and self-worth, and as if you can’t cope.
Sometimes these feelings may change the way you behave and interact with those around you.
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Some of the ways you may feel mentally include:
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fast-thinking
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difficulty making decisions
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difficulty focusing
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constant worrying
These feelings may impact your day-to-day life and, over time, stress can also lead to mental health conditions like anxiety and depression.
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These are how you may feel physically include:
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tense muscles
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headaches
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feeling dizzy
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problems sleeping
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fatigue
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a change in appetite
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How can hypnotherapy work?
I will aim to break any negative thought patterns and your responses to stress and instead provide you with a more healthy reaction. This is done via working with the subconscious mind – the part of our mind that works automatically and without us realising it. Hypnotherapy will help you relax and give you positive suggestions, and teaching you how to do self hypnosis which will help reduce stress which will help in the long term.
Anxiety
We all have some anxiety in our life – feeling uneasy, worried or fearful.
When we get stressed our natural body response will be triggered and depending on the situation, it can lead to anxiety.
Our bodies' natural reaction is to fight, flight or freeze, so if our brain perceive there's a threat or it's in any danger it releases hormones which will trigger the body responses.
The hormones include adrenaline and cortisol, and they make us feel more vigilant of what’s happening. They also make our hearts beat faster, so blood is sent where it’s needed the most when we’re under attack.
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Anxiety feels different to everyone, some common signs include:
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overthinking or ruminating
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headaches
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chest pain
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dizziness
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difficulties sleeping or concentrating
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faster breathing
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nausea
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fast or irregular heartbeat
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teeth grinding
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restlessness, feeling on-edge or wound-up
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feeling irritable
There are different anxieties like generalised anxiety disorder, when you feel anxious often but may not know why. This can affect our daily lives, as sometimes it can be work, family, money. If the individual has been worrying for six months excessively about everyday problems. This would be stated as been having generalised anxiety disorder.
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Panic disorder is when you have intense feelings of terror, which can strike suddenly and without warning. Not everyone will suffer these panic attacks and they can prevent people who do suffer from leaving their homes.
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Social anxiety disorder, which is known as social phobia, involves extreme feelings of anxiety and discomfort in social situations, fear of being around people and interacting and sometimes being judged by negativity from others around you. Other forms of anxiety are obsessive compulsive disorder, phobias and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
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Health anxiety is a very common anxiety and can make day-to-day life extremely difficult for people. With health anxiety, people will find themselves worrying a great deal about their health and may think they’re unwell when they’re not. They might check their body regularly for signs of illness, including unusual lumps, pains or other physical sensations. They may also be frightened of dying.
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Driving anxiety – driving can be incredibly stressful for some people. It may be that the act of driving itself causes anxiety, triggered by a previous incident or experience they may of had. Or it could be the idea of driving, fear of learning to drive and passing the test could be what’s holding you back.
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How can hypnotherapy help anxiety? It can help boost our confidence and self belief while reducing the feelings of the fear or intense worry. Using the power of suggestion, hypnosis aims to access your subconscious mind and promote positive change. All clients are different so sessions will be tailored to help you learn what triggers your anxiety and why, as well as changing the way you react towards them.
Depression
Depression is when you have a low mood for a long time, making it difficult for you to carry out your usual everyday activities. The condition can affect people in different ways. Some may be mild – if you have depression for more than two weeks, see your GP.
These are common symptoms of depression:
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a low mood, feeling sad and/or angry
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lacking in energy
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losing interest or enjoyment in activities you used to enjoy
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difficulty concentrating
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feeling tired more easily
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low self-confidence
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different sleeping habits difficult in sleeping or sleeping more than usual)
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different eating habits (eating more or less than usual)
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feeling guilty or that you are worthless
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a persistent low mood
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feeling stressed irritable or anxious
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a loss of pleasure or interest in normal everyday activities
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Low self esteem
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loss of libido
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tearfulness
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becoming less sociable
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changes in eating habits (eating more or less than normal)
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Other depressions include
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Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) – when depression affects you at certain times of the year.
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Dysthymia - This is when you have mild depression continuously for over two years and may also be called chronic depression or persistent depressive disorder.
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Bipolar disorder This is when you experience extreme lows and extreme highs (known as manic episodes).
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Pre-natal depression – when depression happens during pregnancy.
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Post-natal depression ( PND) is when the depression happens after having a baby. It usually affects the mother, but fathers can experience it too.
How can hypnotherapy help?
The approach works on a subconscious level, using techniques to identify and address the root causes while offering positive suggestions to break negative thinking patterns.
Low self confidence
Low self-confidence is something many of us suffer with. It can be a result of many factors, such as fear of the unknown, low self-esteem, or fear of how other people see us. This lack of confidence can hold us back from developing both personally and professionally. Our past experiences can influence how we are today, leading to low confidence. Low self-confidence doesn't just affect you – it can affect your relationships and your career, too.
Hypnotherapy can help as some people improve their self-confidence and self esteem. By accessing your unconscious mind, or inner voice, you start to take control of how you are feeling about yourself, discovering what may have caused you to develop low-confidence, and help you to feel more confident, bringing positive suggestions in to the sessions.
Panic attacks
Panic attack can happen when your body is responding to a fear of some type. In short, it is an exaggeration of your body’s natural response to excitement, stress or danger. This is your fight, flight, freeze response.
Panic attacks can be very frightening, not only for those experiencing the attack but for the people around them too. A typical panic attack will only last between 5 to 20 minutes but they can come in waves, for up to two hours. At the time it can feel like a lifetime. Panic attacks tend to end quickly. Panic attacks aren't harmful and can happen when you are stressed, but they are scary and unpleasant.
Some may suffer from panic disorders, in which panic attacks and intense anxiety are a common occurrence. If you look on my website under anxiety the list of symptoms are listed.
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Hypnotherapy helps by accessing your subconscious and using the power of suggestion to promote positive change.
Hypnotherapy for panic attacks can also help you regain a sense of control and normality in your life. It can also help you understand what may have caused your anxiety and help you to recognise signs of the onset of a panic attack and provide you with tools to manage and overcome the feelings. I can also teach you self-hypnosis to use at home.
Pain management
Chronic pain can be a complicated issue that can be very hard to treat. A variety of approaches are needed to help lessen your pain, improve independence and help you cope with the emotional impact. Here we'll look at chronic pain management and in particular in how hypnotherapy works. As you may know there’s two types of pain – acute, which is short term pain, like being in an accident or a temporary illness – and chronic pain which is long term pain, like arthritis, cancer, clusters of migraine and headaches, Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS), Endometriosis, Fibromyalgia, Multiple sclerosis (MS), Sciatica and back pain.
If you do suffer from pain, help manage it by doing gentle exercises, like walking, yoga and swimming. This helps your joints and prevent them from becoming stiff, which will only make the pain worse.
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How can hypnotherapy help? Stress and anxiety are common side effects of pain and can even make the sensation feel worse. The way the mind responds to pain also links to the perception of your physical sensations. Helping to reduce stress and by changing your thought patterns can make a big difference. When you are under hypnosis you will focus on relaxation and letting go of distracting thoughts. At this point, I can make suggestions to encourage pain relief.
Weight loss
Hypnosis for weight loss can be an effective way of challenging unhelpful mindsets that may be subconsciously (or consciously) decreasing your chances of successfully losing weight helping to get rid of some bad habits.
Hypnotherapy for weight loss aims to help you feel more confident about your body, and to help get you motivated, I will help change negative thoughts your about eating, and help you to lose weight responsibly and sustainably, without negatively impacting your emotional well-being. And by then targeting the unconscious mind with powerful suggestion techniques, I can help you develop a more positive relationship with food and exercise, both of which are key to healthy, long-term weight loss and management.
Quit smoking
Hypnotherapy for quitting smoking can be very effective.
It challenges unhelpful mindsets and negative behaviours associated with smoking like using it to reduce stress, to relax, or thinking that if you gave up you may put weight on.
Sometimes when you quit smoking you do tend to find other ways to occupy your time and that can be food – which can lead to food becoming a habit just like cigarettes. Quitting smoking is a very big challenge. It takes more than just willpower to give up smoking you need to be ready in the right mindset.
If you look at the benefits of why you should quit smoking you would find you.
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Have more energy
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improved immune system
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longer life expectancy
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better breathing
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less stress
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younger-looking skin
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more money
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reduced risk of cancers, heart disease, stroke, respiratory disease, and vascular disease
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save money – buying cigarettes can cost you around £3,500 a year), maybe more, depending on how much you smoke
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Think about the people around you – family and friends would benefit as passive smoking is still harmful for children and babies will bring greater risk to developing chest infections and illnesses.
It works by guiding you into a deep, relaxed state. During this time, the mind is more open to suggestion and and focused to change. Then I will bring suggestions, which will help you in changing your thought patterns and behaviours associated with smoking.
Can hypnotherapy help?
Suggestions will be tailored to you. In which self hypnosis is taught within the sessions.
Tinnitus
Can hypnotherapy help tinnitus?
it can help reduce associated stress and anxiety, lowering the emotional impact and making it easier to dismiss the noise.
Tinnitus is a condition which manifests itself in hearing the sounds of ringing, buzzing, whistling, humming, hissing or other noises in one or both ears. The sound can be continuous or intermittent and may vary in volume. It's a relatively common condition and can occur at any age. Sometimes background noise can help to reduce the sound in your ears.
Sometimes, listening to loud music can cause tinnitus.
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Other problems which are thought to trigger symptoms of tinnitus:
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high blood pressure
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anaemia
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ear infection and blockages
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thyroid problems
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diabetes
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head injuries
Can hypnotherapy help tinnitus?
Hypnosis is very popular form of tinnitus treatment, which can greatly improve the quality of life for sufferers. Hypnotherapy is a modified state of consciousness, which allows the subconscious mind to be more open to selective and positive suggestions.
Using self hypnosis technique will help. While there is not yet a cure for tinnitus, we are able to decide how to respond to symptoms. It can be very effective in dealing with the psychological aspects of tinnitus, such as anger, stress and anxiety. hypnotherapy can help train the mind and change the client’s reaction to tinnitus. By changing the way the mind reacts to tinnitus sounds, other health problems linked with tinnitus may also improve.
Relaxation
Relaxation is an essential part of self-care, helping you look after your well-being when you’re feeling stressed or busy
When you are truly relaxed it will also help to ease your mind, switching off from the external noises in your life and any other tension and stress from home, work, family. Relaxation helps to calm you down and feeling of relaxation, your breathing will be slower as you relax.
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Can hypnotherapy help?
Yes, it is a recognised form of relaxation therapy. It can reduce the stress chemicals and bring the body back to balance. Regular sessions ease built-up pressure and tension, helping you to learn how to look after yourself better.
Relaxation can:
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Help to restore and strengthen the immune system
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Lower your blood pressure
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Relieve stress and lessen chronic pain, tension headaches, back pain and migraines
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Diminish any emotional upsets and unlock emotional blockages that can contribute to stress
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Help concentration ability
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Improve energy levels
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Help you to sleep
Menopause
Signs of menopause may vary from person to person, but the most common indications are:
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Irregular menstrual cycle, duration and intensity.
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Hot flashes and night sweats, sudden intense feeling of heat and sweating and flushed. face, either day and night
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Sleep problems, difficulty falling asleep.
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Vaginal dryness and discomfort, itching, pain during sexual intercourse.
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Mood swings and emotional changes, irritability, anxiety and depression.
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decreased in libido, as estrogen levels are low and a declined sexual desire or interest.
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Fatigue and energy changes.
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Urinary changes, leading to changes in urination more frequent or incontinence.
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Bone health changes, as estrogen levels are low it can have a impact on bones and have bone loss and potentially leading to osteoporosis and also increase of fractures
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cognitive changes, difficuits with memory, and weight gain in the abdomen.
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Headaches and migraines, hormone fluctuations can trigger headaches.
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Joint and muscle pain, stiff joints.
How can Hypnotherapy help: Hynosis can help regulate the autonomic nervous system, to help reduce hot flashes, their frequency and intensity and night sweats. also helping reduce anxiety and stress.
helps to improve sleep, boosting mood and well being and having a positive mindset. Help to alleviate and managing pain including headaches. And promoting lifestyle change.
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How does it work: you will need at least 4-6 sessions, you be shown techniques to help reduces hot flashes and working on stress and worries, along with information how to keep healthy.