Help with Anxiety : by Dublin based Hypnotherapist Ailish McGrath
We all have feelings of anxiety from time to time when we are challenged, threatened or going outside our ‘comfort zone’. However, when the anxiety is holding you back from making progress in your work or life or when it’s a daily experience with no obvious cause it’s worth doing something about it.
I am confident that I can resolve your problem quickly.
For a moment let yourself consider what your life would be like if you felt confident, adventurous and self assured more often. If you trusted yourself to perform and knew you could rely on yourself to be ok or even enjoy what you are, at the moment, afraid of.
Many people who suffer anxiety find it hard to contemplate or imagine who they would be without it – it has become so familiar to them it’s hard for them to believe it can be any different.
Yet – it can. Anxiety can be dramatically reduced. I see it happen every working day – ordinary people getting over and going beyond their anxiety. You can be one of them too.
Hypnotherapy for Anxiety (general anxiety) and panic attacks.
One of the most common forms of anxiety is social anxiety (also known as social phobia). Hypnosis and hypnotherapy for anxiety and panic attacks is beneficial, and gives you very satisfying results.
How Anxiety Feels.
Excessive anxiety is one of the most common symptoms my clients consult me for. Generally when people say they are feeling anxious they would be referring to a very specific feeling in their body; adrenaline is causing their heart to race, their mouth to go dry, thinking to be impaired, muscles tighten. Often a person’s stomach is churning or they have very uncomfortable ‘butterflies’, often this is accompanied with a fear of speaking, forgetting words or not feeling confident to speak.
Those who experience high levels of anxiety often describe their lives as being in a state of ‘hyper-vigilance’. A person may always be on the lookout for impending dangers – this could be something as common as feeling anxious when the boss is in the office, anxious to see what mood your partner is in or if you are being approved by others before you relax in company. Some feel very anxious if they unexpectedly bump into neighbors’ or old friends, and do everything possible to prevent the unexpected from happening.
The anxiety might be triggered by very specific things like interviews, speeches, having to complain about bad service, flying, the mother in law! And sometimes a person feels anxious for ‘no apparent reason’.
What is happening is that there is something in your environment or your belief system that is triggering a ‘fight, freeze or flight’ response; something is telling you are in danger so your body is preparing you for it. You probably realise rationally that there is little reason to be anxious but that does not stop the automatic anxious response from happening……and that’s frustrating and for those that experience anxiety regularly it’s potentially harmful to their health (being constantly stressed), and holds them back from achieving their goals in life.
It is common that those who experience high or frequent levels of anxiety have been coping and managing that feeling for years. People will use avoidance to make sure that they don’t get that anxious feeling; for example a person won’t go out, ask someone out on a date or put themselves forward in work.
Sometimes the anxiety might lead to acting out in anger outbursts, a person will learn to be aggressive so that others don’t realize that they feel weak or anxious.
Others might manage anxiety with over eating, excessive alcohol, drugs or sex. Or they might start counting things or repeating words over and over in their minds (OCD).
However, these management techniques never really work in the long run and it is far healthier to resolve the cause of the anxiety.
Anxiety Disorders.
Anxiety disorders are very common, affecting as many as 13% of the adult population. They can start at any time, either in childhood, adolescence, or adulthood and fall into five main types:
- Panic Disorder
- Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
- General Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
- Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
- Phobias(which includes Social Phobia, or Social Anxiety Disorder)
Anxiety CAN Be Helped!
Why Hypnotherapy is so successful at treating Anxiety:
Having high levels of Anxiety and feeling under threat is generally a pattern that is created in a person’s mind in childhood (though the symptoms may not appear for many years). The anxious response is caused by the sufferer bottling up some strong emotions. A way to resolve the anxiety – is to release the bottled up emotions that are causing it. To reset the anxiety dial, so to speak, to normal levels.
Another way of resolving anxiety is to learn how to think with perspective, handle emotions and change the signal from one of ‘danger’ to one of ‘resourcefulness’. A course with me will facilitate this learning and help a person re-gain control and confidence.
The approach decided upon that would best serve the resolution of the anxiety is based on the persons personality type, learning style and level of anxiety.
When we release these emotions, and the negative limiting beliefs, the excessive anxiety is resolved forever.