Phobias
How Stress, Anxiety and Phobic Responses Affect Us
A few minutes calm is a wonderful gift to give yourself?
You can overcome Anxiety with Hypnotherapy & NLP quickly and easily. To find out how you, can feel calm and peaceful. In all of the situations which you struggle with or find overwhelming. Make an appointment for a free consultation today.
Many people experience anxiety, and do not really understand what is happening within their mind and Body. When we spend a lot of time in a state of anxiety, our amygdala (a tiny structure in your brain which acts as an alarm system) is working overtime.
The more hyper aroused we are about a number of things; the more the amygdala registers them as life threatening events. The panic button, is set off whenever something similar is happening again.
The amygdala is not a sophisticated organ, it does the equivalent of crying wolf, but you don't get to know that, you behave as though it's a real wolf all the time, to our emotional brain anyhow. We have to allow the higher brain power, to supply the amygdala with better information. We need to create new neural connections, we need to feed our amygdala with new information, if you find yourself panicking in a situation, acting in a way which is completely out of proportion to the situation you are in.
Work immediately towards 
- Being in CONTROL and FEELING CALM
- Take CONTROL of you breathing ensure you slow your breathing down.
- Speak Kindly to yourself, say "I am in Control", "I'm ok", "this will pass"
- Practice the 7/11 breathing techniques (see below for instructions)
Anxiety and stress are closely linked
Anxiety and stress are closely connected in different ways; an obvious connection is that anxiety problems arise because of chronic levels of stress.
Stress is pressure, or an accumulation of pressures, physical or psychological which are too much for us to cope with. Stress varies from person to person, a stand up comedian will revel in performing live in front of an audience, where many people will be terrified by they idea of doing a short presentation to our colleagues.
Throughout our lifetime, we encounter many stressful events, for example starting and leaving school, new jobs, relationships ending, illness, financial difficulties. When we have several events like this happen at the same time or within a short time span, our coping mechanisms may feel stretched throughout a day, we can experience lots of small stressful events which mount up which have a negative effect on us.
How do you know if you are under stress?
It is suggested the following are linked to long term stress,
- Disturbed sleep
- Excessive alcohol or drug consumption
- Weight gain or weight loss
- Increase spending eg shopping more
- Asthma
- Rheumatoid arthritis
- Angina/ heart disease
- Migraine/ headaches
- Skin complaints
- High Blood pressure
- IBS ( Irritable Bowel Syndrome)
- Ulcers/peptic ulcers
- Depression
- Anxiety
- Some cancers can be triggered or exacerbated by stress
This isn't a Definitive list, some experts claim all illness is caused by stress. What we do know is ongoing stress causes serious wear and tear to the body and once you are aware of this its YOUR responsibility to make that change
Flight or flight response
As soon as our emotional brain is triggered, to what it considers danger; cascades of bodily events are triggered to help us cope.
Our muscles tense ready for action, our blood pressure goes up to increase the circulation to our muscles and heart, which beats faster. We breathe faster to cope with the unexpected demands on it. We breathe faster, to speed up the time oxygen takes to get in our blood, and that makes our chest hurt and body tremble, to divert as much blood as possible to our limbs to aid action, our digestive system is disturbed which results in:
- A dry mouth
- Our kidney's, intestines and bladder functions stop, causing the muscles at the opening of the anus and bladder to start to relax.
- We sweat, which allows our bodies to cool our bodies are flooded with stress hormones that enable all those response to happen.
Once the threat is over, we are still alive to tell the tale, our heart slow's down and the shaking begins to stop, the sick feelings pass, as our blood circulation returns to normal, and all the other regulatory functions start work again. This excellent system has served us well for millions of years; it was designed to deal with circumstances in which we could take action. Our ancestors who lived in the wild depended heavily upon them being able to react instantly, however the stresses we face today are seldom life threatening.
It is often psychological threats which affect us:-
- Being bullied
- The over critical boss, Partner, Parent
- The overcritical self
- A difficult relationship
- Work deadlines which are unrealistic
The primitive part of our brain which gives directions, which sets our flight or fights response in motion, cannot distinguish between real and imagined life threatening events. Think how your body feels when you wake from a nightmare; your body reacted as if it was really happening.
The psychological arousal is switched on when we get stressed, I imagine that we develop little antennas which search for potential dangers, and these often remain switched on, taking all our energy and attention, leaving us feeling drained. (Heard the saying "whatever you focus on you get more of it"?) We then spend more time focusing on stressful events, and we feel more of those uncomfortable feelings in our body. It's often at this point, we develop headaches, high Blood pressure, IBS, or other anxiety related issues.
We can't avoid stressful events or change the world, life is uncertain, we can't prepare for every eventuality, as natural disasters happen for example: -
- Floods
- Fires
- Companies go bust
- Someone we love, dies
All the above is out of our control, but we can learn to control or change the way we view and respond to those events. You can learn to take new actions, which can dissipate the stress hormone, you can learn to change the way you view the world and the events in your life, whether past or present.
One of the major presuppositions from NLP is "every behaviour has a positive intention" it can be quite liberating to discover the positive intention behind those uncomfortable feelings, it's your bodies way of trying to communicate with you, It wants you to pay attention to something.
Hypnotherapy & NLP help you discover the root cause of the stress, anxiety, fear, distress, and to deal with the root cause, learn new strategies, which allow you to manage the symptoms which create peace and energy within you to feel free in control and comfortable within yourself.
How to do the 7/11 breathing techniques
- Be comfortable (sit or lie down) and in a place where you won't be disturbed.
- Close your eyes if you wish
- Become aware of the sensations in your body, any sounds and images which are in your awareness
- Just let your body soften and relax, soften your jaw and shoulders.
- You could repeat the word "soften" in your mind like a mantra.
- Take a deep breath in, it's often helpful to place your hands on your stomach and notice your stomach inflating like a balloon when you inhale, your stomach will flatten when you exhale, if this happens you know you are doing it right.(This can take a little practice).
- Make each out-breath last longer than your in-breathe (the out breathe stimulates the body natural relaxation response) by changing your breathing in this way your body automatically begins to relax.
- Once you have got used to breathing from your stomach and expanding your stomach like a balloon and you can begin to count your breaths.
- You breathe in for 7 seconds and breathe out slowly and gently for 11 seconds, if this doesn't feel right try breathing to other timings, you could start with breathing in for 3 seconds and exhaling for 5 seconds or inhaling for 5 and exhaling for 7 seconds, you will notice with practice, that you gradually increase the duration and your ability to relax easily get quicker and more powerful.
If you were to practice this everyday for 10 to 20 times, can you imagine the positive impact it would have upon your body-Mind-spirit?
Hypnotherapy, Hypnosis, NLP, shamanic healing, Timeline Therapy, Breakthrough Therapy, Breakthrough sessions, and EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) all of these therapies are available in Leicestershire With Alexia Elliott Director of Empowerment Clinical Hypnotherapy.
The wide range of approaches and Techniques are excellent for treating many Psychological and physical illnesses, such as fears, phobias, non stop worry, anxiety, lack of confidence, self esteem issues, IBS, weight loss, Bulimia, Anorexia, bingeing, pain control, headaches, depression, lack of purpose, insomnia, nightmares, OCD, stage fright.
Empowerment Hypnotherapy serves National and International clients, the location in Desford Leicester is also easily accessible from the M1, and local to surrounding areas such as Loughborough, Leicester, Nottingham, Northampton, Milton Keynes, Shepshed, Market Harborough, Hinckley, Melton Mowbray.
Take advantage of a FREE Consultation today
Empowerment Hypnotherapy Leicester offers a Free Consultation with hypnotherapist Alexia Elliott to new clients. Make an appointment today for a FREE hypnotherapy consultation in Leicester or the Leicester area with hypnotherapist Alexia Elliott at Empowerment Hypnotherapy to discuss any of your problems and find out how Empowerment Hypnotherapy can help you.
© Alexia Elliott Empowerment Hypnotherapy Leicester. All Rights Reserved. Website: Web Design Lincolnshire with Seagull Designs
