Anxiety

• Fear is a rational emotional response to a 'real threat'
• Anxiety is an irrational emotional response to an imagined threat

For instance, imagine you are walking down a dark alley in an unfamiliar city, and a hooded stranger approaches you with a knife. You experience fear, a normal reaction to this situation.

If you walk down a familiar street in broad day light and you begin to imagine some disaster about to descend on you without warning, you experience anxiety.
Many people cannot distinguish between the two and are frequently tangled in an emotional disturbance known as anxiety disorder. Due to the fast pace of life in the 21st century, anxiety disorders are becoming increasingly common.

People with anxiety disorders often experience 2 or more of the following:

• Tight muscles
• Uneasiness
• Easily becoming tired
• Difficulty breathing
• Diarrhoea
• Indigestion
• Heart palpitations
• Dizziness / faintness
• Irritability
• Problems maintaining attention
• Sleep disturbances
• Irrational avoidance of situations / places
• Feeling worried all the time / imagining worst case situations

How hypnosis or hypnotherapy can help anxiety;

• Anxiety issues often relate to confidence (although this is not always the case), using hypnosis to increase confidence levels is often a very effective start
• Using trance to access the subconscious, which is the source of the anxiety, and re-aligning the thought processes, replacing anxiety with a more positive emotion i.e. confidence / calm
• Just talking about the problem can often help
• Anxiety can sometimes be triggered by certain situations i.e. at work or in a new social environment, these situations may have nothing what so ever to do with real fear, however, desensitising these situations where anxiety is increased can often remove the fear
• Uncovering the source of the anxiety/fear
• Anxiety can be the subconscious warning the conscious mind that changes need to be made, it can be easy to ignore the need for change as change in itself can be frightening. Often when life changes are made i.e. new work / life balance, relationship changes etc the anxiety eases. Hypnosis can help isolate what changes need to made.
• Teaching self-hypnosis and relaxation exercises to ease/remove the anxiety