Helping people overcome anxiety is the main focus and specialism here at Help Hypnotherapy. We help people with anxiety every day, it’s what we do. We treat anxiety in all its many forms including; generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), panic attacks/panic disorder, social anxiety, health anxiety, PTSD and phobias.

By specialising in treating Anxiety, we have the experience and knowledge to be also to beat anxiety quickly and effectively

Beating Anxiety

To understand how we can beat anxiety, lets first understand a little more about it and how it works.

Anxiety is created by the way we think; overthinking, going over past events or worrying about the future, and guilt to name a few. Anxiety triggers our survival mode (fight, flight or freeze). This survival mode is essential when faced with physical danger, it’s there to protect us; but our survival mode is unhelpful in other areas of our life. Anxiety puts us on permanent red alert, and its draining, both physically and mentally. Anxiety’s draining effect means we have less energy or motivation (procrastination) to do things we need or want to do. Anxiety negatively impacts our sleep patterns, further reducing our energy.

Eliminating anxiety has a massive positive impact on both our physical and mental wellbeing. Moving out of the fight, flight, or freeze mode allows us to relax, improving sleep, increasing our energy levels and motivation. It helps us to stop overthinking and frees up the mind allowing us to be more in the moment and enjoying life. Being anxiety free also allows us to be happier. It makes us more tolerant and increases motivation.

How hypnotherapy can help you

People are not born anxious; anxiety is a learned behaviour, and with the right help can be unlearned. It’s interesting that the same situation, environment or event where some people thrive and even enjoy can couse anxiety for others. What’s the difference? The difference is how people think about or read those situations and events, and it’s a difference that can be learned.

Hypnotherapy is an enhanced state of learning, and a space for positive change and relaxation – the opposite of anxiety. Hypnosis can help people to learn how to use their mind in a more helpful way. When we change the way we think about things, we change the way we experience things. Hypnotherapy can help you to make these positive changes quickly and permanently.

It’s simply about becoming the best version of you

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Each month, as many as 71,000 people in the UK type ‘signs of anxiety’ into google. The message is clear – Anxiety is a massive problem in the UK, and people are trying to diagnose the warning signs. But what next? Is there a cure for anxiety? Is anxiety treatable? How can I beat anxiety? If these are the questions you’re asking, the answer is yes, and I can help.

Symptoms of Anxiety

The symptoms of anxiety are many and varied. Some are obvious, while others are not

Are you struggling to get to sleep or waking up during the night? Find yourself waking up too early or find it difficult to wake up and, or still feel tired? Sleep problems can be a sign of anxiety and stress. Other signs of stress and anxiety include being irritable or moody, forgetting things, feeling isolated or overwhelmed. Some signs of anxiety are physical. An increased heart rate, breathlessness or heavy breathing are all physical signs you could be experiencing anxiety and, or stress.

If you are feeling any of these signs of anxiety, you could be suffering from anxiety

How does anxiety affect us?

Stress and anxiety affect how we interact with others and, just as importantly, how they interact with us. Our anxiety doesn’t just harm our own well-being; it also affects those around us negatively too. So, if left untreated, anxiety’s ill effects can be far-reaching indeed.

The effect anxiety has on our brains?

Anxiety increases the neural connections in the part of our brain responsible for our fear response (the Amygdala). These increased connections cause us to be more sensitive to trigger situations. In short, our fear response becomes hypersensitive and over reactive. The slightest thing becomes a perceived threat, and we can more quickly become overwhelmed.

Too much stress causes cortisol levels to rise, so the signals in the part of our brain associated with learning and memory (the hippocampus) start to deteriorate, weakening our ability to control stress. Cortisol also reduces the number of new brain cells being made, making it more difficult to learn and remember things.

Cortisol levels also cause a loss of synaptic connections, causing the brain and prefrontal cortex to shrink. Amongst other things, the prefrontal cortex regulates our concentration, decision making, judgement and social interactions.

Anxiety relief and hypnosis

There are many ways to combat anxiety and reverse the effects of cortisol on the brain. The most potent ways include exercise, spending time with friends and developing a more positive attitude.

Hypnotherapy can be incredibly effective with all forms of stress and anxiety. Hypnosis gives us access to the subconscious mind, allowing us to challenge and change unhelpful thought and behavioural patterns. Changing the way our brain processes anxiety triggering information, and building new, permanent neural connections is liberating and life-changing.

And the good news is…

Hypnotherapy is a safe and effective treatment for stress and anxiety and all symptoms made worse by its effects. Hypnosis is drug-free, is easy to induce and works quickly with an average of just eight sessions.

Get in touch if you’d like to know more about treating anxiety or to book an appointment

Getting eight hours of good quality sleep is essential for our physical wellbeing and mental health. Sadly, sleep problems in the UK (and the rest of the world) are on the rise. The consequences of sleep deprivation for the countries mental health could be catastrophic. Clinical hypnosis, can be incredibly effective in helping people achieve great sleep, let’s briefly explore the essential role of sleep and look at some practical steps you can also take.

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The effects of the deep sleep phase of our sleep cycle for repairing our bodies is well known. What is less well known is the vital role that REM sleep plays in our mental health which is as equally essential, or even more so. The REM phase sleep accounts for just 20% of our sleep pattern is responsible for organising and storing the events of the day captured in the limited storage of our short term memory. This mind-clearing action governs how well we handle the following day and so on; this is why we always perform better after a good nights sleep. The old sage advice of “sleep on it” couldn’t be more accurate. When we are regularly sleeping well, we cope with day to day life without stress, anxiety or depression. A good nights sleep even helps us cope better with physical pain.

While hypnotherapy can help with the deeper issues that cause chronic sleep problems, here are a few practical steps you can take to help to improve your chances of getting a good nights sleep.

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#1 Stick to a Sleep schedule

Our sleep patterns are just that, a pattern, so it is important to go to bed and wake at the same times each day, including the weekend. Set an alarm each night to remind you ‘to go to bed’.

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#2 Exercise

While it’s well known that taking exercise aids sleep, it’s important to understand that exercising too close to bedtime is counterproductive. Ideally, we need to finish our exercise 2-3 hours before bed, giving our metabolism time slow down.

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#3 Caffeine

So it’s no surprise that caffeine isn’t going to help anyone find sleep. It’s a stimulant and actively keeps us awake. What people don’t always realise just how long it stays in our system – up to 8 hours! The long period which caffein remains active means, if you have a tea or coffee at 6 pm, it’s still working to keep you awake at 2 am! Another thing to note is that caffeine-free tea and coffee still contain caffeine, it’s also in chocolate. And if you smoke, before you light that bedtime cigarette, you need to be aware that nicotine is also a stimulant.

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#4 Alcohol

While a glass or two might make us feel sleepy, it has the opposite effect as it wears off and can wake us up. It can also cause breathing problems, a dry mouth and throat causing snoring that could disrupt sleep.

The biggest problem with alcohol, though is that it has a massive and negative impact on the quantity of vital REM sleep phase. Alcohol reduces our amount of REM we get, even removing it from our sleep patterns. REM sleep is essential to our mental health and is especially important if the root of the sleep problem is anxiety or depression based. Alcohol will compound anxiety and depression.

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#5 Late night eating and drinking

It’s good practice to avoid large meals before bedtime and going to bed on a full stomach. When we eat, our bodies get to work digesting the food which is not conducive to sleeping. Overeating can also cause indigestion, further disrupting our sleep.

Avoid large beverages; these can disturb our sleep and even wake us up if we need to use the toilet.

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#6 Medication

Some medication can disrupt sleep, if this is happening, it may be possible to take them at a different time of the day, talk to your GP.
IMPORTANT: Talk to your GP before changing any medication regime.

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#7 Napping

Napping can be beneficial for catching up on lost sleep and especially useful to people struggling to sleep through, but napping after 3 pm can make it more difficult to fall asleep at bedtime.

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#8 Take some time to Relax

Take some time to relax and unwind before bed. Make reading, or listening to relaxing music a part of your nighttime ritual. Watching TV, surfing the net etc. doesn’t help us relax because it engages us, so it can be stimulating rather than relaxing. Still, the biggest problem is that TV and computer/phone type devises emit blue light. Being exposed to light in the evening confuses our circadian rhythm (body clock) into thinking its much earlier; this stops us creating the melatonin that signals when it’s time to sleep.

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#9 Take a bath

Taking a bath before bed can be relaxing in its own right. When we get out of the bath, the drop in body temperature signals to our mind that it’s time to sleep.

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#10 Dark, Cool and Gadget-Free

Keeping your bedroom dark is a natural signal to our body clock that it’s time to sleep.

In nature, temperatures drop at night, and a cooler bedroom temperature is another signal to us that it’s time to sleep. Turning the radiator down or off in an evening can help enormously.

Don’t have anything in the bedroom that can distract or disturb you, including a visible clock. TV’s, phone’s and any light-emitting tech is not a friend of sleep.

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Bonus tip #1

Finally, if you’re struggling to get to sleep, don’t lie in bed awake for longer than 20-30 minutes. Get up and do something relaxing, like reading or listening to listening to music. Struggling to get to sleep can cause us to start thinking in a way that causes anxiety, making it even harder to sleep.

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Bonus tip #2

Use dimmed lights in an evening. Bright lights, especially blue emitting LED’s which artificially recreate daylight, fool our natural body clock, reducing the production of melatonin. Melatonin is the chemical in our bodies that tell us it’s time to go to sleep.

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Hypnotherapy for Sleep

These 12 sleep tips are scientifically proven to help people to sleep and improve their sleep quality, but ff you are experiencing sleep problems, hypnotherapy can help. If you are finding it difficult to get to sleep, experiencing disturbed sleep or waking up during the night, it’s a sign of other issues at play, and this is where hypnotherapy can help. Poor quality sleep is a symptom; it’s not the problem. Solution focused hypnotherapy focuses peoples attention on finding the answers and away from the problem; this makes it a very effective and positive therapy and experience.

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Hypnotherapy can help sleep become easy and natural again – just as it should be