Can Hypnotherapy Help with Anxiety?
Anxiety can be overwhelming, affecting every aspect of your life. From feelings of unease and worry to more severe symptoms like panic attacks, anxiety can limit your ability to function normally. But can hypnotherapy help with anxiety? The answer is yes. Hypnotherapy is a powerful tool that works by addressing the underlying causes of anxiety, helping to reframe negative thought patterns, and promoting relaxation. At Oxford Hypnotherapy, we’ve seen significant improvements in clients who have used hypnotherapy to reduce anxiety symptoms and regain control of their lives.
Understanding Anxiety
Anxiety is a natural stress response, but when it becomes chronic or debilitating, it can interfere with daily activities, relationships, and mental health. Common symptoms of anxiety include restlessness, irritability, difficulty concentrating, rapid heartbeat, and sleep disturbances. In more extreme cases, anxiety can lead to panic attacks, which can cause intense fear and physical symptoms such as chest pain and shortness of breath. While anxiety is common, many people feel trapped by their symptoms, unsure how to break free from the cycle of fear and worry.
How Does Hypnotherapy Work for Anxiety?
Hypnotherapy works by guiding you into a deeply relaxed state, allowing the subconscious mind to become more receptive to positive suggestions and new ways of thinking. During hypnotherapy sessions, we explore the root causes of your anxiety, addressing specific triggers that may be fueling your symptoms. By tapping into the subconscious, hypnotherapy can help reframe your response to stress, promote calm, and develop healthier coping mechanisms. This process not only reduces anxiety but also strengthens your overall mental resilience, helping you manage future stressors more effectively.
The Benefits of Hypnotherapy for Anxiety
Hypnotherapy offers a range of benefits for people struggling with anxiety. Unlike medications that only mask symptoms, hypnotherapy targets the root causes of anxiety, creating long-lasting change. Here are some key benefits:
- Reduced stress: Hypnotherapy promotes relaxation, which helps lower stress levels and calms the mind.
- Improved sleep: Many people with anxiety struggle with insomnia. Hypnotherapy can help regulate sleep patterns by addressing underlying fears that may be preventing restful sleep.
- Increased confidence: By addressing anxiety triggers, hypnotherapy helps you feel more in control, leading to increased confidence in your ability to handle challenges.
- No side effects: Unlike medication, hypnotherapy has no physical side effects, making it a safe option for long-term anxiety relief.
What to Expect from a Hypnotherapy Session
Each hypnotherapy session is tailored to your specific needs. During the session, you’ll be guided into a deeply relaxed state where your subconscious mind becomes more open to suggestions. You’ll remain in control the entire time, aware of what’s happening, but in a state of focused relaxation. In this state, we work on reframing negative thought patterns and replacing them with positive ones. Most people find hypnotherapy to be a calming and restorative experience, with effects that last well beyond the session.
Why Choose Oxford Hypnotherapy?
At Oxford Hypnotherapy, we specialise in helping clients overcome anxiety through personalised, solution-focused hypnotherapy. Our approach combines the latest research in hypnotherapy with proven techniques designed to address the root causes of your anxiety. Whether you’re dealing with general anxiety, panic attacks, or specific fears, our sessions are tailored to help you regain control and achieve a greater sense of calm.
Case Study on Anxiety?
Simon, his illness and his fear of driving
Simon was a professional in the IT industry. He’d been on holiday in Devon when struck down by a nasty virus that hospitalised him for two months. Finally recovered, the trauma of the events and the realisation there was no immunity to serious health problems meant the development of panic attacks. Mostly when driving to work. Simon lived about 45 minutes from work and was having to stop the car, get out and walk until he calmed himself down, virtually every day. He came for SF hypnotherapy to prevent this from happening.
Understanding how the brain works and thinking about why he might panic, Simon concluded that his subconscious had associated him being away from home as dangerous, as the last time he was away – on holiday – he became ill. Logically, he knew it was OK to be away from home. I suggested that the next time he felt this way; he pay some attention to what his thoughts were telling him. That backed his theory about the danger of being away from home. Now we had to retrain his brain to realise these negative thoughts weren’t true.
Simon’s case is typical
During my career as a hypnotherapist, I have had many people who have developed driving anxiety because of conflicts at work, conflicts at home, ill-health and overwork.
Often clients why it manifests in driving, but as it’s an activity that can be stressful, our capacity to operate past an amount of stress leads us to give in. It’s often called spare capacity and can be part of burnout. When loaded with too many stressful situations, any additional stress can cause a breakdown or a phobic response.
In Simon’s case, we initially worked on lowering his anxiety by relaxation, visualisation and tools to stop him from panicking. Such as breathing techniques, NLP, and mindfulness techniques. We then looked at other things he could do if caught in a traffic jam and reframed the journey by visualisations on the drive to work being a positive experience. He could listen to his favourite music, for example.
We worked for over three months, and once he completed the programme, he could get back to a standard routine again.
Case Study 2
Panic and perfectionism
Liane was in her second year at University, and she was having problems focusing. The stress of having to keep at the top of her class was so bad she could no longer function. Liane had been for counselling but didn’t find it helpful. She also had been for CBT and mindfulness, which were more useful but hadn’t tackled the feelings of panic. She wasn’t sleeping, and she was missing deadlines. As she became such a perfectionist in her work she couldn’t finish it in time. Tutors told her that if she didn’t buckle down, Liane would fail that year. Leading Liane to catastrophizing, not only about her life ruined forever, but she’d never amount to anything whatsoever.
She looked gaunt and unhealthy, her hair full of product and wearing a lot of makeup. Crying one minute and wringing her hands the next. I gave her some water to sip and asked her to take a few deep breaths.
Explaining what was going on in her brain and why she was experiencing these problems. I wanted to know what she wanted.
Goal for therapy
Her goal for therapy included an extensive list, so we first looked at all the minor changes she could make almost immediately, including producing a realistic timetable.
She concluded she needed to be stricter on herself to stick to the timetable. Her perfectionism meant she spent far too long agonising over the unimportant details. As a design student, a fair amount of her work was creative, and this creativity was drying up.
Her miracle questions the answer was to feel normal again to finish everything needed by the end of the summer term. We had 12 weeks, thankfully.
For a good few weeks, we worked solely on relaxation, breathing techniques for panic and getting her sleep back to normal.
Confidence returning
Liane also was spending too much time on her appearance as confidence in this area was low. She agreed to several experiments to see if leaving off her makeup and wearing different clothing lead to any negative remarks, which they didn’t. Feeling more confident in the company of others. Taking up several new hobbies, would mean she interacted with others in a social setting.
She also ate more regular meals. Up to now, she would often skip meals because of time and because her anxiety was making her feel slightly nauseous. Gradually, as the stress reduced, she could start eating breakfast, and she noted it improved her concentration and focus.
By session ten, she was feeling much better. Her eating had improved. and she realised how easily she could have developed an eating disorder. She took better care in her appearance. Said others had noticed how withdrawn she had been, and she was balancing her life/work out more easily. She had timetabled her revision and had three weeks until her exams, and she felt terrific.
Wide range of problems
Anxiety covers an entire range of problems, from the nurse who develops hypochondria, because of her constant exposure to sick people; To those who have, or survive, cancer and the impact of the disease and sudden realisation that they are mortal sends them into a spin.
Amongst the elderly, a fear of falling over may develop into agoraphobia, or shaking which mimics Parkinson’s disease. In the young, it’s often just lack of experience and self-doubt which may bring someone to seek help.
It could even be the side effects of drinking too much energy drinks. Taurine, which is the principal ingredient in many famous brand energy drinks, has the same effect on the body as anxiety. People report feeling jittery. One young chap came to see me because he started suffering from panic attacks after nights out with friends. I was not at all surprised when asked what he was drinking he replied 8 or 9 Vodka and Red bulls. Once he realised that it could be the amount of caffeine in his system, we went through other beverages. He could drink instead, and he settled on lager. I asked him to see me a week later. He told me he’d suffered none of the previous nervousness or panic.
After an accident
J_ had contacted me after a friend had seen me for fear of singing in public. She had an accident at work which had caused trauma to the muscles which attach to her ribs. Consequently, J_ became anxious to make any movements. Placed on a high dose of pain killers, the anxiety meant she couldn’t leave home and had to have her husband bring her to the clinic.
Each week we worked building up small steps to recovery, starting with her managing to walk around the house calmly. She pushed herself further and further, first down to the bottom of the road, then for a walk to the park. As the pain subsided, there were a few complications, but she began to take these in her stride.
Two Goals
There were two goals, one to get her fitness back so she could go to work, and to dance again. Listening to the MP3, practising the tools I taught her, J_ made good progress. It wasn’t fast, but it was at a pace which she felt necessary to recover.
Here’s J_’s testimonial –
“When I first met Penny, I was suffering a chest trauma which made me feel very anxious and stressed. Penny made me feel totally at ease. Over the following weeks, our sessions became life-transforming, I was having daily panic attacks and was unable to go out socially. Penny has helped to reignite my focus on positivity and purpose. Penny is a very kind and compassionate person, and I’m very grateful for all her help and guidance.”
References
1) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9469526 - Stress-reducing strategies are useful in patients undergoing surgery. Hypnosis is also known to alleviate acute and chronic pain. Plus http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16632816
2) Alladin A. Handbook of cognitive hypnotherapy for depression: an evidence-based approach. Philadelphia: Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; 2007. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00207140601177897#.VLPxadKsWYc 3) Coelho HF, Canter PH, Ernst E. The effectiveness of hypnosis for the treatment of anxiety: A systematic review. Primary Care & Community Psychiatry. 2008;12(2):49-63. 4) Kirsch I, Montgomery G, Sapirstein G. Hypnosis as an adjunct to cognitive-behavioural psychotherapy: A meta-analysis. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. 1995;63(2):214-20. Also: Bryant, Richard A. (2008). Hypnosis and Anxiety: Early Interventions. In Nash, Michael R. (Ed); Bamier, Amanda J. (Ed). The Oxford Handbook of Hypnosis: Theory, Research, and Practice (pp.535-547). New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Kraft, Tom; Kraft, David. (Nov 2006). The Place of Hypnosis in Psychiatry: Its Applications in Treating Anxiety Disorders and Sleep Disturbances, Australian Journal of Clinical & Experimental Hypnosis, Vol 34(2), 187-203,