Why do we suffer from issues like anxiety, anger, depression? How are these created? How do we move forward in our lives, free from these issues and how can Solution Focused Hypnotherapy help?

We have two mindsets – the intellectual mindset which is rational and always sees things with a balanced perspective, and an emotional primitive mindset also known as our “flight fight freeze” response. When we are feeling anxious or depressed, we respond to situations using this emotional primitive mind.

If you were confronted with a real threat your anxiety levels would shoot up. You would start to sweat – your body’s way of keeping you cool as you make your escape; your heart rate would increase to increase the amount of energy in your body; and your digestive system would temporarily shut down as blood flow is redirected to your vital organs.

Modern life is full of things that raise our anxiety levels – family, work, and numerous other obligations. Over time our anxiety levels can start going up, until eventually they have matched the level of a one-off threat. Our survival mechanism kicks in and we start responding with anxiety, anger, depression; or a combination of all three.

The primitive emotional mind is negative – always having to see the worst possible perspective. It’s obsessional – constantly reminding you of the danger. It’s vigilant – being on high alert for the next crisis. It’s not innovative, therefore it does not learn new ways of reacting, it always reacts via anxiety, anger or depression.

Every negative thought we have is converted into anxiety. We can create anxiety by negatively forecasting the future , with the big things like “will I ever meet a partner?” “will I lose my job?” and the small things like a meeting with your boss.

This mind doesn’t know the different between imagination and reality. If you think about that meeting 50 times before it happens and each time it is a terrible outcome then even if the meeting goes well, you have attended 51 meetings in your mind and 50 have been disasters. We can also negatively introspect about the past, playing past negative events over and over in our mind. Raising our anxiety levels further.

All these negative thoughts are accumulated and stored. We say they are stored in a metaphorical stress bucket. Now lots of things can fill up our bucket: day to day life, or specific life events. Anyone who has ever got married or had a baby would probably agree that even positive life events can be stressful, but this is even more the case for negative life events like illness or grief. Thankfully, we do have a method for emptying our bucket, and it is known as REM sleep. At night we re-run events of the day and change them from being an emotional memory to a narrative memory. A memory we have control over.

Say for example you have an argument with someone. You tell your partner or friend and they tell you to forget about it, but you can’t. You are thinking about it when you go to bed.

During your REM sleep you will re-run the event through dreams, and you will move it from the primitive brain to the intellectual brain. When you wake up in the morning you might have completely forgot about it. Even if you haven’t, it definitely won’t feel as bad as the day before. Things really are better after a good night’s sleep.

If you sleep well and effectively manage the stress in your bucket you probably aren’t suffering from anxiety, anger or depression. However for some people their bucket gets so full it starts to overflow. REM is restricted to about 20% of our sleep patterns. If we have a lot of things to process the mind will wake you up to get you out of REM. You know when it is your mind waking you up because you wake up wide awake and often feel quite miserable with lots of thoughts in your head. Often, we can’t get back to sleep again. You know the difference between that and a loud noise waking you up for instance.

Now you may be in the grip of a bit of a vicious circle. The more you have in your bucket, the more time you will spend in your primitive brain and the more you will be encouraged to be negative. So how can we drain our bucket?

One very effective method is to start concentrating on the positive things in your life, which helps reduce your levels of anxiety and moves towards getting the “real you” back. When we engage in positive interactions with others, positive activities like the gym / gardening (or anything you enjoy), and start trying to think positively we will start producing a constant flow of serotonin the “Happy Hormone”.

This is how Solution Focused Hypnotherapy can help. In the first session we discuss what has brought you to the therapy and what you would like to achieve through the sessions, along with an explanation of the brain in relation to your issue. In subsequent sessions the psychotherapy element focuses on where you want to be, using proven solution focused techniques. You are then guided into a state of deep relaxation & positive visualization known as trance which consolidates all that we have previously discussed. In this relaxed state, your mind is also more responsive to beneficial suggestions, designed to help you change unhelpful thought patterns.

This is not stage hypnotherapy or mind control, you are in control the entire time. If your phone were to ring you could get up and answer it if needs be. Therapeutic hypnosis cannot make you do anything you do not want to. You are also aided throughout the therapy with a deep relaxation download to help get your sleep back on track.

If you would like any more information, feel free to contact me to arrange an informal chat.

During Covid-19 all my hypnotherapy and deep relaxation sessions are online via Zoom, I will be letting everyone know when I have returned to Nice Touch Treatment Rooms.