Can anxiety be cured?
It’s perfectly natural for us all to feel a little anxiety. As write this, My dog is lying next to me on the sofa snoring her head off. She seems to be the perfect embodiment of total relaxation, curled up in her basket without a care in the world. Yet only an hour ago she was anxious: “will he feed me soon?” or maybe “will he take me for a walk soon, my bladder is bursting” were perhaps two of the anxious questions being asked inside her doggy head, despite the fact that I regularly take her for a walk and feed her, just as I have done every day for years now.
This tells us two things, firstly that anxiety is an often irrational fear about what may (or may not) happen in the future. And secondly, any living creature with a decent-sized brain can experience anxiety. But how can anxiety be cured? And specifically, how can anxiety be cured without medication? Anxiety has so many causes, everyone is unique in how they experience anxiety and the reasons why they experience anxiety. For some people it is caused by a lifetime event; for example, as a therapist it is common for me to see clients who have suffered childhood neglect, or various degrees of emotional and/or physical abuse. A child who spent her formative years feeling insecure and could not rely on the very people in her life that were supposed to provide stability, support and protection will probably find it difficult to trust that they are in a safe place now they are an adult, despite what evidence they see to the contrary. This kind of insecure childhood attachment left untreated creates toxic ripples throughout their lives, permeating relationships, friendships and their career. Sadly, it can also handicap their own attempts at being a parent.
Phobia’s and anxious behaviour patterns
For others anxiety can be created by a one-off shock. This type of anxiety more commonly leads to a phobia of some kind but can also escalate into more generalised anxiety, or anxious behaviour patterns like agoraphobia, social anxiety, skin-picking and hair pulling. It can also express itself as anger, a feeling of being on a short fuse. Additionally, I personally believe that there are links between anxiety and some physical complaints, and over the years I have helped people with all manner of physical ailments that turned out to have a psychological component. Read my article on Social Anxiety here. Watch my video on Phobia’s here
Panic attacks
Left to its own devices, anxiety is sadly likely to get worse over time. We start to get a feeling that we cannot control our anxiety and this feeling of being overwhelmed can in turn lead to panic attacks. There are many symptoms of a panic attack. but they typically include a tense feeling in the chest or stomach, shaking, a need to go to the toilet, a need “to run away” or a sense that our minds have gone blank or frozen. Tragically, these extreme feelings can sometimes make us feel like we are going mad. Clients who see me suffering from panic attacks, anxiety (including social anxiety) and phobias have usually tried everything, including medication.
Can hypnosis cure anxiety?
The good news is that hypnosis is scientifically proven to help cure anxiety. Hypnosis works by breaking the pattern. When we feel anxious, we feel out of control. Our brain searches for a way to re-establish control, but it fails to do so. Why? Because it has learned that the only way to deal with a stressful situation is to experience anxiety. Our brain goes into a loop, searching over and over for things that could possibly go wrong. Hypnosis breaks that unhealthy pattern, and replaces it with a new, healthy one. Slowly but surely, as the new pattern starts to work for you, the old pattern dies away and you are now entering a virtuous cycle, where instead of things getting worse and worse, they begin to get better and better as you start to realise that you are no longer being controlled by your anxiety. To find out if hypnotherapy can help you please contact me for a free twenty-minute consultation. If you wish to find out more about hypnosis, or what happens when you visit a hypnotherapist please watch my video