Anxiety Treatment

Anxiety Treatment in Stockport
– because Anxiety DOESN’T actually help you at all!

The top independently rated therapists at Stockport Hypnotherapy specialise in treating anxiety and anxiety related conditions and illnesses. They are highly experienced in helping you understand your anxiety and, more importantly, to overcome it. For anxiety treatment in Stockport, contact us at Stockport Hypnotherapy on 07779 575 816.

Most people have felt anxiety, stress or panic at some point. So many things in life can cause anxiety and worry. Money, health, our family or friends, fear of meeting new people, are common worries. Fear of loss (of a job, a house, a relationship, of status) can all make you feel worried. Anxiety about making the wrong decision, fear of embarrassment or of what others think about us, concern us hugely. Insecurity about relationships, worrying about making mistakes; fear of being physically or emotionally hurt – all these can cause anxiety.

Anxiety and phobias

Specific fears and phobias also make us anxious. Fear of flying, of public speaking, or of needles – there are too many variations to list them all.

But anxiety and panic don’t actually help you! They don’t change what happens. They just ensure you feel awful in the meantime. Often, anxiety means that you’re less able to cope with whatever’s happening. But you can learn to get rid of it, and to cope better.

Our top rated anxiety treatment in Stockport can help you learn to do this.

Panic, anxiety and stress – it’s all adrenalin

Anxiety – and sometimes panic – are what happen when your body senses threat, fear and danger. This is known as the “fight or flight response”. This is explained underneath, but “fight or flight” only really helps you when the danger is real, physical and immediate. But most anxiety in the 21st century is not like this. Instead it’s about money, jobs, partners, mistakes, health, or arguments you’ve had. Unfortunately your body – and brain – still responds as if you really are in physical danger.

Anxiety changes your body’s responses

When you’re afraid, the body releases adrenalin. It does this to put you in the best possible position to survive the “threat”. Adrenalin makes everything go faster – your heart, your breathing, and even your thoughts. Adrenalin makes the body more responsive – quicker at running away (“flight”) or more able to protect yourself (“fight”). Other physical changes happen too. You become more aware of everything around you – your senses are sharpened. This means that you respond more to noise or to what you see. Your muscles become tense. This is because the heart is pumping your blood around more quickly, providing oxygen to the muscles. You might feel light headed or dizzy too.

You might feel sick, have stomach ache or need the loo. These changes happen to help you survive the “threat”. You don’t run fast or fight well on a full stomach, so when your body feels that you may need to run or fight it tenses your muscles. It prepares to empty your stomach contents. In severe cases you might even actually be sick or need the loo – or it may just feel like “butterflies”. But it’s all part of the body’s response. Your body is trying to make you as safe as possible. It does this by putting you on the defensive and giving you the best chance of survival.

Evolution means we can ALL feel anxiety and stress

By running from a vicious animal or a falling tree, or fighting off an enemy, our predecessors were more likely to survive to pass on their genes. This is why the trait still exists. If they didn’t feel fear, and get that extra boost of adrenalin, they probably didn’t survive. There aren’t many people who get through life without feeling anxiety at some point. A little bit of fear and anxiety can even help you.

A little bit of anxiety is still good for us

Without it, we would get ourselves into dangerous situations, because we wouldn’t understand that there was danger. We need to be aware that actions consequences. However, it’s easy to get into the habit of ALWAYS being aware of potential danger, and that things can go wrong. This leads you to overthink and over analyze. You do this because you believe that this will prevent problems from happening and keep us secure. It’s very quick and easy to go beyond the “good” level of anxiety, which actually helps to keep you safe. You can very quickly get to the stage where anxiety stops you from functioning properly.

Modern Anxiety and Panic are usually NOT about physical threat

Most modern day anxiety and stress has nothing to do with physical threat. But your body doesn’t recognise this! Unfortunately your body responds in the same way to troubling thoughts and worries as it does to physical danger. Anxiety and fear help you to survive physical threat. They boost adrenalin, helping you to think fast and to move quickly.

But most modern day stress is about other threats. These might be financial, emotional, social, about your health or your career. The adrenalin produced when you are stressed makes your thoughts race, round and round. You feel the urge to just “think things through”, to get things straight in your head, or to work out how busy you’re going to be tomorrow and how you’ll tackle things. You go over what that conversation you just had meant. The thoughts sometimes seem to go faster and faster. It niggles you and you can’t seem to stop thinking about it. But you never seem to resolve it.

Thinking about things when you’re anxious….. just makes you more anxious

Thinking things through when you’re anxious doesn’t seem to produce any positive result. Remember, your brain interprets uncomfortable and worrying thoughts as threats. This leads to it producing adrenalin to “help” you. But panic, anxiety and stress simply makes life less pleasant; sometimes significantly. It makes relationships difficult, stops you concentrating at work, and affects your health. It stops you enjoying the things you should enjoy.

Anxiety and Panic are often just a bad habit.

We’re very good at developing habits. Think of sending a text, brushing your teeth, tying your laces, or even driving the car down a long straight road you know well. You don’t really need to pay full attention. It’s as if you’re on autopilot. The first time you did these things, chances are you really needed to concentrate. But the brain is lazy – it likes to take a short cut. It doesn’t want to have to re-invent the wheel every morning.

So, when we’ve been in a situation before, the brain tries to remember what we did the last time. This means that it doesn’t have to work it out again from scratch. This is often helpful. But when the brain remembers that we have been anxious or felt panic in a situation before, it assumes that being anxious again will help. This is because the brain thinks that producing adrenalin when it happens again. The brain is trying to give you an “edge”, which is what it thinks the adrenalin will do. This can cause a phobia to develop, as we come to automatically associate the feeling of fear and panic with flying or dentists or driving or not being able to find a loo.

We provide anxiety treatment in Stockport to help you break this cycle.

Just wanting to think things through is itself a habit which triggers anxiety

You may have developed a habit of feeling generally anxious in all sorts of situations. This is because whenever a worrying thought occurs, you think that you just need to think it through. You just need to get it straight in your head. But it has just become a habit. It’s what you always do. You think it through, whether it actually helps or not. And it usually doesn’t.

Instead, the brain recognises these worrying thoughts as “threats” and gives you adrenalin to (supposedly) help you cope. The brain also, wanting to save you the effort of working out how to feel, remembers how you felt last time you tried to think things through. And when it remembers you felt anxious, it assumes you need that shot of adrenalin again. But because thoughts are not things you can escape from, the only function of the adrenalin is to make your thoughts race. This then triggers further anxiety, in a vicious circle.

So if you’re looking for anxiety treatment in Stockport, call us today on 07779 575 816. We’ll be happy to hear from you!

Anxiety treatment in Stockport that REALLY works
You learned to be anxious – you can UNlearn it, too

Hypnotherapy and hypnosis can help you to overcome anxiety, stress, and worry. Anxiety is a learnt response – you weren’t born anxious – ever seen a worried baby? No! You pick it up as you go along, being told to be careful, to watch out. That cars are dangerous (“Don’t run across the road!”), that other people are threats (“Don’t talk to strangers” “Don’t trust anyone”), that if we don’t work hard enough, and keep on top of things, we will fail in life (“if you don’t pass these exams you’ll never get a job”), that germs will make us ill or even kill us, that if we make a mistake it will be disastrous.

This is just a tiny list of examples. There are hundreds of thousands! Of course, some planning. preparation and caution is good. A little bit of anxiety can spur you on to accomplish things in life, and to avoid very dangerous situations. But if you suffer from anxiety, the amount of worry and stress and fear you feel is disproportionate. Most people have a little bit of anxiety, and can cope with it. But if you really suffer with anxiety, then you feel overwhelmed by worry, uncertainty, fear and apprehension. You are thinking all the time, about everything, and everyone. It feels very hard, if not impossible, to switch off your thoughts.

Too much anxiety is negative

Because the only effects of too much anxiety are negative – not enjoying yourself, unpleasant thoughts, physical sensations, not being able to focus, being unable to do what you set out to – then it makes perfect sense to unlearn being too anxious. Sometimes we misunderstand what is truly dangerous – just because it “feels” risky. Flying is a good example of this.

But people can become overly anxious about anything. You name it, someone somewhere will be anxious about it. And someone else, somewhere else, will just love that thing. Spiders, cats, flying, buttons, heights – you might find these terrifying, or you might have a real passion for them! Whilst many things may trigger your anxiety, it is up to how you choose to respond to that trigger. Hypnotherapy, hypnosis and relaxation techniques are straightforward, common sense ways of learning to let go and overcoming anxiety. There’s a huge amount of clinical evidence for their effectiveness.

Hypnosis in Stockport to stop anxiety

Put simply, hypnosis teaches you to relax and let go. Not of what’s important! It doesn’t stop you from thinking; but it does stop you from over-thinking, over-planning, over-analyzing those things that you can’t control, or predict, or change. Remember that worrying doesn’t actually change anything. The things you fear aren’t prevented because you worry about them. The things you hope for aren’t more likely to happen because you worry about them not happening!

So it makes sense to learn to let go of worrying. Once you have taken whatever practical steps you can to change things or to make plans, then hypnotherapy trains your mind to let go of further thoughts. First you’ll learn to relax physically. This prevents the body from producing adrenalin. This means that your thoughts will slow down. Over time, you will be able to think more clearly and realistically about the things which worry you. And you’re more susceptible to suggestions about how to change your thinking, when you’re in the very relaxed state ofhypnosis.

Anxiety Symptoms and Panic Attacks

The short term effects of anxiety can include upset stomach, feeling exhausted, headaches/migraines, and difficulty sleeping. You may lose your appetite, increase alcohol consumption, or smoke or use drug. You might suffer aching neck and shoulders, palpitations, dry mouth, sweating, and feeling physically sick or needing the toilet. Longer term problems include an increased propensity to heart problems, cancers and strokes due to suppression of the immune system. 

Sleeping patterns and fertility are often affected. Restless Leg Syndrometinnitus and IBS are made much worse by stress. Around half of IBS – Irritable Bowel Syndrome – cases are thought to be caused by stress. The vast majority of sufferers of IBS report that their symptoms get worse when they suffer stress.

Stress at Work

To add to this unhappy list, stress at work is worsened because your lack of ability to concentrate, or your feelings of disinterest, make you unable to do your job to your full ability. Worrying about making mistakes adds to the feelings of stress, anxiety and worry.

When you suffer work related stress, this can also have a knock-on effect on the people you work with you. They may start to experience anxiety, too. Anxiety often causes insomnia too, as many people with stress, anxiety and panic start to worry at night. This leads to sleep problems. You then add this to list of things you worry about.

Stress Management Techniques

Learning techniques for stress management, whilst in hypnosis, significantly lessens both short and long term risks associated with stress and anxiety. You will learn to let go, and to get away from the vicious circle of anxious thoughts.

The physical symptoms of Stress, Panic and Anxiety

Click onto this link for a list of the physical effects of anxiety and panic

These symptoms are often more severe when you have a panic attack

Any or all of the symptoms of anxiety can be experienced during a panic attack. Sometimes this can lead you to think you’re having a heart attack or have another serious illness. This belief in turn worsens your anxiety, forming a vicious circle. Your panic attack symptoms can be significantly improved by hypnotherapy and relaxation.

Depression

Around one in five people suffer with depression during their lives. Depression is far more than occasionally just feeling low, fed up or sad. It’s important to distinguish clinical depression from normal mood changes, which everyone experiences. Depression is a constant state of mind which affects you for weeks, months or perhaps years. Many physical and psychological problems can accompany it. You may feel hopeless, or that the depression will never stop, or that you have never been happy.

You feel as if you have nothing to look forward to; perhaps you can no longer enjoy daily life – even those thing which you used to love doing. You feel tired all the time. Yet when you go to bed you can’t sleep. You can’t just “pull yourself together”. Anyone who says this to you has never experienced depression.

Symptoms of depression

These include fatigue and difficulty sleeping. Perhaps you wake early and can’t then get back to sleep. Or you might not be able to get to sleep when you go to bed). You might also notice lack of enthusiasm, weight loss, and loss of interest in food. Sometimes though you overeat or binge eat instead. You might notice feelings of lethargy, preoccupation with your own behaviour. Feelings of excessive guilt, low self esteem, self-consciousness, pessimism are common. You may find that you’re unable to make decisions. Many sufferers lose interest in sex.

Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy and Anxiety Treatment at Stockport Hypnotherapy

Depression, stress and anxiety are not merely responses to things which happen. They depend on your view of the world, and your beliefs about your future. It’s easy to think that stress and anxiety are just unavoidable responses to life events. Or perhaps you tell yourself that it’s just the way you were made.

However this is true only to a degree. How we feel – whether we’re anxious or carefree, happy or unhappy – depends on how you understand the world around you and your beliefs about your future. Hypnotherapy cannot of course change the events which happen to you, but it is very successful in re-shaping your views and beliefs, which in turn will enable you to change how you react to those events, and how you feel about them.

Replace negative thoughts with positive

Once a full history has been taken and the most appropriate techniques within hypnotherapy and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy identified, going into hypnosis will help you easily, and with minimum effort, replace your negative, unrealistic, overly pessimistic, fearful, uncertain thoughts with more positive, appropriate and rational ones.

Whilst in hypnosis you will imagine yourself in those situations which you have found very stressful or which trigger your feelings of anxiety and depression. But you’ll do this whilst at the same time practising relaxation and breathing techniques. During hypnotherapy you will also imagine responding in new and different ways to situations which have previously troubled you. By doing this, you’ll overcome your anxiety. You will be encouraged to practice new, positive ways of thinking using self hypnosis in order to combat panic, stress and anxiety.

Causes of Anxiety and Depression

The causes of stress, anxiety and depression are not fully understood. They are however widely believed to be a combination of genetics and social factors. These can include childhood experiences and also the way your family and friends reacted to them. Other factors include reaction to life events such as bereavement, redundancy, or divorce.

What about medication?

Modern antidepressants have far fewer side effects than older generation drugs. Modern antidepressants – SSRIs such as Prozac (Fluoxetine) and Citalopram (Cipramil) – also help symptoms of anxiety. These medications do not need to be taken for ever. Older drugs which help anxiety, such as tranquilizers like Diazepam, have some severe side effects. These include making you drowsy or unable to cope with everyday tasks. SSRIs do not have these.

Relaxation techniques, hypnosis and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) are the most studied forms of therapy for both anxiety and depression. They have repeatedly been shown to be effective in their treatment. But if you feel that your anxiety is completely overwhelming, and you really cannot think about anything else, you should speak to your GP. You should discuss the possibility of medication to get over the worst of your symptoms. This will allow you to make the most of CBT, hypnosis and relaxation techniques.

Anxiety Treatment in Stockport

The therapists at this Stockport hypnotherapy clinic are the UK’s top independently rated therapists. They specialise in anxiety, insomnia and phobia treatment. If you are looking for hypnotherapists in Stockport to help stress and anxiety, claustrophobiaemotional problems such as jealousy and insecurity, then please get in touch.

For panic attacks, or low self esteem, then look at any of the independent review websites (for example www.freeindex.co.uk . You can also see reviews on Google) and see what others say about us.

Anxiety Treatment in Stockport using Hypnotherapy and CBT

If you would like further information about hypnosis and anxiety treatment in Stockport, for insomnia, to stop smoking, better self esteem and confidence, then just email manchesterhypnotherapy@gmail.com

To help depression, for weight loss, to stop  nail bitingteeth grinding, or for any other problem, please call 07779 575 816 for a free, confidential discussion. There’s no obligation to book.

Stockport Hypnotherapy – Anxiety treatment in Stockport. Hypnosis and hypnotherapy in Didsbury, Manchester. Convenient for Chorlton, Gatley, Cheadle, Stockport, Altrincham, Hale and all areas of south and central Manchester. Click here for further details of how to find us