Your Anxiety

Feeling anxious? Rest assured that everybody feels anxious at some point in their lives. Sometimes it is appropriate to experience anxiety when faced with a threat or danger. Issues arise when these feelings escalate and show no sign of disappearing even when there appears to be no threat or danger about.  Anxiety occurs when a person’s fear of nonthreatening situations, places, events, or objects becomes extreme and uncontrollable. When it starts to interfere with your everyday life then we know that we should reach out for help. Understandably for many of us, talking about your anxiety isn’t always easy. Sometimes it can feel difficult to explain what’s going on, like you’re the only one who understands how you feel. We have a natural tendency to retreat and withdraw from our normal life, activities, and friends. Likewise, people around us often struggle to know what to say to someone who they’re worried about. They may not understand feelings your anxiety and find it hard to relate to when there appears to be no real danger or problem.

We know that anxiety affects millions of people each year and often it’s the case that people have never experienced any kind of mental health problem before and it comes as a complete shock to them when it happens. There are different types of anxiety from social anxiety, OCD to separation anxiety, phobias and PTSD. Each one has unique symptoms, but there’s one symptom they all have in common: near-constant fear or worry about things that may happen now or in the future.

Anxiety is all about anticipation, it’s about what could happen in the future. People always ask the “what if?” question.

It can affect our sleep patterns, relationships, work, social life and can even have detrimental physical consequences. It can stand in the way of a fulfilling life and stop us from doing what people consider to be normal activities.

We can experience psychological signs of anxiety which include:

– Feelings of apprehension or dread

– Restlessness or irritability

– Feeling tense or jumpy

– Anticipating the worst

– Constantly watching for signs of danger – Hypervigilance

There are also physical symptoms of anxiety which include:

– Rapid or pounding heartbeat

– Shortness of breath

– Excessive sweating

– Tremors or twitches

– Headache

– Fatigue or weakness

– Insomnia

– Nausea or upset stomach

If we look at all these symptoms above, what do you notice? Well let’s imagine you were out walking in your local street today and from nowhere a knife wielding person runs towards you. What would you do? Fight him off, run away or maybe stand your ground with shock? We have now gone into the fight, flight freeze state which is perfectly normal when we are confronted with danger but not helpful in our daily lives. We can see that the symptoms above of anxiety are the same symptoms we experience when we are threatened with real danger.

We could talk, write, and discuss every nuance of anxiety but all my clients want it to be free of it. So, by now understanding anxiety we can help rewire the way clients perceive situations so that they can eliminate the crippling feelings they cope with. Allow clients to look at a future free from the physical and psychological symptoms of anxiety and what differences it would make in their everyday life. When we can recognise and tame that flight, flight, freeze reaction clients are able to move forward with their lives.

If you or somebody you know would like more information about how hypnotherapy can help with the different types of anxiety please feel free to book in for my free Initial Consultation.