WHAT'S WORRYING YOU?
Anxiety
Most of us know how it feels to be stressed, worried or nervous about something. Usually, these feelings are fleeting and they disappear as quickly as they appear. For those with anxiety, however, these feelings last longer and can be much more intense.
If you have an anxiety disorder, you may find that you avoid certain situations because you’re worried it will trigger these feelings for you. This can make everyday tasks difficult and hold you back from doing the things you want.
There are several different techniques and tools that can help with anxiety, one of which is hypnotherapy. Hypnotherapy for anxiety aims to seek the root cause of the problem and change your relationship with anxiety. Here we’ll explore how hypnotherapy works for anxiety.
What is anxiety?
Us humans have evolved to protect ourselves. One of the ways we do that is through the ‘fight, flight or freeze’ reaction. If our brains perceive a threat or danger, it releases hormones to prepare us to run away, fight, or freeze. These hormones include adrenaline and cortisol, and they make us feel more vigilant of what’s happening. They also make our hearts beat faster, so blood is sent where it’s needed the most when we’re under attack.
It’s a great system, but as society has developed, we generally have less need for it. For many of us, the system gets activated when there is no physical danger present. For example, our fight, flight or freeze response may be triggered by our manager asking us to add another task to our to-do list.
We then end up internalising the feelings and find ourselves sitting at our desks, with our hearts pounding, with no idea how to make it stop. Anxiety becomes a mental health problem when it starts affecting daily life. You may be very easily triggered, or find you have a level of anxiety constantly throughout the day.
What are the signs and symptoms of anxiety?
Anxiety will feel different to everyone, however, there are certain symptoms here you may relate to if you have anxiety:
- overthinking
- ruminating
- headaches
- chest pain
- dizziness
- difficulties sleeping
- faster breathing
- nausea
- fast or irregular heartbeat
- teeth grinding
- restlessness
