Tag Archives: Anxiety

Axing Anxiety

by Kelly

Anxiety Workshop

Today, October 10th, is world mental health day – a day designed to raise awareness of the mental health issues faced by people across the globe. In 2013 15.2 million working days were lost due to the mental health problems of stress, anxiety and depression in the UK1. Mental health problems were the third biggest contributor to absenteeism after back and neck problems and coughs and colds.

Given that the management of stress and anxiety plays a key role in a happy and productive workforce, we need to get serious about solving these health challenges. Historically, anxiety has been regarded as a purely mental problem. The associated physical symptoms have been seen as a result of mental processes such worrying and irrational thinking. Little attention has been paid to the physical processes that contribute to the condition.

In our upcoming pioneering workshop next Sunday, 19th October, we combine my work as a clinical hypnotherapist with the work of Somatic Movement Educator Tanya Fitzpatrick to manage anxiety from both the physical and the mental perspective.

The workshop, Reprogramming Anxiety, will be held on Sunday 19th October at 10am at Clerkenwellbeing, 178 Goswell Rd, EC1V 7DT. In this two-hour introductory workshop you will:

• Identify your habitual patterns of anxious thinking
• Understand how anxiety affects you physically
• Learn skills to counteract anxious patterns
• Discover how to restore a sense of calm and comfort to your daily life

The cost of the workshop is £35. You can purchase tickets in advance by clicking the button below. To keep the group intimate, spaces are limited, therefore we encourage you to book in advance to guarantee your place.

Reserve your place by purchasing your ticket below:

Reprogramming Anxiety Workshop 10am Sunday 19th October 2014

1Sickness Absence in the Labour Market, Office for National Statistics, February 2014

Image credit: emdot via Compfight

 

Has your body forgotten how to relax?

by Kelly

Reprogramming Anxiety

Over the summer my fascination with the phenomenon of anxiety has led me to investigate additional approaches to handling the problem. In my enquiry I came across a compelling, albeit low tech, lecture by Dr. Leon Chaitow of the University of Westminster, London on the wide-ranging negative effects of incorrect breathing and the link between breathing and anxiety.

Chronic incorrect breathing causes an imbalance in the level of carbon dioxide in the blood, which leads to:
• Triggering of the stress response (sympathetic arousal)
• Feelings of anxiety and apprehension
• Bowel problems (diarrhoea or constipation)
• Exacerbating PMS symptoms
• Lowering of pain threshold
• Fatigue, tiredness and brain-fog

This discovery had me seek to correct of my own breathing. To achieve correct breathing, it was clear I needed to release the chronic tension in my back, chest and diaphragm. My search led me to the amazing Tanya Fitzpatrick.

Tanya is a certified Somatic Movement Educator, an advanced yoga teacher trainer, and a Body-Mind Centering Professional. Her speciality is helping her clients to retrain their brains to tell their muscles to relax correctly and to learn to move in an effortless fashion.

Tanya explains that through habitual patterns of tension, muscles in the body learn how to remain tight, and the brain develops what she terms sensory motor amnesia.  This means the brain literally forgets how to relax these muscles at all, leading to chronic tension, pain and restricted breathing.

Tanya and I quickly realised what a beautiful synergy our work has. She helps clients release physical patterns of anxiety and I help clients release the mental patterns that hold anxiety in place. Imagine the power of experiencing the effect of both!

We are so excited to share with you our brand new workshop, Reprogramming Anxiety, which will be held on Sunday 19th October at 10am at Clerkenwellbeing, 178 Goswell Rd, EC1V 7DT.

In this two-hour introductory workshop you will:
• Identify your habitual patterns of anxious thinking
• Understand how anxiety affects you physically
• Learn skills to counteract anxious patterns
• Discover how to restore a sense of calm and comfort to your daily life

The cost of the workshop is £35. You can purchase tickets in advance by clicking the button below. To keep the group intimate, spaces are limited, therefore we encourage you to book in advance to guarantee your place.

Reserve your place by purchasing your ticket below:

Reprogramming Anxiety Workshop 10am Sunday 19th October 2014

I look forward to seeing you in October!

Image credit: Fayez via Flickr

Move forwards by going back: the power of regression to change your present

by Kelly

Childhood regression

Working with memories within hypnosis is a very powerful tool to achieve effective change.  During early childhood, our minds are incredibly open and our neurological patterning is formed at this age.  Key events that occurred in early childhood can influence our behaviour, our emotions and our beliefs in the present without us even being aware of it.

One of my approaches when working with clients is to guide their unconscious mind to find often forgotten but influential memories.  This technique is widely known as regression.  Once the client has located the key memory,  we work quickly and effectively at re-contextualising the events of that moment.  This process allows the client to take more information from the event and make new conclusions.  By revisiting specific childhood events and seeing the bigger picture we create new neural connections which allow new behaviours and responses in the present.

To make the process of re-contextualising memories even faster and more effective I often use the technique called “creative mothering”.  As the client reviews the key event, I invite them to bring their present-day adult-self to be there with their child-self inside the memory they are working with.  The purpose of their adult-self is to serve as the source of support and resources that their child-self needed at the time.

In her recent exhibition, Imagine Finding Me, London-based photographer Chino Otsuka has literally inserted her adult-self into childhood memories using digital software.  The compositions presented in her exhibition could well be little vignettes from many of the client sessions I facilitate.

The results of re-contextualising these key memories are often noteworthy. I recently worked with a client who came to see me to overcome her feelings of failure.  I took her back to the originating memory which involved feeling ignored by a parent.  Once she’d been through the process of having her unconscious mind understand that being ignored was not her fault she was able to know that she was important and loved.  Getting in touch with the knowledge that she did matter allowed her to claim her self-worth in the present.

A week later she made a minor miscalculation while driving.  While everyone remained safe and no property was damaged, she did receive a fine.  She relayed to me that if that miscalculation had happened in the past, she would have fallen into a hole of self-criticism and shame from which she would have taken a long time to recover. After releasing and re-contextualising the key memory she was thrilled that she could easily say to herself, “Damn it, how annoying!” and get on with the rest of her day.

What patterns of thought or behaviour have you feeling stuck?  If enough is enough, then get in contact.  Let’s go meet with your child-self and discover what else there is for you to learn.

Shift negative emotions in minutes with Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT)

by Kelly

EFT Circle

This month I’d like to introduce you to Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), which is one of the other tools I regularly use with clients.  EFT is known as an energy meridian therapy, which means it is explained using the principles of Chinese Medicine.  Meridians are the subtle energy lines that travel the body and, according to Chinese medicine practitioners, when the energy is flowing well we enjoy good health, when it is blocked we experience ill health.  Clinical Psychologist, Dr Roger Callahan PhD, originally developed EFT in the 1980’s.  Stanford engineer Gary Craig further refined the technique.

A large number of studies have been made into the efficacy of EFT in overcoming problems such as anxiety, depression, pain and physical symptoms, athletic performance, phobias, post-traumatic stress disorder, weight loss, cravings and addictions.  I personally have used this technique and count it as a huge contributor to overcoming seven years of clinical depression.

EFT can be learned in just one session and can then be applied either on your own or in on-going work with me.  A third option is to experience the power of EFT in a group.  Click here to watch an introductory video on the basics of EFT and to find out dates and locations for group EFT.

Group EFT can be very effective.  A clinical study of college students at the University of Santo Tomas in Manila transformed the treatment group’s Beck Depression Inventory score from 23.44 indicating moderate to severe depression to 6.08 indicating the subjects were non-depressed after just four 90-minute group EFT sessions.

If you have any questions about EFT or the EFT Group, feel free to get in contact to experience this transformative technique for yourself!

 

Image Credit: Agustín Ruiz