Hypnotherapy for Anxiety in London

There was a marked increase in anxiety at the beginning of lockdown. Between 20 and 30 March 2020 almost half (49.6%) of people reported high anxiety and average anxiety scores were 5.2 out of 10, a marked increase from 3.0 in the last quarter of 2019. *

We know how miserable it is to suffer from anxiety, that state of always feeling on edge or panicked, unable to relax or rationalise how you feel. It’s debilitating and destabilising – but the good news is our hypnotherapy for anxiety sessions in London can help.

Anxiety is the manifestation of our subconscious mind going into protection mode. Anxiety is the physical alarm bell our automatic nervous system uses to warn us about, and prepare us for, dangerous situations. Put another way, anxiety is the body’s way of keeping us safe.

When something – a situation or a thought – triggers our nervous system, it immediately kickstarts a physical ‘fight or flight’ reaction which prompts us to make a decision either to face the danger or to flee from it.

Anxiety symptoms are varied. At their mildest, we might experience butterflies in the stomach. But more severe symptoms can include shaking, a racing heart, hot flushes, chest pains, breathlessness, dizziness, pins and needles and a sensation of feeling ‘unreal’ in the company of others.

Though often very intense, these symptoms are completely harmless and are actually part of our genetic instinct for self-preservation. The power of hypnotherapy lies in allowing you to identify and then deal with the triggers that cause these responses in the first place.

As a society, we’ve become quite clever at dealing with the symptoms of stress. We learn breathing exercises or subconsciously manoeuvre ourselves into situations or environments where we feel protected from what causes us to be anxious in the first place – even when we’re not aware, at least consciously, of what those triggers actually are.

For example, if we feel anxiety most acutely at work, then we may have a tendency to arrange meetings to take us out of the office regularly. Or maybe we find ourselves heading to the kitchen to make a cup of tea more frequently than we might otherwise, or to the loo in order to find solitude and stretch out the time when we don’t have to face colleagues or managers.

In the most acute cases, work-related anxiety can lead to people taking more and more time off sick and this can often lead to long-term absence and a damaging effect on career prospects.

Anxiety can also have its root causes in situations which are challenging socially, such as parties or functions where we are expected to interact with strangers, or where we are expected to perform in front of others. And so we avoid the confrontation with our anxiety by crying off at the last moment or making excuses to leave early.

Often, it is the situations to which we are committed and have no real control which cause us the most difficulty with anxiety – public speaking, leading team meetings, face to face sales or a big pitch to a client are all typical examples of situations in which we feel trapped and unable to take control.

Personal finances are another very common trigger for anxiety. When we’re experiencing financial hardship – whether it’s of our own making or not – those feelings of helplessness morph into a fear of facing up to the issues at play. And so in a vain attempt to alleviate the symptoms – or to avoid having to think about it at all – we avoid looking at our bank balance or opening bank statements and invent stories to tell ourselves about a new job or a pay rise or a sale on eBay that will make everything all right again.

We have become less good at working to identify what is causing us to be anxious and then finding ways of dealing with that problem at its root.

Whatever the cause of your anxiety, hypnotherapy can help you to overcome the challenges you face and set you on the path to a happier and less challenging life. At Zoe Clews & Associates, our hypnotherapy is gentle and non-invasive, helping you to meet your subconscious in a non-threatening way.

Often, anxiety can be the physical and emotional manifestation of a trauma earlier in life – something which we may not even consciously recognise as influencing our emotional wellbeing. In some cases, this trauma has had such a significant impact on us that our clever subconscious has buried it out of sight.

As a client, we’ll work with you to identify whether our hypnotherapy for trauma sessions are the best way to help you to move forward, or whether hypnotherapy for anxiety is more appropriate.

In order to deal with anxiety effectively, we need to be prepared to confront and deal with the root cause of the problem effectively, to acknowledge it and then find a way of allowing the mind to heal itself to a point where we are mentally capable of moving on. This is where hypnotherapy comes into its own, gently peeling back the subconscious layers to help you find the answers you need.

The tricks we teach ourselves to avoid whatever is causing us to be anxious are simply sticking plasters for the soul – and eventually, there comes a time when they’re not enough to stop us from feeling overwhelmed by the emotions that lie deeper below the surface of our psyche. That’s the point at which self-help probably ceases to become an option and hypnotherapy becomes a consideration.

Severe anxiety issues occur when we become fearful of the anxiety itself. This can trigger a vicious circle where the fear of anxiety leads to more intense physical symptoms, creating more fear and progressively more acute bodily reactions. And in the process, the brain comes to accept this elevated state of anxiety as normal and as a result the sufferer experiences regular or constantly high levels of anxiety.

It’s like overwinding a wristwatch. The tighter we wind it, the more likely it is that a spring will snap. That constant ratcheting up of your anxiety is like the constant winding of a watch – eventually, the impact of that on not only our emotional wellbeing but also on our physical health can become quite serious. The secret is to find help in dealing with it before that happens.

Hypnotherapy works because it puts an end to that instinctive emotional overwinding that we go through when we’re anxious.

HOW WE CAN HELP

Hypnotherapy for anxiety works by effectively re-setting your anxiety level to ‘healthy’. It clears your subconscious of the negative or unhealthy beliefs that drive your anxiety state and thoughts and instils calm and relaxation and a future indifference to the situations or experiences that, until now, have been triggering your anxiety.

Our approach to hypnotherapy means we work with you at a speed that is comfortable for you but also effective in terms of helping you to address what’s really happening on the inside. Our sessions are calm, non-invasive and designed to allow us to help you to explore the reasons why you feel anxious and to give you the tools to overcome whatever is stopping you from enjoying life to the full.

Please feel free to get in touch with us for more information about our hypnotherapy for anxiety in London. We are based in Harley Street, London.

Hear it from our clients…

*Ons.gov.uk. 2021. Coronavirus and anxiety, Great Britain – Office for National Statistics. (online) Available at: Main Points (Accessed 25 August 2021).