After experiencing anxiety in its many forms, many of our patients say they feel lost, desperate and alone. The physical symptoms of an acute anxiety attack as well as the psychological symptoms of excessive worry, paranoia and a feeling of being detached from reality, make for an incredibly unpleasant experience.

Whether it is generalised anxiety or panic attacks, our patients talk of anxiety pervading their lives, so that they need to avoid more and more situations that are difficult for them. This of course impacts upon work and relationships which exacerbates the problem further and leads to an increasingly limited life.

Generalised Anxiety

Our patients who suffer with generalised anxiety often report that they are constantly and excessively worrying about normal everyday problems and they always anticipate the worst outcome rather than the likely outcome of a situation, in other words, they catastrophise. Generalised anxiety has a huge negative impact upon daily life and is usually diagnosed when someone has been worrying excessively for at least six months. Anxiety can arise out of stressful situations and events where the stress/adrenalin response is overstimulated and as a result the situation(s) is traumatised by the mind. This traumatisation can either be a single incident or repeated. An anxious response can also be learnt from others and habituated over time as our unconscious mind constantly searches for evidence that our worries and fears are justified and so we become focused on the worst possible outcomes even when these are not likely.

Panic Attacks

Panic attacks are characterised by sudden and severe anxiety symptoms such as a racing heart, breathlessness, butterflies and shaking legs. These symptoms are alarming and unpleasant and can often seem to occur without reason or warning.

Social Anxiety

Social Anxiety is anxiety during or anxiety about social situations. Social anxiety or social phobia is a fear of having to interact with other people and being judged in a negative way by them. Most of us want to be liked and thought well of by others, but for some people this need becomes amplified and results in a fear which limits an individual’s life style. This fear may arise from low self-esteem or may be a result of past negative judgements or rejections that were not processed in a healthy way.

Relieving Anxiety

Unfortunately, trying to think our way out of anxiety means that we have to focus on that anxiety. Since what we focus on we tend to magnify, focusing on anxiety in an unhealthy way can lead to an increase in the anxious symptoms that we want to be rid of.

Here at The Hypnotherapy Practice, we use Analytical Hypnotherapy to help you identify and resolve the root cause of the anxiety and find a healthier more appropriate response. We also use Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) to help you overcome the anxiety quickly and easily and move forward into a calmer and more confident state, free from those old anxious thoughts and feelings.

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