Tim Maude Hypnotherapy

Category: Stress and Anxiety

  • A glass of wine to take the edge of it?

    A glass of wine to take the edge of it?

    Are you one of the many people who have a glass of wine or a beer after a stressful day, just to “take the edge off it”? Be warned that for those of you with anxiety, alcohol may actually make the situation worse.

    Alcohol is a depressant – this doesn’t mean that it makes you depressed; it means that the parts of your brain and body stop working as efficiently as usual. We all know that that part of your brain that puts a brake on stupid behaviour is suppressed – so you start to loose your inhibitions. After a few drinks, your ability to speak clearly and at the right volume becomes effected. And you probably know all the other things that happen to you. It’s all because alcohol winds back the functioning of some parts of the brain.

    If you drink regularly, the brain gets used to the effects of the alcohol and starts to change in order to compensate. This means that when you don’t get a drink one evening, the primitive part of your brain recognises that something is different from usual, and starts to enter the fight-or-flight mode. If you are used to having a glass of wine when you get home from work, you might notice increased tension on the day when you don’t get a drink – that’s the primitive part of the brain starting to engage.

    Alcohol also has an effect on the chemicals in the brain, in particular it decreases the production of a neurotransmitter called GABA. One of GABA’s roles is to regulate the other neurotransmitter chemical so as to decrease anxiety and other mental health issues. This is one of the reasons why alcohol can lead to emotional and mental health issues.

    Surprisingly, alcohol does not help you get a good night’s sleep. Alcohol may make you sleepy, but it acts more like a sedative than natural sleep. This means that the dreaming phase of your sleep does not work properly, particularly during the early parts of the night when the alcohol is still active in the bloodstream. As dreaming is one of the main natural ways the brain has to deal with the stresses of the day, this has a big negative impact on anxiety.

    How many drinks you have and how often is up to you. You need to make your own judgement. The take home message from this blog is simple – a glass of wine may take the edge of the stress you are under, but it will not do anything for your overall anxiety levels, and may make them worse.

    Photo by Terry Vlisidis on Unsplash

  • The News – On or Off?

    The News – On or Off?

    The world is a stressful place to be in right now. The news is full of bad stuff happening that gives rise to a huge amount of uncertainty. A recent poll by the American Psychological Association, entitled “Stress in America” reveals the impact that the pandemic has had on mental health, with an increase in stress levels as well as an increase in unhealthy coping mechanisms (such as drinking and weight gain).

    Along with the pandemic are other stressors such as worry about rising prices, concern that things are not available in shops, worry about the Russian invasion of Ukraine and its possible consequences.

    I will not go into everything that the survey has turned up – because very little of it is good news.

    There are lots of bad things happening in the world – locally, nationally and internationally. Dwelling on these things can really increase our stress, and really push up anxiety levels.

    Some of my clients have a very simple way of dealing with stress brought on by events in the world – they simply do not watch the news. When there are bad things happening that we have no control over, there is simply no point in worrying about them. Developing righteous anger or worrying about the bad things that are happening will simply make anxiety worse. So a simple answer is to turn off the news.

    That being said, there are also good reasons to watch the news. Some things effect us that we need to know about, and our friends and colleagues will often want to discuss what is going on.

    It’s a question of balance. You need to watch the right amount of news for you. If you are effected by it badly (getting worried, depressed or angry) – then maybe you should watch less, or even turn it off altogether. If it all rolls off you like water off a duck’s back – watch as much as you want.

    To watch or not to watch – that is the question.

    If you cannot manage your anxiety on your own, you may like to consider getting help. In my clinic in Fleet, I help people with anxiety. I use solution-focused hypnotherapy to help them get back in control of their lives and get rid of the unwanted symptoms.

    Photo by Ron Hamlin on Unsplash

  • When getting distracted is a good thing

    When getting distracted is a good thing

    How often do you find yourself supposedly getting on with some job or other, and finding yourself distracted doing something else? Maybe you have a job that you have been putting off because it’s a bit boring, and you just check your social media before you start … 2 hours later you are still on social media and have not started the job yet!

    Getting distracted is not a good thing when you have jobs to do. The brain has a natural tendency to focus on something interesting rather than doing something boring, and so distraction is often a big problem in getting boring stuff done.

    The good news is that we can use this natural tendency to stop our anxieties and worries rearing their head. Anxiety occurs in different ways in different people, and one of the most common ways is worry. We worry about the things that could go wrong, and it seems to go round and round in our heads without ever resolving itself.

    Worry is nature’s way of getting you to do something about a potential problem. If you worry about failing your exams, that worry encourages you to study more. If you worry about being late for work, it encourages you to run for the bus. Once you have done something about it – there is not need to worry. But for some people the worry continues going round and round in their heads, even though they have done everything they can.

    And that is where distraction comes in. A very simple way to regain control of a worrying mind is to distract it. Find something that absorbs you – whether it is reading a book, watching a film or going down to the gym.

    So if you worry about the car breaking down – make sure it is fully serviced and then you have done all you can. So if you find yourself worrying about it after that, just distract yourself. Do something that absorbs your brain into doing something else – whether it is doing the crossword, going out for a coffee with friends, or washing the car.

    If you cannot manage your anxiety on your own, you may like to consider getting help. In my clinic in Fleet, I help people with anxiety. I use solution-focused hypnotherapy to help them get back in control of their lives and get rid of the unwanted symptoms.

    Photo by Ethan Sexton on Unsplash

  • Don’t Think of a Pink Pineapple

    Don’t Think of a Pink Pineapple

    I see many clients in my clinic, and the first thing I ask them is, “What can I do to help?” Most clients usually start by telling all their problems – everything that is wrong with them. It could be their anxiety, their worries, their obsessions, their fears, and all their low moments.

    The next question I ask is, “So, what do you want instead?” It is this question that stumps some of my clients. They just want to get rid of the anxiety, depression, fear, anger, or whatever it is they don’t like about the way they are. But they don’t always think of how they would like to be instead. For example, if they feel anxious when they wake up, I want to know how they would like to feel when they wake up if they weren’t anxious.

    This is the first step in the change process, because it is a very simple fact that when someone thinks a lot about their fear, anxiety, anger or whatever, their brain just gets more stressed and the
    fear, anxiety, anger or whatever gets stronger.

    The brain is not good at processing negative statements. If I tell you, “Don’t think of a pink pineapple” then the first thing you think of is that pink pineapple. That is because your brain finds it difficult to process the “Don’t” part of the statement.

    So if you start to tell yourself, “I don’t want this anxiety/worry/harmful behaviour”, your brain will probably think about it some more, making it more likely to happen. And that is why it is really important to ask yourself, “What do I want instead?”

    This is the crux of all solution-focused therapies, and you can do it yourself. If there are circumstances when you have anxiety, ask yourself, “How do I want to feel in these circumstances” and then imagine yourself being like that.

    For example, if you feel anxious about answering the phone, ask yourself, “How do I want to feel when I answer the phone?” You might answer, “I want to be confident answering the phone.” You can then focus on being confident answering the phone, instead of focusing on not being anxious.

    If you cannot manage your anxiety on your own, you may like to consider getting help. In my clinic in Fleet, I help people with anxiety. I use solution-focused hypnotherapy to help them get back in control of their lives and get rid of the unwanted symptoms.

    Photo by Alex Gruber on Unsplash

  • Can you put off procrastinating?

    Can you put off procrastinating?

    Procrastination … putting something off until another day … maybe tomorrow … maybe next week … maybe if you don’t think about it, it will disappear! Procrastination over something you don’t really want to do – but know you have to – is a great way to add to your anxiety.

    One of my clients had occasional heart palpitations. She needed to see the doctor to get it checked out, but she was scared to go. She was scared to go in case she found out something was wrong. But it kept playing on her mind – she knew she had to go at sometime, and kept putting it off. The longer she put it off, the more worried she got about it. But the more she worried about it, the more anxious she got about going for a checkup. When I helped her get sufficient control over the anxiety, she made the appointment and came back relieved to find there was nothing wrong. “All that worry for nothing!” She told me.

    Any stresses and negative thoughts we have – whether big or small – all have to be processed by the brain. Our unconscious mind (the bit of the brain that carries on doing its job without us being aware of what it is doing) goes through all the memories of the day each night when we are asleep. It goes through the stresses we have had, sorting them out, working out if we need to keep any of them, and taking some of the emotion out.

    The stresses are sorted out during our REM sleep – that is, when we dream. But we only have so much time to dream, and any stresses that are not sorted out in that time are left around to process another time. The more stress that is hanging around – the more likely it is that that primitive part of our brain will create anxiety.

    And when we put something off – when we procrastinate – that unconscious part of our mind also keeps reminding us that whatever we have put off needs doing, because the unconscious part of our mind knows it is important. When we are reminded about something that needs doing, it creates stress. While we procrastinate, the stress keeps coming back again and again until we eventually do whatever it is that we are putting off.

    The more stress we are under, the more likely we are to suffer from anxiety and/or depression – and that is why procrastination is a great way to add to your anxiety.

    So if you are the sort of person who puts of going to the doctor (just in case they find something nasty), puts off checking through your finances (just in case you don’t have enough money to last to the end of the month), puts off applying for that job (in case you don’t get it), or puts off sorting out their tax returns – then you are going to adding to your stress and increase your anxiety.

    So just get it done!

    If you cannot manage your anxiety on your own, you may like to consider getting help. In my clinic in Fleet, I help people with anxiety. I use hypnotherapy to help them get back in control of their lives and get rid of the unwanted symptoms.

    Photo by Magnet.me on Unsplash

  • Sleep – the great healer

    Sleep – the great healer

    The amount and quality of the sleep you get has a big impact on how your brain deals with stress and therefore has a big impact on anxiety, depression and anger.

    We all need a small amount of stress to function. We need to anticipate when something bad might happen so that we can do something about it. We need to recall bad things happening to us so that we can learn from them. We need to be a bit stressed when we have lots to do, because it helps us stay on track and get everything done.

    All this stress has to be processed. The memories around stressful events need to be dealt with, because we do not want to re-experience all the stress every time we recall a bad time. We need to be able to remember things in a way that doesn’t stress us out again.

    Our brains can process a lot of stressful events when we are asleep – specifically, when we dream. We dream for around 20% of our sleep, and usually remember only a small fraction of it – if any. Dreaming is the time when the brain processes all the things it has experienced during the day – and in particular, the stressful stuff.

    Most people can remember a time when they have gone to bed when they are upset about something – maybe they have had a row with their partner, or are annoyed about something that’s happened to them during the day. Then when they wake up in the morning, they think, “What on earth did I get so upset about?” What has happened is that, during their dreams, the brain examined the memory of the event and restructured the memory so that a lot of the emotion has been taken away.

    When you don’t get too much stress in your life, and you get sufficient sleep, the brain is able to process everything that has stressed you out the previous day during a night’s sleep. However, if you have a large amount of stress, or you don’t get enough sleep, then some of the stressful events hang around in your memories to get dealt with later – sometimes months or years later.

    When you suffer a large amount of stress – such as a major accident or the death of someone close to you who you love – this adds a huge amount of stress which your brain spends weeks, months or even years to resolve. Large amounts of stress can also be generated by a continuous stream of small stresses – having too much work to do – worrying about things all day – and so on.

    All this stress has to be processed, and dreaming sleep is our natural way of processing it.

    We dream for around 20% of our sleep, and this is not spread evenly throughout the night. The first part of the night has more deep sleep and less dreaming. The dreaming increases as the night progresses. This means that if you are the sort of person who “gets by” on six hours of sleep a night, and “makes up” for it at the weekend – you are probably missing out on a lot of good dreaming time.

    There are lots of habits you can develop to help you sleep better. Here are a few of them:

    Avoid the habit of getting by with a small amount of sleep and catching up later on.
    Avoid caffeine in the evening. The caffeine in a cup of coffee hangs around in your body for several hours. As a rule of thumb – it the caffeine in that cup of coffee reduces to about half in around five hours.
    Avoid alcohol in the evening. Alcohol is a depressant, and so it does help relax the body, but it also disrupts the dreaming sleep, particularly in the earlier part of the night.
    If you have “stuff” buzzing through your head – write it down. When you have something you need to remember, the brain can keep you awake as it tries to make sure you don’t forget it. So it goes round and round in your head. Write it down and the brain somehow knows you have a record of it, so doesn’t need to bother you about it any more.
    Avoid a big physical workout just before bed. A body workout does tire you out, but your body is still working for some time after a big workout – so it may be more difficult to go to sleep.
    Do exercise during the day. Make sure you get some exercise – even if its just walking round the block. It’s good for sleep.
    Develop a wind-down routine before bed. The brain will get used to the routine and know that it is time to go to sleep.

    Getting enough good quality sleep is an important part of managing stress and anxiety, so it’s worth thinking about how you are managing your sleep patterns.

    If you cannot manage your anxiety on your own, you may like to consider getting help. In my clinic in Fleet, I help people with anxiety. I use hypnotherapy to help them get back in control of their lives and get rid of the unwanted symptoms.

    Photo by Igordoon Primus on Unsplash