Tim Maude Hypnotherapy

Category: Stress and Anxiety

  • Press When Full – Eustress

    Press When Full – Eustress

    We all carry stress with us – it’s like having a stress bucket that you are slowly filling up. Now wouldn’t it be great to have a button to press when that bucketful of stress gets too full.

    Reduced to its simplest form, stress works like this :

    • Small amounts of stress – good;
    • Large amounts of stress – bad.

    We all store stress. I describe this to my clients as a “stress bucket”. We all store the stresses of the day in our stress bucket, and then empty the stress bucket either by resolving the issues that cause it, or during sleep where our brains use dreams to resolve the stresses that we carry. So for well-balanced people, it all balances out in the end.

    But it’s when our stress bucket gets too full that problems start to arise.

    Everyone has a different capacity for stress. Some have a huge stress bucket and have an enormous capacity for dealing with high pressure situations. Others have a very small stress bucket – maybe it’s a stress teacup – and seem to blow up at the tiniest thing.

    But however large your capacity for stress – things will go wrong if it gets too full. We start to develop anxiety, panic attacks, over-thinking problems and a whole range of physical symptoms.

    Susan Jeffers is famous for saying, “Feel the fear and do it anyway” – the title of her best-selling self help book. When you are afraid to do something, and you do it anyway, you take on a huge amount of stress. Provided you have the capacity for that amount of stress – this is where you find you can achieve a huge amount. Pushing yourself to the limit of your stress is where we maximise our achievement.

    Hans Selye coined the term “eustress” (pronounced as if you are saying, “You-Stress”). It is defined as the stress you need to achieve what you want, but is not so much that you are overwhelmed. This is the good stress – it helps us get out of bed in the morning and go out to achieve stuff.

    So it is now widely recognised that “some” stress is good. But having too much stress pushes us into anxiety and panic. If you have a very low amount of stress in your life – you are unlikely to achieve very much. Increasing the amount of stress will allow you to achieve more – this is eustress. But when you are too stressed, your performance and achievement drops, you become anxious and you can suffer from panic attacks.

    Another way to describe this is the three zones model

    Comfort zone – just doing the stuff we have always done before and are comfortable with. This is the ultra low-stress zone.
    Stretch zone – doing new stuff that we are slightly uncomfortable with. It stretches us and pushes us outside our comfort zone. This is the eustress zone.
    Panic zone – where we push ourselves too far. We are so far out of our comfort zone that we are filled with anxiety and panic.

    Everyone has to learn how much stress they are happy with – how much stress they need to put themselves under to achieve what they want to achieve, without reaching that breaking point. Once you know that – spend your life mostly in you comfort zone, some time in your stretch zone, and avoid the panic zone. Find the point of stress that takes you into a stretch and the point at which you hit the panic zone, and you can live a happy and fulfilled life.

    References

    Review of “Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway”
    https://www.solutionsforresilience.com/feel-the-fear-and-do-it-anyway/

    Overview of Eustress
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eustress

    Photo

    Photo by Brands&People on Unsplash

  • Using breathing techniques to calm anxiety

    Using breathing techniques to calm anxiety

    There is growing scientific evidence that breathing techniques can help you get your anxiety under control. These techniques are useful in helping with stress, anxiety and insomnia. In this video, I’m going to talk about how controlled breathing helps … and show you a basic technique that you can do on your own.

    Ideas like controlling your breathing, and using your breath to chant … in order to calm yourself down and get into a better state have been around for years … and I used to think that it was all a bit “hippie” and fantastical. But, surprisingly, there is growing scientific evidence to support the theory that it really works.

    One idea, that comes from some branches of yoga is alternate nostril breathing – breathing through one nostril for one breath … and the other nostril for the next breath. Or breathing in through one nostril and out through the other.

    Chanting “om” is another breathing practice from way back. Taking a deep breath, then slowly chant the word “om” … “Ooooooommmmmmmmmmmmmmmm”

    “Follow your breath” is a modern mindfulness exercise. First controlling your breathing – breathing slowly in, hold for a moment, breathe out slowly and hold for a moment. Then just focussing your mind on your breath, paying attention to the feel of it as you breathe in and out.

    We see this pattern of exercises that focus attention on breath, and consciously controlling and slowing the breath. These exercises come from all sorts of different places. So does it work … and what is actually going on?

    We all know that as our emotions change, our body can change with it. You can generally get an idea of someone’s emotions just by looking at them – are they smiling, frowning, is there tension in the shoulders … or have they dropped down into a relaxed position.

    When we are stressed or anxious about something, our sympathetic nervous system comes into play. The brain sends signals to the body to along the sympathetic nervous system to tell it to get ready to deal with something dangerous. Our heart rate increases, our breathing rate increases, our muscles tense and so on. And for this reason, the sympathetic nervous system is sometimes known as the “fight-or-flight nervous system”.

    Conversely, when we are relaxed, content and happy. When we are doing something enjoyable like eating or having sex, the brain sends signals to our body along the parasympathetic nervous system. So the parasympathetic nervous system is sometimes colloquially known as the “feed-and-breed nervous system.”

    It is less well known that these nervous systems work the other way round too. If our body changes, it engages one of these nervous systems, and our emotions can change as a response. Now, not many people are able to consciously slow their own heart rate down, but we can consciously change our breathing patterns. When you focus attention on your breathing so as to make it slower and more regular, it mimics the pattern you get when you’re relaxed. This stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system, which calms your emotions.

    There have been a number of scientific studies to demonstrate that this works. When you focus on slowing down the breathing, the activity in your amygdala – which is the part of the brain dealing with anxiety – reduces. And the activity in the prefrontal cortex – the part of the brain dealing with rational thinking and executive function – increases. And in this way, you can become calmer and less stressed.

    So how do you apply this controlled breathing technique – what do you actually do?

    There may be certain highly stressful situations where you can use a controlled breathing technique to calm you down – just before something important, like an exam or interview. If you have difficult falling asleep – then use it when you are lying in bed ready to go to sleep.

    You can also use it as a regular everyday practice to help reduce the general stresses and anxiety of the day. This is sometimes called the “365 technique”. Do it every day – 365 days a year.
    3 – the number of sessions you do it every day
    6 – roughly the number of breaths you take in a minute
    5 – the number of minutes you do it at each session

    So, 5 minutes sessions, 3 times a day, 365 days a year. In each session, breath roughly 6 times a minute – that’s about 10 seconds a breathe – breath in for the count of 4 or 5, breath out for the count of 5 or 6. Some people say it is better to have a longer out-breathe than in-breathe. That’s the 365 technique.

    So it could go something like this
    ……

    In … 2 … 3 … 4
    Out… 2 … 3 … 4 … 5 … 6
    In … 2 … 3 … 4
    Out… 2 … 3 … 4 … 5 … 6
    In … 2 … 3 … 4
    and so on for about 5 minutes.

    Have a go, you never know, it might work for you.

    My name is Tim Maude. I help people who are only just coping. I use hypnotherapy to help get rid of the negative effects of stress and anxiety.

    References

    https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/proper-breathing-brings-better-health/

    https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/psychpedia/parasympathetic-nervous-system

    Acknowledgements

    Photo by Max van den Oetelaar on Unsplash

  • What is the difference between anxiety and stress?

    What is the difference between anxiety and stress?

    I am sometimes asked, “What is the difference between anxiety and stress?” If you look up stress and anxiety on the NHS website, you will find that they are lumped together. The only difference is that there are some specific disorders that the NHS label as “anxiety” – Generalised anxiety disorder, social anxiety, panic disorder etc.

    I tend to treat it as a scale – mild stress at one end of the scale, through to major anxiety at the other.

    Everyone has a little bit of stress in their lives – even the most laid back, relaxed people feel a tiny bit of stress when their bladder is full and they need to go to relieve themselves. It’s part of life and motivates us to do something towards solving a problem.

    When we have a lot on, or we have to get somewhere on time, our stress levels increase. The stress is our bodies reaction to a potential problem. If it didn’t really matter whether all our jobs got done or not, or if there were no consequences if we didn’t get to that meeting on time, then we wouldn’t get stressed about it – but it does matter – so we get stressed.

    The worse the consequences are, the more stressed we get. When I was at school, I used to get really stressed about French lessons, because I wasn’t any good at it and the French teacher would get really angry and hand out severe punishments for getting things wrong.

    Stress is the feeling we all get that motivates us to avoid something bad happening.
    Stress has both physical and mental symptoms. Blood pressure goes up. Our heart rate rises. Muscles tense. It becomes increasingly difficult to concentrate on anything except the bad consequences that we want to avoid. Now a small to moderate amount of stress is fine – it motivates us to avoid bad things happening to us. But it can get out of hand – and we usually call that anxiety.

    We can unwittingly train ourselves into anxiety. If we constantly think about bad things that can happen – we can overthink things, we imagine what other people think about us, we can get small concerns out of all proportion – If we constantly think about bad stuff that can happen, our moderate amount of stress can become full-blown anxiety and this leads to all sorts of problems.

    Physically, we can get headaches and dizziness; constant muscle tension can lead to tiredness and muscle pain; we can get digestive problems like reflux, IBS, burping, even vomiting; hearts can race and we can get palpitations; some people can get skin complaints or sexual problems.

    A common mental problem is overthinking, where we go over and over bad things in our head. Concentration can become difficult as a result, and sometimes it can be difficult to make decisions. Constant worrying can lead to being forgetful and irritable.

    Anxiety can effect sleep patterns, encourage you to eat too much, or too little, and you can end up drinking or smoking a lot more than you usually do, as you loose a little bit of self-control.

    Other symptoms and side-effects are phobias, OCD, panic attacks, avoidance of social situations and so on.

    So everyone has a bit of stress in their lives. Most people manage their lives quite well with a low level of stress. But if you are only just coping with the amount of stress and anxiety you are suffering from, then remember that you can do something about it. There is a solution – self-help, therapy or medication – they all have their place, but you need to take the first step and decide you want to do something about it.

    Hashtags

    #Stress #Anxiety #Hypnotherapy

    See Also

    NHS on Stress and Anxiety

    https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/stress-anxiety-depression/understanding-stress/

    Wikipedia on Psychological Stress

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_stress

    Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash

  • An Overview of Anxiety and Stress

    An Overview of Anxiety and Stress

    There are loads of people who suffer from stress and anxiety, especially in these uncertain times.  Today, I want to tell you something about it.

    Anxiety comes from a primitive part of your brain deep in the limbic system that seems to have a mind of its own. You can’t just say to it, “Today I not going to be anxious or stressed”. It’s not a question of will-power, because that primitive part of your brain won’t listen – It will stress you out anyway.

    This primitive part of the brain is designed to protect you from sabre-toothed tigers when you are out hunting or gathering. It makes you on edge and gets your body ready to run the moment a sabre-toothed tiger appears.

    So when something happens that makes you upset or angry or even just a bit down, this primitive part of the brain thinks, “Maybe there’s a sabre-toothed tiger around.” And it makes you anxious so that you’ll look out to see where the danger is, and it will get your body ready to run.

    Sometimes, the primitive part of the brain gets a bit ahead of itself, and makes you anxious when there’s no reason to be. It can learn to get really good at getting you anxious when there’s nothing there.

    The other thing that happens is that all the stresses in your life build up. It’s like you’ve got a bucket in your brain that all your stresses go into, and it’s filling up. Now, when you’re asleep, when you’re dreaming, your brain starts to sort through the bucket and empty it. The problem occurs when you’re filling it up faster than you can empty it.

    So you’ve got two problems. One is that the brain has learnt to make you anxious when you don’t need to be, and the second is that you have a bucket full of stress that’s filling up too fast.

    Okay … so what do you do about it?

    My job is to help people with stress and anxiety in all its forms. I use hypnotherapy to help them learn new non-anxious patterns and also empty their bucket of stress faster than they can fill it up. But what can you do on your own?

    Firstly, you can learn to be calm and have that sense of well-being: The key thing here is to practice being positive. You may only manage it for a few seconds to start with, but with regular practice you will build it up. Think about the positive things in your life. Interact with people in a positive way, and do something positive – even if it just doing the washing up. Take a few seconds to acknowledge that you have done something positive.

    Gradually, over time, you will find that your brain gets used to being positive, and the anxiety diminishes.

    Then you have that bucket full of stress that needs emptying. This is done quite naturally during sleep, so … don’t cut yourself short of sleep. You can empty even more of your bucket by doing things like meditation and mindfulness, or simply doing something that gets you totally absorbed – getting immersed in a good film, or a video game or a sport where you can just switch off and focus totally on something you really enjoy. When you do these things, your mind goes into a light trance and your brain can start sorting out that stress bucket in the background.

    Hypnotherapy can speed things up a lot, but you can tackle it yourself. Whatever you choose to do … I wish you all the best.

    Photo by Keyur Nandaniya on Unsplash