Tim Maude Hypnotherapy

Category: Stress and Anxiety

  • How full is your stress bucket?

    How full is your stress bucket?

    Our “stress bucket” is a metaphor for how we manage stress. The idea is that the fuller our stress bucket, the more those negative anxiety-related symptoms start appearing. The stress bucket can be filled up by things like work, relationships, finances, and health problems. Generally speaking, any negative thoughts are likely to add to the stress bucket.

    If our stress bucket gets too full, it can lead to physical and emotional problems associated with anxiety. These problems can include headaches, muscle tension, sleep problems, digestive problem, excessive worry, loss of libido and depression … as well as all sorts of other symptoms.

    It is important to remember that everyone’s stress bucket is different. Some people have a larger stress bucket than others, so some people are better at managing stress than others. Some people manage their lives with high amounts of stress everyday; whereas others find it difficult to cope with even a small amount. It is not important how big your stress bucket is. However, you do need to learn how much stress you can cope with while still living a happy and productive life.

    In order to avoid the symptoms of anxiety, we all need to lead our lives according to the size of our stress bucket. If we find the stress bucket is too full, we need to make adjustments to our lives. These adjustments can be big (like changing jobs) or small (like cutting down on social media use) – and it all depends on what is creating the stress in the first place.

    It is useful to learn techniques for reducing stress. Generally living a healthy lifestyle – eating healthily, getting enough sleep and exercising and so on – all these will help.

    I recommend to people that they get to know what their capacity for stress is, and adjust their lives accordingly. If you have difficulty doing this on your own, you can seek help through therapy or medication. If you want to give hypnotherapy a try, do contact me for a chat.

    References

    Articles on the Stress Bucket

    https://mentalhealth-uk.org/blog/the-stress-bucket/
    https://www.hey.nhs.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/OHC_StressBucket.pdf

    Photo by Riin Aisent on Unsplash

  • How Hypnotherapy Can Help With Anxiety

    How Hypnotherapy Can Help With Anxiety

    Millions of people suffer from anxiety in one form or another. For some people, anxiety becomes a normal part of everyday life, but chronic anxiety should not be seen as normal. Hypnotherapy is one way of treating anxiety. Hypnotherapy helps people reach parts of the brain that are outside their conscious control, where the anxiety is generated.

    Anxiety

    Whatever form the anxiety takes, it is generated from a primitive part of the brain. That part of the brain is outside our conscious control, so we cannot simply decide not to be anxious. It is a reaction that is learned over time, and is much more likely to happen when we are under stress.

    Anxiety can be debilitating. It can have a massive negative impact on our lives. Some people live with chronic anxiety, assuming it to be normal, but it is not. Anxiety is treatable. It is quite possible to live our lives with little or no anxiety at all.

    Treatment for Anxiety

    There are three broad areas of treatment for anxiety:

    • Life style changes – Exercise, eating properly, sleeping well, meditation, mindfulness and so on.
    • Medication – Antidepressants, beta blockers, and anti-anxiety medication for example.
    • Therapy – Hypnotherapy, CBT, Counselling and other therapeutic practices.

    People find some of these practices to be more effective than others – but there is no general rule. We have to find what suits us best.

    Hypnotherapy and Anxiety

    Hypnotherapy works well with anxiety because the anxiety is generated outside our conscious control. Hypnotherapy works on the unconscious parts of the brain – the parts we don’t have any conscious control over. It allows those parts of the brain to rewire themselves into patterns that are more useful.

    You may have heard about the plasticity of the brain – the ability of the brain to constantly change as we learn new skills, think of new ideas, and change our thinking patterns. Sometimes it learns the wrong thing – it may learn to be anxious when it is inappropriate to be so. Hypnotherapy can help it re-learn that reaction, so that we can deal with stressful situations more appropriately.

    Hypnotherapy is not magic. A hypnotherapist does not simply click their fingers and make everything better. It may take time and a bit of effort, but after a few weeks, changes start to emerge.

    If you suffer from anxiety, in any one of its many forms; if you would like to get it under control; if you think that hypnotherapy might be an option for you – then contact me to talk it through, and see what hypnotherapy can do for you.

    Photo by Gift Habeshaw on Unsplash

  • Stress – An Overview – Part 3

    Stress – An Overview – Part 3

    In the first two parts of “Stress – An Overview”, I examined the different types of stress and the impact that chronic stress can have on the body and mind. This section, the last of three in the series, looks at stress hygiene.

    Stress hygiene

    We clean our teeth every day, not because our teeth are diseased, but to prevent our teeth getting diseased. Clean your teeth is a simple daily practice that we have in order to maintain dental hygiene. In the same way, there are practices we can all put in place in order to maintain our mental hygiene, in particular, how stress response.

    Things we can do on a regular basis to help improve. Our stress hygiene levels are:

    • Sleep – getting enough good quality sleep is important for your stress levels.
    • Exercise – just as exercise helps your physical body. It will also help control stress levels.
    • Focus on the positive – sometimes negative things happen, and, yes, we have to think about them, but to get the balance right and spend more of your time thinking about the positive things in life than the negative.
    • Positive action – do something. Do anything. Do something that is worthwhile to you and to your friends and family.
    • Interacting with friends and family – positive interaction will always help your stress levels decrease.
    • Me-time – Make sure that you have some me-time, that is time that you can spend relaxing.
    • Focus – take up an activity that allows you to focus your brain mind and train it to remain focused. For example, mindfulness, yoga, meditation, tai chi.

    References

    Effects of stress on the body
    https://www.healthline.com/health/stress/effects-on-body

    Different types of stress.
    https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/open-gently/201812/the-three-types-stress

    Eustress
    https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/eustress-vs-distress

    Photo by George Pagan III on Unsplash

  • Stress – An Overview – Part 2

    Stress – An Overview – Part 2

    In the previous part of “Stress – An Overview”, I looked at different types of stress and identified chronic stress as the type of stress that gives cause for concern. Part 2 looks at the effects of chronic stress – both physically and mentally.

    Physical effects of chronic stress

    When someone gets stressed, the brain starts to engage the fight or flight mechanisms within their body. With chronic stress, the brain is on high alert for something to happen at every moment. It starts to prepare the body to either run from something dangerous, or to fight it. It floods the body with adrenaline and cortisol, and the body responds to the change in chemicals.

    • The heart speeds up in order to send more oxygen to the muscles which may be needed. The blood vessels constrict, so that more oxygen is sent to the muscles. This increases the blood pressure. With chronic stress, the increased blood pressure can lead to other physical complications and difficulties with the circulatory system.
    • The breathing rate increases in order to get more oxygen into the body. The muscles tense up in order to protect the body from attack. With chronic stress, this can lead to tiredness, muscle spasms and headaches.
    • The bodies resources are diverted from the digestive system, as food digestion is not a priority in times of fight or flight. Sufferers may experience, constipation, IBS, acid reflux, and other digestive problems.
    • Resources are also diverted from the sexual organs, which can lead to a loss of libido, erectile dysfunction, vaginismus and reduced fertility.
    • The body’s immune system may not function as well as it should, leading to an increase in the number of infectious diseases.
    • The skin may develop eczema.
    • A range of other physical changes and conditions may occur such as an irregular menstrual cycle, migraines, sleeping difficulties, and high blood sugar.

    People suffering from chronic stress often have one or more of these physical conditions.

    Mental effects of chronic stress,

    Long term chronic stress can lead to further mental health problems. In a brain that is experiencing chronic stress, the primitive part of the brain becomes more active, and encourages the thinking part of the brain to feel bad as well as creating overwhelming compulsions. For example:

    • Anxiety
    • Worry
    • Panic attacks
    • Anger
    • Depression
    • Loss of motivation
    • OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder)
    • Agoraphobia
    • Loss of self-esteem
    • Self-blame
    • Self-harm
    • Anorexia Nervosa
    • Bulimia Nervosa
    • Binge eating

    Most people undergoing chronic stress will just develop increasing periods of anxiety. Some may develop other symptoms too.

    References

    Effects of stress on the body
    https://www.healthline.com/health/stress/effects-on-body

    Different types of stress.
    https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/open-gently/201812/the-three-types-stress

    Eustress
    https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/eustress-vs-distress

    Photo by George Pagan III on Unsplash

  • Stress – An Overview – Part 1

    Stress – An Overview – Part 1

    Introduction

    Everybody has stress sometimes. When we oversleep and realise we have to be off to work within the next 15 minutes; when we are really busy and we are suddenly given another five urgent tasks to complete; when we’re having a quiet conversation and there’s a loud crash as someone drops a dinner plate on the floor behind us. These are the times that we experience stress.

    Types of stress

    There are different types of stress:

    • Eustress – low-level stress that assists you getting through a lot of work
    • Acute stress – a short episode of stress in response to something that has happened
    • Chronic stress – persistent or continuous stress that happens most of the time.

    There are stressful times that most of us will be familiar with at sometime in our lives. They are moments of acute stress that stay with us for a short time and then dissipate. This is our natural response that says to us, “There’s something wrong – you need to do something about it now.”

    Just as acute stress draws our attention to something that might be wrong, eustress (pronounced you-stress) is a low-level stress that stays with us for longer periods of time and helps us get through a lot of work. Many people enjoy the experience of eustress, as it makes them more productive and they get a thrill out of doing a lot.

    However, chronic stress is stress that continues all day and every day – with barely a break. Eustress and acute stress on natural parts of every day life by people who enjoy a healthy lifestyle. Chronic stress, however, can lead to a lot of negative consequences.

    Causes of chronic stress.

    Chronic stress starts out with a lot of regular or continuous stressful events. These periods of acute stress run in to each other, so that the body is not able to recover from one episode of acute stress before another one starts. This means that the person is in a continuous state of stress.

    One example of modern-day stress is a stressful job where the expectation is that you will do more work than you have time for, and you have to take your work home with you. This sort of job delivers a constant low or medium-level stress with very little let-up.

    Other examples include people who find themselves in constant highly stressful situations that they are not able to get out of: A parent with a baby who doesn’t want to sleep night after night; someone who is bullied regularly who will not only be under stress while they’re being bullied, but also find themselves constantly stressed as they worry about being bullied.

    In these circumstances, the brain reenforces the pathways that lead to stress, because they are being used all the time. The pathways that lead to relaxation and calm are not used and it becomes harder and harder to relax as those pathways are underused. The brain learns that a state of chronic stress is “normal” and so stays in that state, even when there is nothing to be stressed about.

    References

    Effects of stress on the body
    https://www.healthline.com/health/stress/effects-on-body

    Different types of stress.
    https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/open-gently/201812/the-three-types-stress

    Eustress
    https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/eustress-vs-distress

    Photo by George Pagan III on Unsplash

  • A Perfect Anxiety Storm

    A Perfect Anxiety Storm

    Are you an “OK” cleaner, or does your room have to be perfectly clean?

    It is surprising how often I meet a perfectionist in my anxiety clinic. Not that they tell me they are a perfectionist on the first session … it sort of emerges later. Sometimes they don’t realise they are a perfectionist until they examine themselves more closely. Of course, I never tell them they are a perfectionist – that’s not my job – I do not diagnose or analyse my client’s character, I simply help them to get to where they want.

    There’s the person that wants their room to be perfectly clean every day, or the blog writer who edits and re-edits their blog thirty times until it is just right. I once saw a man trimming the edge of his lawn with a pair of scissors in order to get the perfect neat edge …these are the perfectionists. They want the things within their control to be done perfectly.

    There is nothing wrong with desiring perfection – unless that desire is a source of anxiety. The problem comes when the perfectionist gets stressed out as they try in vain to achieve perfection. They build a self-imposed vision of their perfect world and get stressed out trying to achieve it – and then trying to maintain it. And that stress builds – and the stress creates anxiety.

    It is a hard lesson to learn, but we all have to learn it at some time in our lives … “Good enough is good enough.” It is nice when we achieve perfection, but if whatever we do achieves its purpose, then it is good enough.

    Whatever you can control – get it to be good enough. Cleaning your room so that it is hygienic and reasonable neat is good enough. You don’t have to clean under the bed every day. If your blog gets the main message over, you don’t need to re-edit it thirty times. Good enough is good enough.

    And yes, it is nice to achieve perfection once in a while – but you don’t have to stress about it – provided you have achieved something that is good enough.

    If you have trouble controlling your levels of stress and anxiety on your own, you might like to give hypnotherapy a try. I run my hypnotherapy clinic in Fleet, Hampshire – you can always try giving me a call.

    Photo by Jeremy Perkins on Unsplash