Tim Maude Hypnotherapy

Tag: #anxiety

  • Petrified When Flying? Hypnotherapy Can Help

    Petrified When Flying? Hypnotherapy Can Help

    In the last few days there has been a horrendous incident where a plane collided with a fire-fighting vehicle at LaGuardia Airport New York. This is an isolated incident, but it can only heighten the anxiety of people planning to fly in the coming weeks.

    Fear of Flying and its Consequences

    There are many people who experience anxiety when flying or when they are about to take a flight. This can range from mild nervousness to full blown panic attacks or anywhere in between.

    For people who are expected to fly for work, this can be a real problem. The anxiety that is generated by the flight can only inhibit their ability to do their job of work properly while they are away.

    For those who simply want a holiday in the sun once a year, this fear can ruin the anticipation of a good holiday, and ruin the holiday because of worry about the flight back.

    How Hypnotherapy Helps With Fear of Flying

    Hypnotherapy helps by tackling the primitive parts of the brain that is generating the fear. The people I have helped get over a fear of flying fit broadly into three categories:

    • People who have had a bad experience of flying in the past.
    • People who are always anxious when they fly, but for no apparent reason.
    • People who have never flown and have anxiety over taking their first flight.

    Each of these people have anxiety thinking about flying as well as being on the flight itself. Hypnotherapy allows them to calm down that part of the brain that generates the anxiety.

    One client, who had a particular fear of the take-off and turbulence called me up after his trip. He said that on the return flight, they took off in the midst of a violent thunderstorm, so that as the plane left the ground they were already in massive turbulence. “I actually quite enjoyed it.” He told me.

    Hypnotherapy works best shortly before the flight itself. I usually start to see people about two or three weeks before their flight.

    Other Options

    Although I would highly recommend hypnotherapy, you should be aware that other options are available.

    • Self medication – Some people take over-the-counter medication to keep them calm or drowsy for the flight.
    • Prescribed medication – Drugs to calm you are available from your doctor if the symptoms are bad enough.
    • Fear of flying courses are available from many airlines.
    • Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is available from the NHS provided your symptoms are bad enough.

    I am aware of people who self-medicate with a lot of alcohol. Personally, I would not recommend this option.

    Ask Me About the Hypnotherapy Option

    If you want to enquire further about hypnotherapy as an option to help with your fear of flying, Contact Me on the form below and I will get back to you to arrange for a free 15 minute consultation. Then, if you want to book in, I can arrange that too.

    I work out of my clinic in Fleet, Hampshire, and also work online.

    References

    LaGuardia Air Crash


    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c620w12y59

    Photo by Kelly on Pexels

  • Hypnotherapy is Just Rewiring The Brain

  • Get Your Anxiety Under Control Without Drugs

    Get Your Anxiety Under Control Without Drugs

    Do you live under an everyday cloud of anxiety, but don’t want to use drugs to help you cope with it? Believe me, you are not the only one. A lot of my clients come to my hypnotherapy clinic telling me that their doctor has suggested that they start taking medication to calm their anxiety. They don’t want to take medication and so are looking for an alternative.

    Don’t get me wrong. I am not anti-medication. For some people medication is a good solution to anxiety. However, there are many people who don’t want to get into the habit of taking anti-anxiety medication, or they have tried it and it doesn’t do much for them.

    Anti-anxiety medication is designed to rebalance the chemicals in the brain, so that the area that creates the anxiety calms down a bit. This is also possible using hypnotherapy.

    Hypnotherapy For Anxiety

    Hypnotherapy is not like you see in the movies or on the stage. I cannot snap my fingers and make you change. What I can do is to help your brain create the right conditions to make changes. Very few people find themselves empty of anxiety after one or two sessions. It takes a bit of time. Typically, I see people for between five and ten sessions (although I cannot provide any guarantees).

    Once the anxiety has gone, or at least massively reduced, I have a conversation with my client. I ask, “Are you ready to do this on your own now?” and we come to an agreement as to when to finish.

    Many of my clients ask me, “Would it be okay if I come back if it gets bad again?” Of course, I always say, “Yes”, but hardly anyone ever does.

    And Finally …

    If you want to tackle your anxiety issues without resorting to medication, then you may like to consider hypnotherapy. You can Contact Me if you would like a free phone consultation to help you decide. I work out of my clinic in Fleet, Hampshire and also online.

    Photo courtesy of Polina Tankilevitch on Pexels

  • Is Worry The Same As Anxiety?

    Is Worry The Same As Anxiety?

    Are you a worrier? Do you worry about all the things that might go wrong? Are you constantly anticipating your world falling apart? Maybe you are experiencing anxiety.

    Some people are always asking themselves, “What if …?” What if my partner gets ill? What if they have to give up work? What if we don’t have enough money to pay the mortgage or the rent? This is one of the patterns of behaviour that we see in someone suffering from anxiety.

    Worry is not the same as anxiety. Worry is enhanced by anxiety. People who have anxiety have different symptoms. One of the most common symptoms is worry.

    Anxiety is a natural reaction. If you were to live in a dangerous part of the world, you might well be anxious, because anxiety is the brain’s way of getting you to focus on things that might be dangerous. Anxiety helps you focus on those life-threatening things that might happen in a dangerous world.

    The problem happens when the anxiety-inducing part of the brain becomes over-stimulated. It reacts when the situation is not life-threatening, and then it reacts again and again … producing a seemingly endless supply of “what ifs”.

    But don’t worry … there are solutions to the problem of ever-constant worry.

    The first step is to recognise that these worries are out of proportion with the chances of them happening. This does not stop the worrying per se, but it does help you get a sense of proportion about it all.

    The next step is to engage the rational part of your brain. Ask yourself, “Is this likely? Can I do anything about it? Is it the end of the world if it did happen?” If you need to do something about it – then do it, and then move on.

    And finally, move on to deliberately focus your mind on something more positive. Notice the positive things in your life and appreciate them. This action directly counteracts the anxiety’s pressure on your brain that gets you to focus on the “what ifs”.

    And Finally …

    If you want help getting over your worries, then you might like to consider hypnotherapy. I specialise in helping clients with anxiety and/or depression. I work out of my clinic in Fleet, Hampshire as well as online. Contact me if you want a free, no-obligation chat.

    Photo by Liza Summer on Pexels

  • Can Anxiety Be Cured?

    Can Anxiety Be Cured?

    I see many people with high levels of anxiety every week in my clinic. When I ask them what they want from hypnotherapy, a very common answer is, “I want to feel normal.” They don’t ask to be cured of anxiety … they just want to be normal.

    What Is Anxiety For?

    For the majority of mentally healthy people, anxiety occurs in their life occasionally. This is quite normal, because anxiety is a natural mechanism that humans have to help them avoid danger. It is a survival instinct.

    Imagine our hunter-gatherer ancestors. When they went out looking for food, there might be danger around them – dangerous animals, enemy tribes, poisonous mushrooms, steep cliffs … and so on. To be anxious in a dangerous world is a sensible thing to do, because anxiety draws your attention to the things that might be dangerous.

    If our ancestors heard a noise, their anxiety would make them stop and ask themselves – is the noise something dangerous? The anxiety would make them worried about moving into unfamiliar areas or trying unfamiliar foods. Anxiety made them think of all the things that might go wrong. It was, and still is, our survival instinct.

    So anxiety has some use. If we lived in a dangerous world, then it would be very important. But in most (not all) places in the world, what goes on around us is generally fairly safe.

    So Why Do People Get Anxious In Safe Situations?

    The primitive part of your brain responsible for generating anxiety, the limbic system, is not particularly clever. It learns patterns and sticks to them. It is not concerned with how you feel; it is just concerned with keeping you alive. It can become over-sensitive and then trigger anxiety over little things. In the extreme, it can trigger anxiety as soon as you wake up in the morning, and keep it going all day.

    This limbic system in our brain acts independently to your thoughts, but it can influence your thoughts. I can make you worry about all the things that might possibly go wrong, however unlikely, and it can just create a feeling of anxiety without any thoughts at all.

    Anxiety is a safe situation is simply the limbic system in the brain being over-sensitive and creating anxiety when there is no need to be anxious.

    Can You Cure Anxiety?

    You don’t want to eliminate anxiety all together, as it can be a useful survival mechanism when you do occasionally need it. What you want to do is to calm it down, so that you are only anxious when it is appropriate to be so.

    The clients I see have anxiety levels way above what I would consider to be “normal” or “healthy”. The anxiety they have is out of proportion to the levels that are appropriate. So I do not “cure” them of anxiety, I simply help them get their anxiety levels back to an appropriate and healthy level.

    Hypnotherapy For Anxiety

    I use hypnotherapy to help my clients get their anxiety under control. This is not the only thing that can help people. However, it is very effective. I love to use solution-focused hypnotherapy, which does not dig into the past to try to explore where the anxiety came from. I do not really care where the anxiety came from. I am more concerned with where my clients are going to. In this way I can use hypnotherapy to lead them forward into the life they want to lead.

    If you are interested in using my services, I work out of my clinic in Fleet, Hampshire as well as online. Contact Me and I will be happy to have a chat to answer any questions you might have.

    Photo courtesy of Kerry at the Mental Health Foundation

  • Hypnotherapy in the New Year

    Hypnotherapy in the New Year

    I am excited to be back seeing my clients again after a couple of weeks break. This morning, however, the temperature was minus 5 and there was a light covering of snow, making the paths quite slippy. I went out to get the heating in the clinic on, and brushed a path through the slippy snow.

    An hour later and the clinic was still not up to a temperature that I would call “comfortable”. Fortunately, my first client was on Zoom, rather than seeing me in person. By the end of the session, my clinic was feeling toasty, ready for my first face-to-face client.

    I love my job. I love seeing clients move from a state of not knowing how to cope with their anxiety, to a state where that anxiety disappears into the background. It is a pleasure to witness the changes little by little, until they reach the point where my clients no longer need me.

    If you (or any of your family) are struggling with anxiety in any one of its many forms, I would be pleased to hear from you. Just Contact Me and I will be glad to have a short phone consultation so that you can decide whether you want to give hypnotherapy a chance to prove itself.