Tim Maude Hypnotherapy

Tag: #anxiety

  • Sleep and Anxiety

    Sleep and Anxiety

    Getting a good night’s sleep is very important if you suffer from anxiety. The problem is that people who suffer from anxiety can suffer with sleep problems – not being able to get to sleep, not being able to get back to sleep once you have woken up, and waking up too early can all lead to sleep deficit. The brain and body need more sleep, but they are not getting it.

    Anyone who has had a baby or toddler who wakes up in the night demanding attention – they know the problem of sleep deprivation. Lack of sleep makes you more likely to snap at little irritations, makes you more stressed, and it becomes easier to drift into that malaise of not bothering with the normal patterns of life. All these negative emotions come from the primitive part of the brain that needs sleep to keep it under control.

    Sometimes, circumstances stop you getting enough sleep – your partner snores, you work unusual shift patterns, you have a child who needs you in the night, or you are in physical pain. These are things you cannot help and you have to choose – either live with it or find ways of working round the problem.

    As well as giving the brain a chance to sort out the emotional memories, sleep also helps the physical body restore itself. Sleeping well helps an individual maintain their physical health, and long-standing poor sleep is associated with a wide range of health problems.

    Why is sleep so important when you have anxiety?

    Lack of sleep can make anxiety worse. When you are asleep, the brain processes the emotional experiences you have had during the day – in particular, it processes the stressful memories. The bad things that have happened will either be forgotten or processed, so that the emotion associated with those memories is removed or dulled down.

    Most people will have experienced a time when they got angry about something or other, and then they wake up in the morning wondering why they ever got cross about it. During the night, your brain processes those stressful experiences leaving you with less stress on your plate the following day. You wake up wondering why you got so upset by it all.

    So if you don’t get enough sleep, and you have a lot of unresolved stresses, your brain does not get a chance to process them all at night. The next day you wake up still carrying the stresses from the previous day. For people that have highly stressful experiences, such as a serious accident, a close friend or relative passing away, or the sudden loss of their job … for these people, the stress can take days, weeks or months to be processed. PTSD sufferers may have years of putting up with unresolved stress. People who are sleep-deprived don’t deal with the stresses of everyday life well – as they haven’t had a chance to deal with the stress that they have already experienced.

    Sleep is important for everyone, but it is particularly important if you have anxiety – because it puts you in that vicious cycle of lack of sleep increasing the anxiety, which in turns disrupts your sleep. If you do suffer from anxiety – look at your sleep patterns and see what you can do to make sure you get as much sleep as you need.

    Photo of baby awake in bed by Michal Bar Haim on Unsplash

  • Looking After Your Own Mental Health

    Looking After Your Own Mental Health

    Family Stress and Anxiety

    The people I meet with anxiety are invariably stressed. I come across many people in my clinic who just have too much to do – often looking after their family. Whether it is earning money to keep a roof over their heads or organising the kids to make sure they have breakfast before going to school, it all adds stress. Too much stress can give rise to growing anxiety.

    We cannot all live stress-free lives. Stress is a natural part of living. Stress is needed to achieve things – even if it’s only a small amount. But small amounts of stress add up. When you have responsibilities for children and other close relatives, you feel the stress more intently.

    Everyone is different

    Everyone is different, everyone handles stress in a different way, and everyone has a different capacity for stress before anxiety sets in. You have to judge for yourself how much stress you can cope with in your life.

    How do you know if you are too stressed?

    When you are too stressed, the primitive part of your brain starts to get a hold. You are more likely to have those moments of frustration; you might find yourself snapping at people (especially your family – the ones you love); you might start developing minutes or even hours of anxiety or helplessness. When you start to become overwhelmed and those negative emotions of anxiety, depression and anger start to come into play – that is the time to take charge.

    The trap of ever-increasing stress

    One problem with being part of a family is that you are constantly negotiating about who does what. Children are natural negotiators – sometimes it’s easier to tidy the kids’ rooms yourself than to get them to do it. And so it become very easy to take on just one more job. Your day might be full, but when the job of organising a weekend away comes along, you somehow fit it in … and when you do go away for the weekend, you somehow find all the jobs you would have done that weekend and fit them elsewhere. We can suffer from a drip-feed of increased jobs that stress us.

    Your mental health comes first

    When you are sitting in a plane, waiting for the flight, you will watch the safety demonstration. One thing they always tell you is … if the oxygen masks come down, put your own mask on before you help someone else. This always seems counter-intuitive. If you have your own child with you, your instinct is to help them first – but the instructions say you should put on your own mask first. Of course, we know the reason for this – you can’t help others if you are in trouble yourself.

    You need to look after your mental health and, bizarre though it seems, it is sometimes important to look after yourself first before you look after the needs of your family.

    Is stress a problem?

    Increasing amounts of stress is only a problem if it’s a problem. If you can cope with it all – fine. Hundreds of people cope with a lot of stress and don’t need to do anything about it. Just be aware that the ever-increasing stress trap can creep up on you.

    Everyone is different. The only person who can determine if you have too much stress is you.

    What do I do if stress is too much?

    You need to prioritise your mental health. Taking time for yourself to relax, go for a run, have a day in the spa, go a play football with your mates, or whatever it is you need to take a break – this is the oxygen mask in the plane. This is what you need to prioritise over the other demands on your life.

    And you might have to say, “no” to people who ask you to do something. You might have to delegate your jobs to someone else for a while. You might have to just stop doing some of the things you are doing, and ask yourself, “Which is more important, doing this – or my own mental health.”

    If you are having difficulty coping with stress and anxiety on your own, you may like to give hypnotherapy a go. From my clinic here in Fleet in Hampshire, I work with people who are only just coping with stress and anxiety. I use hypnotherapy to help them regain control of their lives.

    Photo by Logan Stone on Unsplash

  • Phobias – the most common form of anxiety

    Phobias – the most common form of anxiety

    It is estimated that around 10 million people in the UK has a phobia, that is, more than one person in every seven. Some phobias are simple and some are complex. For some people a phobia is a slight annoyance; for others it dominates every aspect of their lives.

    What is a phobia?

    A phobia is an irrational fear of something. Someone with arachnophobia will feel an uncontrollable fear and anxiety when they see a spider. There is no rational reason for this fear; the spider is almost always harmless, but even so, the fear is real.

    Some phobias are simple. The simple (albeit irrational) fear that comes over them when they see something: spiders, frogs, cows, birds, clowns, lightening and so on. Other phobias are to do with doing something – a fear of flying, having a vaccination, going to a hospital, talking on a phone, vomiting and so on. And then there are the more complex phobias such as fear of going to somewhere new, or fear of social occasions.

    Almost anything can be the subject of phobias. Some unusual ones that have been recorded include a fear of belly buttons, string, mirrors and peanut butter (and almost anything you can think of).

    What is the phobic reaction?

    When someone with a phobia encounters the object of their fear, they experience genuine fear – that is, the same fear that you would have if your life was in danger. It is usually a totally irrational fear, and so many phobics are often embarrassed by their reaction. It is embarrassing because it is irrational and because the people around them are not fearful.

    Where do phobias come from?

    Many people like to know where their phobia comes from. Knowing this helps them rationalise why they have the fear, and it helps them explain it to others.

    Some phobias are picked up in childhood by the young developing brain as it learns by copying reactions from the parents. If one or both of the parents have a phobia of spiders, say, the child may well pick up on that fear (quite unconsciously) and develop a similar phobia themselves.

    Other phobias are developed by a single incident. For example, if a child is by a pond looking at the frogs and falls in, then mother rushes over panicking and drags the child out, then the child picks up on the mother’s fear and associates it with the frog, and so develops a phobia of frogs.

    What happens inside the brain of a phobic?

    Within the brain, fear is created by the fight-flight-freeze centre – the amygdala. The amygdala is a very primitive part of the brain. It is not clever and is incapable of working out what fears are rational and what are not. Nor is it capable of coming up with a different reaction. All the amygdala does is check what it did last time it the person encountered a spider / frog / needle etc and to repeat it.

    The amygdala’s fear response overrides the rational response. The thinking part of the brain (the prefrontal cortex) finds it upsetting that it experiences fear when logically there is nothing to fear – and in some people, the prefrontal cortex starts to make up stories to rationalise the fear, even though the story may also be nonsense. For example, someone with a fear of birds could start to believe that the birds are plotting against them.

    How do you fix a phobia?

    Like all mental health issues, a phobia is only a problem if it’s a problem. Many phobics live quite normal lives except for an occasional hit of anxiety when they see the object of their fear. If this does not happen often; if they can live with it, then it’s not a problem.

    If it’s a small problem, then you could just wait and see if you grow out of it. Older people are less likely to have phobias, telling us that a lot of people with phobias when they were young grew out of them.

    If you have a phobia that really effects your life badly (and believe me, some phobias can be devastating), then you should consider therapy. Two common forms of therapy that treat phobias are Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CPD) and Hypnotherapy.

    Phobias are quite fixable, and you can get treatment that will lead to the fear going away completely or at least reducing by a point where it become tolerable.

    What happens during CPD treatment of phobias?

    The CPD treatment of a phobia is likely to include gradual exposure to the object of fear. For example, the arachnophobic may first be shown a picture of a spider from a long way off for a brief second. Once they can tolerate that, the picture will be shown for longer and a bit nearer. Once that is tolerated, they move on to watching a video of a spider, and so on. Each time getting closer to being able to tolerate a real live spider in close proximity.

    What happens during hypnotherapy treatment of phobias?

    In a hypnotherapy treatment of phobias, the hypnotherapist will spend some time just talking to you – getting to know you and allowing you to get used to them. They may ask you to talk about your phobia, but don’t be surprised if they discuss other things too. Then they will lead you into a relaxing trance and ask you to imagine things. They will ask you to imagine some fantasy – some might say farcical – events involving the object of your fear, in a way that is calm and relaxed – even comical.

    If you have a phobia that is dominating your life and you want help dealing with it, you might like to consider contacting me. My hypnotherapy clinic is in Fleet in Hampshire.

    Photo by Ayo Ogunseinde on Unsplash

  • How does Hypnotherapy Help With Anxiety?

    How does Hypnotherapy Help With Anxiety?

    Hypnotherapy is one of several therapies that can help if you suffer from anxiety. I see clients with anxiety, and it usually takes only a few weeks for them to regain control of their lives. So how does hypnotherapy actually work?

    First, you need to put aside any notion of stage hypnosis. Hypnotherapy does not work by me snapping my fingers and suddenly everything has changed. As a hypnotherapist, I cannot make you do things that you don’t want to do. All I can do is lead you down a path – and you can follow if you want to.

    Anxiety and the Brain

    Anxiety comes from a primitive part of your brain – the fight-flight-freeze centre – that you are not consciously aware of until the anxiety hits you. Somehow it has programmed itself incorrectly so that it produces anxiety when there is no need to be anxious. Hypnotherapy is all about encouraging that part of the brain to rewire itself.

    That primitive part of the brain is more active the more stress you carry. When you have big stresses in your life, it takes a while for the brain to deal with it. It’s like you are carrying round a big bucket of stress. Hypnotherapy is also all about emptying that stress bucket.

    We say that the brain is plastic. That is, it constantly reshapes itself and readjusts as we give it new information and new experiences. Some changes happen when the new experience is happening, but a lot of those changes happen afterwards when the brain consolidates its memories. And this consolidation happens when the brain is not busy with doing other things – when we are asleep for example.

    So how does Hypnotherapy Help?

    So … back to the original question … how does hypnotherapy help with anxiety? When you are in a trance, the brain finds itself in a quiet relaxed state and uses the time to sort out some of your memories and experiences. In particular, it will start to rewire itself towards a position that is uppermost in your mind. So if the hypnotherapist has discussed an anxiety-free future, full of hope, then the brain will start to rewire itself towards that goal.

    Hypnotherapy helps people with anxiety in a variety of ways. Some of my clients notice that things have started to change after a couple of sessions. Others are with me for five or ten sessions, and then one day they turn up and they are suddenly a different person. Everyone is different, and I am always interested in how my clients experience the change in their anxiety levels.

    If you need help getting your anxiety under control, then you might like to experience the benefits of hypnotherapy. I operate my hypnotherapy clinic here in Fleet, Hampshire.

    Photo by Oscar Keys on Unsplash

  • Micro-dosing and Anxiety – the Facts

    Micro-dosing and Anxiety – the Facts

    If you follow one of the many online communities of anxiety sufferers, it won’t take you long to find an advert for micro-dosing. It will probably be hidden in the comments – someone will tell you what a great thing micro-dosing is. So what is micro-dosing and does it really help? Is it a great cure for anxiety or over-hyped nonsense?

    What is micro-dosing?

    Micro-dosing, or more strictly “psychedelic micro-dosing”, is the practice of taking regular small quantities of a psychedelic drug such as psilocybin – the psychedelic compound in magic mushrooms (or sometimes Lysergic acid diethylamide – LSD). The quantity taken is small, maybe a tenth of the dose usually taken for recreational purposes, so that any psychedelic effect is so small as not to be noticeable.

    Advocates of micro-dosing say that it has a positive mental effect on anxiety as well as other mental issues. They say, for example, that it will increase your focus and energy, helps you be ‘in the moment’, increases empathy, increases your sense of wellbeing, helps you come off and stay off medications such as anti-depressants, and reduces cravings. As someone who has never tried micro-dosing, I cannot tell you whether or not these benefits are real, but there are many advocates who report positive mental effects anecdotally.

    What is the evidence for micro-dosing having a positive impact on anxiety?

    The studies that have been carried out have mixed results. There is a lot of anecdotal evidence that micro-dosing has a positive effect on mental well-being (that is, people tell you it has had a positive effect, without being part of a controlled experiment). There are many advocates who are convinced that it has a positive impact. The scientific studies do, however, come up with mixed results.

    The gold standard for clinical trials of any drug is known as RCD – a Randomised Control Trial – in which a group of people are randomly split into two groups. One group takes the drug and the other takes a placebo, and no-one know which group they are in. In an RCD it is possible to compare the effects of taking the drug with that of not taking it without any inherent bias to the experiment. I find it difficult to find any reported RCD trials of micro-dosing.

    There have been studies that look at people who have decided to take up micro-dosing that have shown a positive mental impact. But be wary of this result, as it could be that the positive mental impact was simply down to expectation – the subjects believed they were going to feel better, and that belief made them feel better.

    Is micro-dosing for anxiety safe?

    Micro-dosing is an unregulated market in the UK. This means that if you order any online, there are no standards to which suppliers have to conform, and no external checks as to what you will receive. You will get different strengths of psilocybin from different suppliers, and there will be no external checks as to their safety. (Which is a concern as psilocybin comes from a fungus, and some other fungii are poisonous.)

    There are no studies on the long-term impact of micro-dosing, so there is no scientific evidence that tells us whether it is safe in the long-term, or that it causes long-term difficulties. It is known that some people take it long-term and appear to be fine doing so, but there is no evidence to help us understand if this is always the case with everyone.

    What is the legal status of micro-dosing?

    In the UK psilocybin – magic mushroom – is classified as a class A drug, and it is illegal to possess, grow or sell it. So, if you do try micro-dosing psilocybin to help your anxiety, you will be breaking the law. Wikipedia provides a handy chart that explains the legal status of magic mushrooms in many countries.

    Conclusion

    The jury is still out. There is no scientific evidence that micro-dosing can help with anxiety. However, there is no scientific evidence to show that is does not help, indeed, there are many advocates who say they have experience of it working well.

    In the UK and many other countries, micro-dosing is illegal and unregulated, so I do not recommend you try it (unless, of course, the local laws where you live permit and regulate it).

    If you are only just coping with anxiety and you want some help, you might consider hypnotherapy. I help people with anxiety and stress to get their lives back on track using hypnotherapy in my clinic here in Fleet in Hampshire.

    A few articles and sources of information

    https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/the-popularity-of-microdosing-of-psychedelics-what-does-the-science-say-202209192819

    https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-01811-4

    https://www.nature.com/articles/s41398-022-02039-0

    https://mushies.co.uk/blogs/news/how-to-microdose-magic-mushrooms-in-the-uk-2022-guide

    https://www.microdosing.com/

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

    Photo by Tania Malréchauffé on Unsplash

  • Sleep and Anxiety – the Ongoing Conflict

    Sleep and Anxiety – the Ongoing Conflict

    Increasing anxiety can mean you sleep badly – sleeping badly can increase anxiety. On the other hand lowering your anxiety can improve your sleep – and improving your sleep can help reduce anxiety.

    Many people who have anxiety and stress issues will recognise the experience of waking up in the night and then finding it difficult to get back to sleep – with all those anxious feeling and worries going through their head. And this compounds the real problem, because regular nights of good sleep helps sort out anxiety.

    Sleep Phases

    When we sleep, we go through phases – some of the time we have deep sleep and at other times we are sleeping very lightly. These are important in order to keep your body and mind healthy. One of the stages of sleep is known as REM (rapid eye movement) – the stage when we dream. REM sleep accounts for around a fifth of our sleep patterns, although most people rarely remember much of it.

    During REM sleep, our brain consolidates our memories. It looks at things that have happened recently and processes them, getting rid of unwanted stuff and reconfiguring the rest. You may have heard the expression, “Sleep on it.” If there is something that is worrying you – put it aside and look at it again in the morning and you will view it differently. Why? Because during the night, while you are in your REM sleep, you process that bit of memory and so a lot of the emotion is taken out of it.

    How Sleep Helps with Anxiety

    So a good nights sleep will give you around an hour and a half of REM sleep in which to process all your worries and regrets so that they don’t look so bad the next day. This means that the fight-flight-or-freeze centre of the brain is less likely to be triggered and less likely to generate as much anxiety.

    And I know that it’s all very well telling someone with anxiety, “just get enough sleep,” but that doesn’t help when you wake up in the middle of the night worrying and cannot get back to sleep again.

    Sleep Tips

    There is no one answer that can guarantee a good night’s sleep. What works for one person may not work for another. So the trick is to have a go at different things – just see what works for you. Remember – if what you are doing at the moment doesn’t work, then try something else.

    Let’s start with some “don’t”s

    • Don’t try to go short on sleep and catch up on the weekend
    • Don’t drink alcohol just I order to help you get a good night’s sleep
    • Don’t drink caffeinated drinks before bedtime

    And some “do”s

    • Do have a wind-down routine before bedtime
    • Consciously relax every part of your body as you lie in bed
    • If you have anything that’s worrying you – write it down so that your brain doesn’t have to keep reminding you to deal with it

    Sleep is so important to our lives, and these few tips do not do do it justice. I will come back to fully exploring sleep tips another time.

    If you have problems coping with your anxiety and stress on your own and are looking for some help, then you may wish to consider hypnotherapy. I work out of my clinic in Fleet, Hampshire helping people get their lives under control and reducing the symptoms of stress and anxiety.

    Photo by Kate Stone Matheson on Unsplash