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Hypnotherapy for Anxiety and Panic Attacks

Could hypnotherapy help you overcome anxiety and panic attacks?

Anxiety is a state of mind you experience when you’re overly fearful or worried about what might happen in the future. Panic attacks occur when your anxiety reaches a certain level which triggers a strong response in your body. You might:

  • struggle to breathe
  • have racing thoughts
  • shake
  • feel hot
  • feel weak
  • feel sick
  • feel as though you are about to pass out.

The good news is that hypnotherapy for anxiety and panic attacks can help you break free from these nasty symptoms. You can enjoy feeling more calm, confident and in control.

When you’re experiencing anxiety and panic attacks symptoms it can feel overwhelming. It’s scary to feel out of control. My clients often describe a wave of anxiety or a panic attack as something that just ‘comes over them’, almost as if they are being hi-jacked by the feeling.

Whilst you might feel shy or embarrassed about your anxiety symptoms, I can almost guarantee there will be other people (perhaps closer than you think!) who have experienced the same thing.

The trance behind anxiety and panic attacks

When people come to see me for hypnotherapy, they often ask questions about being ‘put under’. They might ask whether they can be put in a trance. I completely understand why they ask this. After all, no-one wants to lose control and behave in ways they wouldn’t want to.

People are often surprised when I respond by saying that their anxiety and panic attacks are caused by their trance state. They have already been in a trance! Trance is a natural, every day state that occurs when our mind wanders away from the here and now. How many times a day do you think your mind wanders from the present moment? I reckon it’s more than a few.

My job is to my clients break the unhelpful pattern that their ‘anxiety trance’ is creating. I teach them how to live with less worry, more perspective and a greater sense of calm and confidence. I believe all my clients have everything they need to break free from the misery of anxiety and panic attacks.

Why cognitive hypnotherapy works so well for anxiety and panic attacks

Cognitive hypnotherapy works so well for anxiety and panic attacks because it works with the unconscious mind. Your unconscious mind is always concerned with your safety and security. It’s  making hundreds of decisions, outside of your awareness, to guide your thoughts and behaviour to keep you safe.

For example, when you experience a panic attack, your unconscious mind will think you are under a serious threat. Your unconscious thinks its dealing with this risk when it triggers the ‘fight, flight or freeze response’ which causes the panic attack.

The problem is, your unconscious mind can over-calculate the threat posed to you. I’ve worked with clients who felt anxious or had panic attacks in social situations, visiting a new place, doing presentations or just walking down the street.

Clearly none of these situations posed any threat to that person’s safety, but their unconscious had made a mistake and had triggered a protection response anyway. My approach recognises that your anxiety and panic attacks are not rational or something you can just ‘decide to stop’ doing. By working with the unconscious mind rather than your rational mind, clients can move on from their anxiety more quickly and naturally.

 

Top tip: If you suffer from anxiety and/or panic attacks, avoid the temptation to push unpleasant symptoms away or suppress them. When you do that, it can make symptoms worse as your mind thinks you are ignoring an immediate threat to your safety, so it will shout even louder! Instead, count your breaths and recognise that what you’re experiencing is your mind trying to protect you. Allow the feeling to move through your body. Almost as if you’re a conduit. In allowing it to pass through, it will do so more quickly and easily.

My success with anxiety and panic attacks

When working with people who suffer from anxiety and panic attacks, I help them teach their unconscious mind to respond in a way that is appropriate for the situation.

We can use many different techniques to ‘re-train’ your mind to respond more positively when you want to. I work in a very flexible style, so if you don’t get on with one technique, we can easily move on to another.

Cognitive hypnotherapy has a research project which shows it is effective in the treatment of anxiety. Personally, I love helping clients overcome anxiety and panic attacks because the benefits ripple out to so many other areas of their lives. Clients report a dramatically higher quality of life and a renewed sense of freedom which is a joy to witness.

Interested in exploring hypnotherapy for anxiety and panic attacks?

If you would like help to overcome anxiety and/or panic attacks and want to explore how hypnotherapy could help, why not book in for your free, 60 minute consultation. We can either talk over the phone or face-to-face in my therapy rooms in Central Manchester.

The consultation is completely free of charge and there is no obligation to book in. It is the perfect opportunity to ask questions and feel more confident in finding the right person to help you.

Contact me today.

4 October 2018