Stress Management
Stress is a natural physical and mental reaction that affects us all to a certain degree. We can’t completely eliminate stress from our lives, but we can learn to manage it.
If utilised in a constructive way, stress can actually be beneficial for us. Stress can help us power our way through deadlines at work, stay clear-headed in chaotic situations, give athletes that extra boost in competition or enhance an actor’s or singer’s stage performance.
However, stress was meant to be a temporary state. Once we pass that “fight or flight” moment, our bodies should return to a natural, normal state. Sustained or chronic stress can create an adverse reaction that is experienced due to excessive pressures and demands placed on an individual. Everyone has a different threshold for coping with stress, but when we go beyond our saturation point, the effects can be overwhelming.
Some symptoms of excessive stress:
- lack of concentration
- negative thinking
- sleeping problems
- fatigue
- irritability
- anger and frustration
- lack of confidence
- feeling of anxiety
- panic attacks
Continued exposure to stress can also lead to physical health problems or exacerbate current health issues. A sustained stressful state will take a toll on the body, possibly raising blood pressure, creating muscle tension and headaches, exacerbating asthma or making us more vulnerable to illness among other things.
How Does Hypnotherapy Help?
Everyone has a stress bucket. From the time you wake up in the morning to the time you go to bed, the stresses and strains of the day keep adding up and the bucket fills. Luckily, the mind has a way of emptying the stress bucket and that is through REM sleep. However, only 20% of our sleep pattern is dedicated to REM, so if you are piling too much into your stress bucket, it can overflow.
The amygdala is responsible for our fight/flight instinct and is a key centre in our Primitive/Emotional Mind. As long as the amygdala is on high alert, our Primitive Mind is in control and we have difficultly engaging the higher cortical regions of the brain where our rational and intellectual faculties and our decision-making abilities reside.
The benefit of Solution Focused Hypnotherapy is two-fold:
1) Trance works by helping calm down the amygdala, reaching the subconscious to lower our overall stress levels and thus helping to empty our stress bucket.
2) Solution Focused Hypnotherapy (SFH) draws on our strengths and internal resources and helps us to work from the positive, pre-frontal cortex, thus finding solutions to our problems. SFH helps the client move away from any negative, self-defeating thought patterns and forward with a more positive mind-set. SFH creates a more confident you and helps you regain control of your life and emotions.