Hypnotherapy Anxiety, Stress, Depression Awareness
A recent article in the Metro quoted a survey suggesting a third of British employees across junior and senior roles suffer from anxiety, depression or stress - a sixth from mental health issues – suggesting the role of technology blurring the lines between home and work life over recent years. The technology they suggest, especially smartphones, has increased our need to reply to calls, emails and social media more and more outside of working hours creating relentless pressure from always being on call and feeling unable to escape the usual stresses of work.
And even today, many of us feel the need to hide our anxiety, stress or depression from our bosses, fearing the label of not being able to cope and the stigma attached to mental health. This just adds to the existing levels of anxiety, stress or depression and simply exacerbates the issues and their effects. There are strategies available to help you manage:
Acknowledge the issue - your first step to feeling better is to acknowledge you're struggling with anxiety, stress or depression so you can work towards a solution. There could be any number of causes but usually, some life events or situation has spun out of your control and challenged your ability to cope - or perceived ability to cope - and you adapt your lifestyle to offset the negative effects. For example, drinking, taking drugs, chain-smoking, bottling up feelings, and avoiding situations may be some of the classic signs of anxiety, stress or mild depression offering short-term relief, but rarely offering a long-term solution.
Take control – loss of control is one of the key contributors to anxiety, stress and depression. If you keep saying to yourself that you can’t do anything about your problem then you allow these feelings of anxiety, stress and depression to continue and maybe increase. Keep reminding yourself there is always a solution to any problem as taking control of the problem is empowering, and positive and builds emotional resilience. And this is crucial to finding a solution that works for you.
Be positive – look for the positives in life and things for which you are grateful every day. As an exercise write down 3 things that went well at the end of every day - simple things - like the train was on time, a meeting that went well, or you finished your work assignment. But if my clients are feeling completely overwhelmed by negative thoughts we shrink the negative thought into a small ball mentally and place it in the far corner of the room, to sit and be quiet, whilst we turn our back on the negative thoughts and focus on the positive. Just by naming the negative thought, it loses its power and control and you can break that cycle where negative thoughts go round and round in your head. A negative outlook can make you feel worried and guilty and can impact your self-confidence, but remaining positive helps you to retain feelings of being in control even when situations seem to be conspiring against you. Being able to change a negative thought into a positive one is an important strategy to manage levels of anxiety, stress and depression.
Laugh - connect with people and build a good support network of your colleagues, friends and family. They can provide support and help you to see things differently by talking things through and finding a solution. Just being with people can also help you to relax and have a good laugh. Laughter itself is becoming more popular in the treatment of anxiety, stress and depression. A good side-splitting, belly laugh that reduces you to tears helps to relieve tension and can instantly refresh your mood.
Take time out – we all need some. Exercise reduces your adrenaline levels and triggers the release of endorphins to help you re-energise, feel calmer and be able to relax. Exercise won’t make your stress disappear, but it will reduce some of the emotional intensity that you’re feeling, clearing your thoughts and letting you deal with your problems more calmly.· Yoga is a unique method for helping with symptoms of anxiety, stress and depression. Deep yogic breathing, postures and meditation are regarded clinically as beneficial, low-risk, low-cost treatments for stress, anxiety and depression. Yoga can enhance well-being, mood, attention, mental focus, and stress tolerance.· Book some chillout nights to do the things you enjoy and get some quality "me time". Work smarter, prioritise and don’t be tempted by overtime so you can keep those nights for yourself· Challenge yourself by setting new goals.
Cognitive behavioural therapy CBT is one of the most used therapies in the treatment of stress, helping you identify negative thinking patterns and also providing you with important stress management tools and skills. Through stress management hypnotherapy CBT and NLP we can help you manage stressful situations more positively and calmly. We work with an integration approach to tackle automatic responses to stressful triggers, so you can think feel and behave differently in these situations. The integration of hypnotherapy and psychotherapy is more effective than using NLP alone. The self-awareness that the integrative approach offers renders it a highly successful way to quickly eliminate negative thoughts, emotions and limiting beliefs allowing you to generate a more positive future, improving stress sensers response.
