Anxiety And Stress - Use Hypnotherapy And Overcome Them And Relax

Now more than ever, scientific investigations are confirming the fundamental role of stress in triggering or aggravating various psychological and somatic disorders. A headline from a 1983 Time Magazine labeled stress “The Epidemic of the Eighties.” It also claimed that stress is a critical health problem. Indeed there is very little doubt that our world has become more and more complex and stressful over the last two decades since that article was published.

Numerous surveys show that most adults feel that they are under a great deal of stress. Researchers in the field estimate that 75 to 90 percent of the visits to primary care physicians are for stress related issues.

Most adults say that their job is the primary reason of their stress. And stress levels have also increased in children and the senior population for reasons including: Peer pressures that often push people to everything from smoking to alcoholism and drug abuse; the loss of family and religious values and ties; increased crime rates; fear for personal security; and last but not least social isolation and loneliness.

Stress can be responsible for conditions such as diabetes, ulcers, low back and neck pain, high blood pressure, strokes and heart attacks. This is due to the augmented sympathetic nervous system activity along with the release of cortisol, adrenaline, and other hormones. Chronic stress is often associated with lower immune system resistance. Stress can cause anxiety, depression, and its different impacts on one’s organs.

”Stress” is defined as follows by the American Heritage Dictionary: “To subject to physical or mental pressure, tension, or strain”

The following is the definition of “tension” from the same dictionary: “Mental, emotional, or nervous strain”

The following definition is given for “anxiety”: “A state of uneasiness and apprehension, as about future uncertainties”

And it defines “depression” as follows: “The condition of feeling sad or despondent”

”Clinical depression” is defined as follows: “A psychiatric disorder characterized by an inability to concentrate, insomnia, loss of appetite, anhedonia, feelings of extreme sadness, guilt, helplessness and hopelessness, and thoughts of death.”

We can nonetheless be sure that our mind is the main source of our experience of stress, anxiety and depression. We could also say that, what we think about, and our attitudes and the way we view our experiences strongly influence what we feel. That way, if we can learn how to change our thoughts, attitudes, and points of view, then we can eliminate our feelings of stress, anxiety, and depression and replace them with a more positive state of being.

People have always sought out methods that would allow them to dissipate stress. With the pharmaceutical industry there seems to be a pill for everything. And to that end the industry has designed a wide array of anxiolytics from Valium to Xanax. If you choose to use drugs for relief, please be sure to pay attention to the fine print and learn about the side effects, which commonly are, among others, addiction and dependency. Indeed these types of drugs try to treat the symptoms, instead of the cause. So when one stops taking them, the symptoms can return.

A more intelligent method to eliminate tension, stress, anxiety, and depression is to work on its actual cause, which as I said above, is generally our thought processes. Now, here is some good news. The essence of hypnosis is relaxation. The AMA recognized hypnosis in 1958 as an effective way to treat stress or stress related symptoms. Moreover unlike pills, there are totally no undesirable side effects.

Hypnosis is the Alpha level of consciousness. It’s the daydream like temporary psychological state which we feel as we are just about to fall asleep at night. And we feel it once again when we awaken again. There are hundreds of different ways we can guide ourselves into this relaxed mood, from progressive relaxation to visual imagery to listening to hypnosis CD’s.

Once in the hypnotic state, we are able to interact with our unconscious mind, which is the seat of our feelings. And one can more easily accept new points of view and ideas that will help us to get rid of anxiety, or even avoid it completely.

Neuro-Linguistic Programming or NLP, which is a modern sort of hypnotherapy, has numerous excellent techniques for releasing stress. Maybe the technique that works best is called the “swish” pattern - or the “flash” pattern. After using the “flash” pattern, your unconscious will automatically use bad, stress producing mental images, as triggers for relaxation producing mental images. In other words, your stressors will now cause relaxation!

TO SUM UP Tension, stress, anxiety, and depression can be triggered by our thoughts. So by changing our attitude and the way we feel about our situation and what we’ve experienced, we can get rid of these feelings at the source. Hypnosis and NLP are natural tools that make it possible to change our attitude and point of view to easily get rid of the main cause of these negative feelings.

Alan B. Densky is an NGH certified hypnotherapist. He offers a complete line of stress reduction NLP CDs, and advanced stress management CDs through his Neuro-VISION hypnosis website. You can visit his video hypnosis blog, and download a free MP3.

- Alan B. Densky, CH