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stress / anxiety / panic
The constant demands of many people's lives place them under stress. Can hypnotherapy help the people of Sheffield reduce their stress? A little stress is helpful to motivate us, but exposure to too much can result in many negative emotional, cognitive, and physical effects.
People who are suffering from chronic stress may feel they experience a lack of concentration, are more irritable, have frequent headaches, or an absence of energy. Symptoms of acute stress can include temporary psychosis, aggression and avoidance of situations that are usually easily tolerated.
Both chronic and acute stress are related to anxiety and feelings of panic. When the mind feels it cannot cope, it produces feelings associated with danger to encourage the avoidance of the stimulus which is interfering with its function.
Hypnotherapy is particularly effective in treating stress, anxiety and panic disorders. It can help in shifting the perception of stress, increase the ability to cope with stressful events, and work towards lasting change.
The General Adaption Syndrome (GAS) is a theory of chronic stress that was first developed by Hans Selye in the 1930's. Although this model has been updated by such luminaries such as Robert Sapolsky and Bruce McEwan it remains extremely relevant today, and increasingly so.
I thought it might be helpful to give a quick overview of the idea, in particular with reference to modern day stress, and in the context of hypnotherapy and treating stress related disorders such as anxiety, panic, and depression, among others.
Stress hormones give us the energy to either fight or run but the long term effects of this are to make our immune system less capable and to damage our cardiovascular system and make us more vulnerable to diesease such as diabetes - which will inevitably lead to more stress!
In order for us to avoid the damages of the stress response we must try to avoid its constant triggering, and this can be difficult considering that the mind also triggers the stress response for unreal or imagined stressful situations which may produce anxiety or panic.
Hypnotherapy is a a good tool when trying reduce problems associated with the stress response. It helps change our perception of stress, increases our resiliance to stress, and allows us to focus more on the present, which also reduces stress because sources of stress, anxiety and panic are more than often rooted in the future or past.
The human body has developed a brilliant mechanism to prepare the human body to deal with dangerous situations - the stress response. Humans receive a stressful stimulus and respond by releasing hormones which result in the classic desciption of conditions in which stress, anxiety, and panic occur; the fight or flight response.
The immune system is affected by stress hormone release, although in two subtly different ways. Initially in both cases the activity of the immune system increases to fight off any biological attack. If the person is subject to major stress events the immune system's activity will crash and cease to be able to protect the body. People suffering from this type of stress exposure often become ill when they are able to have a holiday and be free of the stressors, and subsequent hormones, which keep the body going. The second scenario is where people are subject to smaller stress events but on a daily basis, such as worrying about going to work morning, but being able to calm down when at home. This smaller releases of stress hormones keep the immune system operating at high levels. This is good for fending off infections, although consumes massive amounts of energy leaving people exhausted and leaving them more prone to autoimmune disorders if the system malfunctions due to being driven too hard.
