How NLP and Hypnosis can help manage Stress

How NLP and Hypnosis can help Manage Stress
by Matthew Ferguson

Modern life equals Modern stress, is there any way-out of here!

Well, the answer lies in understanding how to handle stress because it cannot be avoided.

The stress response is a natural and healthy response to perceived threats, be they physical or psychological in nature. Unrelieved and unnecessary stress is a catastrophe. Doctors surgeries are full of patients whose primary cause of ill health are stress related. Companies are losing billions owing to absenteeism, families and relationships are under threat and our personal wellbeing is being eroded, all because we fail to recognise our stress and manage it. We are often faced with life situations that quite naturally produce stress. A few of things that bring stress in modern life are emotional loss and bereavement, financial difficulties, being bullied and threat from illness, disability or emotional disturbance.

The only control we have over the stressful life situations we find ourselves in is our response and attitude to them, which will lead us to the actions necessary to master our lives.

To develop the right attitudes we need to recognise the signs of stress and then have a method of dealing with it. Neuro-linguistic-programming (NLP) and therapeutic Hypnosis are powerful tools to help you move beyond just coping with stress and managing it, into enjoyment and fulfilment.

So what makes them powerful tools?

The secret is in the way the brain actually works and is not related to a psychological theory i.e. Freudian, Jungian etc. I do not wish to imply that the various psychological theories have no validity. Many do and provide insight as to why a state of mind/emotion have developed. The shortfall is that although they may give reasonable reasons why you have the states/attitudes and behaviours you have, they often do to little to change them.

When your mind is in a relaxed and altered state, similar to meditation, you can access neural networks more easily and learn how to change them. This is what hypnotherapy and NLP techniques can provide when used appropriately. By using insight, cognitive understanding in combination with hypnosis and NLP you can bring radical and lasting change in emotional state, attitudes and behaviours.

We need to harness our energy in the management of stress so that it can become the friend to our creativity and not the enemy of our health. We need to ensure that we have some means of quietening our busy mind (something that all great minds of history have done from Leonardo to Einstein and lesser intellects in-between); therapeutic Hypnosis and NLP does this. It is a personal choice whether that “quite mind” is achieved through, Hypnotherapy, NLP, meditation, music, art, sport, or an other method that allows you to go inside your own mind and discover your own “secret garden”. We all need to have the means to take some “down time” as little as twenty minutes a day is enough to restore the mind to clarity.

We need to get some form of exercise to burn off those stress hormones. A brisk daily walk can be enough to burn off the chemical build up that stress produces. Or, you may choose a more reflective pursuit, such as yoga or martial arts that engages both mind and body.

We need to be aware of what kind of fuel we’re running on. Are we putting leaded fuel in our unleaded engines, so to speak, or are we investing in better quality fuel. Less junk and more of the good stuff. NLP helps us to find out what fuel we are running on and helps us put the best fuel in the tank.

As human beings we need to see our lives in context of something larger than ourselves, be it religious, spiritual, philosophical or political. Something that gives a larger meaning to life.

The challenge of stress is the challenge of life. We have a choice. We can be overwhelmed by it or learn to harness it. Therapeutic Hypnosis and NLP skills can teach us how to harness that energy. We need to learn how to use that energy so that we lead joyful and productive lives.