How to Relieve Stress and Anxiety

Stress and anxiety is one of the most common problem people seek therapeutic help for. Treatment with Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy has proven to be one of the most effective ways of dealing with stress and anxiety. Common symptoms for stress are: feeling irritable, overwhelmed, tense, tried, fatigued, lacking in energy, low concentration, headaches, anger and/or frequent crying, feeling unable to cope, lack of apetite and feeling depressed. Stress releases various hormones in the body as response to an alarm and threat, emotionally or physically, whether it's actual or percieved. Stress can be described as a stream of anxiety which effects our feelings and behaviour in a negative way by not finding an appropriate way to be expressed. Your stress response has a lot to do with how you think, how you perceive what is happening around you and your perceived ability to cope. Some people may not recognise that their stress is actually anxiety, as there has been a stream of anxiety for so long that it has been accepted and internalised, and therefore, not being noticed. So, first step is always to become aware of what are the underlying thoughts and feelings? What causes the stress and anxiety? What am I worrying about? What am I fearing? What is my belief about myself, situations and other people? As a Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapist & Counsellor I have worked with numerous people suffering from anxiety and feeling unable to cope with their lives. When looking at peoples stress or anxiety problems in detail, it is common to find feelings of fear, worry, low self-belief, having unrealistic expectations, looking at the world or themselves in black or white (i.e. complete failure or total success), or other thinking distortions. Thinking distortions, or unrealistic, negative beliefs trigger the stress hormones to be activated and released into the body, but stress and anxiety can be managed. Unhelpful and unrealistic thinking must be recognised, evaluated and challenged as to the validity and helpfulness of those thoughts. By looking at beliefs we have, or things we might be telling ourselves we can look at how true, constructive or useful they are and come up with more true, helpful and better ways of thinking. By challenging the distortions in our thinking that are making us stressed we can begin to stop them and replace them with healthier and more constructive thoughts that will have a positive effect on our feelings and behaviour. Learning self-hypnosis and deep relaxation techniques are helpful tools to bring ourselves down to a calm and rational place where you can see things in a more balanced and reasonable way, relieving anxiety and stress by calming mind and body.