Mental Health Exercises
A recent article featured in the Daily Mail has revealed how a hypnotherapist and some effective mental exercises helped to turn around one women’s life-long fear and anxiety.
Liz Jones had been suffering from fear and anxiety for years, and though she had considered alternative therapy in the past she had always pictured hypnotherapy to be the stereotypical swinging a watch in front of your eyes scenario.
When Liz finally reached the stage where her fear was effecting her daily life, she decided to take the hypnotherapy plunge and visited hypnotherapist Sally Stubbs in the Lake District for a week of intensive therapy.
There were no swinging watches involved like Liz had envisaged, and instead she was asked to think about why she felt this crippling fear among other feelings such as failure and loneliness. This process allowed Sally to uncover the root cause of Liz’s fear, which turned out to be caused by two main contributing factors – an over protective mother and a traumatic attack which she had experienced when just a child.
Liz really felt as though she had reaped the benefits of her intensive therapy and upon leaving the idyllic Lake District setting she felt much braver. Though Liz would have liked to have gone back for follow up sessions money and time constraints meant that this was very difficult. Instead Sally sent a copy of her self help book ‘If Life Gives You Lemons: How Ten Seconds A Day Can Bring You Happiness’, which contains some great tips to help individuals stay mentally healthy. Listed below you can find a few of the mental exercises which Liz felt really helped her to get back on the road to recovery:
Write down your worries - Physically writing all of your concerns and worries onto a clean sheet of paper removes them from your head and allows you to look at them more objectively. These could be anything from ‘I can’t pay off my loan’ through to ‘I’m worried I’ll die single and childless’.
Be proactive with negative thoughts - If you want to change negative thought patterns then you have to be proactive. If you are laying awake in bed at night worrying then even the simple act of getting up, moving around and changing your physical position can help. You could also try going somewhere different such as a park or field so that you can sit and think about the issue. This method is known as ‘clean space’ and was developed back in the Seventies by psychologist David Grove. The idea is that a change of surrounding can make things seem much better and clearer.
Self validate - Praise yourself for something you are good at to help build your confidence. Some people may consider it to be ‘cocky’ to praise themselves but it is all about balance. Confidence doesn’t have to be about being pushy but it is about making sure you are not walked over.