How hypnotherapy can help manage anxiety and promote recovery

Anxiety is something that touches many people’s lives; the latest research suggests that close to one in six adults in the United Kingdom alone have an anxiety disorder every year.

The common features of anxiety include general rumination, muscular anxiety, and a feeling of terror, which can hinder normal living and general functioning. If not managed, the anxiety worsens; the person experiences insomnia, a weakened immune system, and damaged social relationships.

Hypnotherapy has been discovered as a good approach for anyone in search of good treatment methods. The effectiveness of hypnotherapy is that it addresses the particular concern in the second level of the mind, where anxiety stems from. It helps people learn how to interrupt thought patterns and core beliefs that trigger the experience of anxiety and pressure, provides true recovery and a way out from the problem, and helps people take their mental well-being back.

Understanding anxiety and its causes

Generalised anxiety disorder is characterised by elevated levels of watchfulness and concern, provoked without provocation. This includes palpitations, scatter-mindedness, and physical unrest. These symptoms occur randomly in some, and others will have constant anxiety; it does not leave them even in their sleep.

Although the causes of anxiety are rooted differently, they are typically fixed in place by stress, traumatic experiences, and beliefs/fears. Anxiety disorders also result from such factors as genetics, environment, and behaviour that are earned or inherited.

A critical component of anxiety is located in the subconscious mind, which holds patterns/reactions that dictate those reactions. Coping with these patterns is frequently the main focal point of dealing with anxiety and bringing about long-term change.

What is hypnotherapy?

Hypnotherapy is a technique involving helping an individual engage their conscious mind into a state of relaxation to achieve a subconscious level. While stage hypnosis might sound like an amusement activity, clinical hypnotherapy is a deliberate and professional service. Clinical hypnotherapists get to change and revisit other fixed beliefs and assumed patterns that lead to anxiety.

Often, in a hypnotherapy session, the hypnotherapist leads the client into a state in which cognitive processing is facilitated and relaxation is promoted. Despite misconceptions, those participating in the hypnotherapy process remain in full control and cannot be forced to do something they do not want to do. This assurance, in most cases, puts the clients at ease when it comes to treatment. This state is the intermediate between daydreaming and the state before going to sleep.

The benefits include a reduction in symptoms, an increase in self-awareness, and changing negative patterns of thinking to positive ones. Hypnotherapy minimises the causes of anxiety, and therefore, recovery is permanent without side effects.

Techniques used in hypnotherapy for anxiety

1. Progressive relaxation

Progressive relaxation is one of the most basic hypnotherapy strategies designed for the release of tension. The therapist assists the individual in exhaustively guiding the muscles to relax so that one decreases the physical tweak of anxiety, like tense muscles and short breaths. This technique creates a condition of rest within which the patient is able to stabilise their feeling. After some time, a client may notice any feeling of tension in their body, which may be helpful to counter it before it gets out of hand.

2. Guided imagery

Positive visualisation is when the patient is asked to think about something that can reduce anxiety, such as visualising positive events. For instance, thinking of the crystal clear sea beach or fresh green forest distracts the mind from stressful factors.

It is a technique that also soothes, given that it involves taming an aspect as well as strengthening positive thinking. In guided imagery, one may hear the sound of the waves or touch the sand and actually feel the draft of the sea. This makes it a powerful technique because it is not only about hearing, feeling, or smelling but actually being at the scene.

3. Suggestion therapy

Suggestion therapy involves the use of positive remarks or actualisation to alter the actions of the unconscious mentality of any individual. Substituting such thoughts as “I am calm and in control” can be used in turning narcissistic cognitions into a pattern of coping. It proves to be more useful in the cycle of anxious thoughts than other types of thinking.

The client tends to get used to positive affirmations, and they help rewrite the wiring of the brain, thus becoming part of the client’s thought process. With time, it can completely alter a person’s self-perception into capabilities and tenacity levels.

4. Cognitive-behavioural hypnotherapy

In hypnotherapy, clients learn new ways of thinking by embracing cognitive-behavioural procedures most of the time. For example, a hypnotherapist may assist a client in changing unhealthy phobias into reasonable anxieties. In some cases, this might mean questioning and altering the early ways these child anxieties are often interpreted and reforging them with more effective, adult-oriented cognition.

When using this approach, people get cured of catastrophic thinking by adopting rational and empowering beliefs, as the case studies show. For example, a person with social anxiety will switch from thinking, “If I interact with others, they will judge me,” to “I am capable of being myself and making friends with people.”

Examples of success with hypnotherapy

Hypnotherapy for anxiety has seen a lot of changes in most people’s lives. For instance, a young employed woman diagnosed with public speaking anxiety attained escape from fearing to present using guided imagery and suggestion therapy.

Another example was about a college student with examination stress. With the help of progressive relaxation and CBT, he learned to become a relaxed, focused student and achieve academic success without the tag of a frightened child. 

These testimonies speak volumes of how hypnotherapy has the ability to bring a deep and permanent shift in mental status.