Latest articles on Hypnotherapy

“The yips” was once used to specifically describe a challenge experienced by golfers but nowadays it is used as a general term to describe an issue faced with athletes who need to use their fine motor skills to be successful in their sport. This includes but is not exclusive to golf, snooker, darts, archery, cricket or bowls. In fact, it relates to any game where precision is required to make that all important difference to winning or losing. Yips can affect both amateurs and...

Anxiety is something we all experience from time to time. Most people can relate to feeling tense, uncertain and, perhaps, fearful at the thought of sitting an exam, going into hospital, attending an interview or starting a new job. This type of short-term anxiety can be useful, for example feeling nervous before an exam can make you feel more alert and enhance your performance. However, if the feelings of anxiety overwhelm you, your ability to concentrate and do well may suffer. The 'fight or...

We all worry at times. Worrying shows we care about our lives and the things and people that matter to us, but when worry becomes excessive it can make our lives less enjoyable. Time spent worrying is really time spent not living! This vicious cycle of negative thinking takes us ‘out of the moment’ and either back into the past, going over what has already happened, or into the future stressing about what may happen. The mind tends to want to remember and keep hold of worries. This...

It’s normal to feel a level of nerves or to get a little anxious at times, such as when preparing for a special event or exam, or when entering into unfamiliar situations like a new job or social circle. Sometimes, a certain level of stress is natural and/or needed to help us to perform well and do our best. However, if anxious feelings grow and are not dealt with they can become a problem. Prolonged stress, big life changes, health, work or relationship issues and or past trauma can all...

What is cognitive bias? How can we recognise it? And how can we stop doing it?"You are today where your thoughts have brought you.You will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you". Cognitive bias is patterns of distorted thinking. We all think in distorted ways from time to time - some more than others. Problems arise when we have cognitive bias more often than not... It is important to remember that your thoughts are not necessarily correct and may be heavily skewed for a variety of...

We all experience different levels of stress throughout our lifetimes. It can be caused by our professional or personal lives, and each individual will cope with it differently. Some people are better at dealing with stress than others . Some of us really thrive off the pressure, whilst others can find it difficult to motivate themselves when stressed.

If we imagine the mind as a bucket that gets filled up throughout the day, this can help us to visualise what is happening to our stress...

Fearful beliefs tend to start when the adults around us shout out in panic, or reprimand us in some way; “Don’t eat that its dirty, ugh!”. We can literally build allergies to foods and our environment through learned fear, as the body can reject a substance just because it believes it is bad for us. This is how we learn fear, through stories from the unconscious, formed from our experiences, often in early childhood. “I’m not good enough” or “I’m...

There aren’t many people out there who feel totally OK at the sight of blood but, for some, just the description of it is enough to make them feel unwell or even faint. If this sounds like you, know that you’re not alone.

When we look at our evolutionary history a fear of blood, or hematophobia, was a useful reaction. Fainting at the sight of blood may have been helpful for our ancestors as it reduces blood loss (when we’re horizontal our heart doesn’t have to pump so hard to get blood...

It's that time of year when everybody is getting excited at the prospect of a holiday in the sun. Well, everybody except you, that is, because you have a fear of flying. Instead of getting excited, you may have started to worry, started to have nightmares or started developing other anxiety symptoms. It’s true that accidents do happen, but did you know that according to ROSPA (the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents), more accidents happen at home than anywhere else. Check out...