Exhausted by anxiety?

Feeling overwhelmed by the demands of your life? Exhausted because that anxious brain won’t switch off at night?

Unable to really relax? Feeling that there is always something to worry about, never really being good enough, waiting to be found out, feeling like a fraud?

That anxious brain can exhaust and overwhelm us at any time. Not wanting to go to the supermarket for fear of seeing someone we know. Hating the idea of standing in the queue at the Post Office feeling that everyone is staring.

The feeling of what if something awful might happen’ frequently makes us feel ' what’s the point’ or, ‘I can’t do it’. Constantly reinforcing those feelings makes it difficult to think any other way. This can stop us applying for a promotion at work, make sitting an exam a huge ordeal or even make us feel sick as we walk into a meeting at work, that churning, tight feeling in the pit of the stomach.

Sometimes we feed that negative thinking, making each situation seem bigger and scarier. So our mind starts working against us to reinforce the negative thinking. The thinking that is intended to protect us from danger, from the enemy. Because fundamentally, our mind wants to protect us from danger. But often the anxious brain is protecting us from a perceived threat, not a real one, which means that we are constantly on alert.

This heightened state of alert can cause us to imagine that almost everything in our world is a possible threat to our survival. As such, we tend to see everyone and everything as a potential enemy. We may overreact to the slightest comment or situation. Our fear is exaggerated. Our thinking distorted. We see everything through the filter of possible danger. Fear becomes the lens through which we see the world.

I experienced this when I was out with a friend recently, she heard a screech of delight from another friend, but instantly panicked and assumed that something dreadful had happened. She was shaking and breathing very fast, very close to tears, until she managed to regain control again because she eventually realised that all was ok.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.  There are lots of different ways that we can start to minimise these feelings.  Cognitive hypnotherapy can be really effective in helping you to understand those feelings and start to make a difference, so that you can live the life you want to, free from negative thoughts and feelings.