Category: <span>Hypnotherapy</span>

Anxiety Hypnosis Hypnotherapy Insomnia Sleep disorder • • • • • • • • • • • • • By Brad Mace 0 Comments

Insomnia – Is it all in your head?

A man looking at his alarm clock in despair at ten past two in the morning because he can't sleep.

Worrying about not getting enough sleep could be the very thing that is causing your insomnia. Although sometimes there could be factors preventing us sleeping such as our diet and health, in a large number of cases it could just be all in the mind. Many of us are actually sleeping much better than we think. What many people actually have is ‘paradoxical insomnia’ where they think they are sleeping much less than they actually are. This can especially be common in people that are a bit anxious or sleep lightly. They may not be getting as good a sleep as the average person but studies show that although they tend to wake up a lot they are still getting sleep in between looking at their clocks. Because the sleep is very light they get the feeling that they are not sleeping at all so accepting that they are actually getting some broken sleep is the first step to tackling insomnia.

Insomnia is often about fear. Fear of just lying awake, fear that they can’t sleep or fear that they will not be able to function at work properly if they do not sleep. This fear then becomes a cycle and then going to bed becomes a negative task and then the fear of sleeps sets in.

So insomnia can simply be as much of a problem as the individual decides to make it. The problem is in your head. So if you can think your way into a problem then surely you can think your way out of it. But how can you do this?

First of all don’t put pressure on yourself to sleep. Don’t think of yourself as going to sleep but think of it as going for a rest. Resting is very restorative. As soon as you put pressure on yourself to sleep it’s not going to happen. So, make rest your goal! Research shows that for some cognitive tasks the benefits of rest were indistinguishable from sleep.

Much of the time people have decided for themselves wether they are good or bad sleepers. Remember you get what you focus on so if you focus on being a bad sleeper then you are probably going to get a bad nights sleep. Maybe if you decide that you are a good sleeper then if you do get a bad night then it won’t be so much of a big deal. Good sleepers have a belief that they are going to be fine whatever happens in the night. People that get highly stressed about their sleep have more depression, tiredness and cognitive impairment than people with a more positive belief system about their sleeping habits.

Increase your confidence about falling asleep by determining what time you need to get up then set your alarm and count backwards five and a half hours and don’t let yourself go to bed before that time (so in this case it would be one am). Make sure that you get up with that alarm and that you do not allow yourself any little naps throughout the day. Once you have done this for a few days your body will try and satisfy it’s need for sleep by making those five and a half hours as efficient as possible. Your sleep will then become much more continuous and much deeper. Once you have developed the confidence that you will fall asleep you can start bringing your bedtime forwards until it feels right for you. People may try and tell you that you need eight or nine hours sleep but research shows that six or seven is enough for a lot of people.

Move away from defining yourself as an insomniac by taking your focus away from sleep. See if you can go a whole month without talking about it! If you are asked by anyone about it then just say you slept fine.

Sometimes if we haven’t slept well the night before we tend to go to bed early in order to make up for it. This is a common mistake. It’s far better to go to bed later rather than earlier so that you make your sleep more efficient and don’t lay there in bed putting yourself under pressure to sleep.

You can start your bedtime routine as early as in the morning. Pick a wake up time and STICK TO IT! The brain loves consistency so if the brain has routine then it knows what is coming. Exercise is also a great idea. Early in the morning and outside in the fresh air is even better.

Sometimes it can be a case of an overactive mind. If I find my mind racing when I go to bed I find it very useful to use Emotional Freedom Technique to shut down my thinking. Hypnotherapy can also be very useful either by finding the root cause of the problem or using suggestions to help you sleep and get back into a routine.

For more information about hypnotherapy and EFT in Essex please contact me.

Depression EFT Hypnotherapy Uncategorized • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • By Brad Mace 0 Comments

Believe!

 

A person holding their hands in the air in triumph on a beach with the sea and a sunset in the background with the word believe at the top.

If you are not expecting it, you are not allowing it to happen

Your belief system brings into your life what you want to happen. If your beliefs are strong enough then what you believe will probably happen. If you believe everything in your life is bad then it is likely that you are going to bring bad events into your life. If you are optimistic and believe that good things are going to happen then that is what you are going to attract into your life. Simple? Yes and no. Sometimes because of negative events that have happened in our past it does sometimes take some retraining of our minds. And also remember that our minds and emotions are connected. So, if we are going to desire good things into our lives then remember each emotion indicates how much energy you are summoning. Your predominant thoughts and beliefs that you currently hold are all relative to your desire.

We learn our belief systems as very little children, and then we move through life creating experiences to match our beliefs. If you look back through your own life you may notice how often you have gone through the same experience.

If you are feeling a very strong emotion, wether positive or negative, that means that your desire is powerfully focused and you are summoning a great deal of energy towards your desire. So, when your emotions feel bad, like depression, fear or anger, that means that you are offering a lot of resistance to your true desire. When your emotions are strong and feel really good , like enthusiasm, passion, positivity, expectation or love, that means that you are not offering out any resistance to that which you desire so the energy that you have summoned through what you desire is not being challenged vibrationally by yourself and you are then currently allowing the things that you desire to come into your life.

So it seems to be an obvious rule that the perfect situation to create and allow into your life what you desire is to really, really want something that you believe is possible. When that combination of both desire and belief is present within you all those things will quickly unfold into your life.

BUT when you want something that you do not believe is possible, when you have that desire but you do not expect it, it will not easily unfold into your life. Hypnotherapy and EFT can be fantastic tools to eradicate negative thoughts and feelings and make your belief system so much more positive!

Believe and Expect and the universe will answer your call……………..

Anxiety coping mechanisms EFT fear of flying Hypnosis Hypnotherapy Motivation positivity Self-improvement Therapy • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • By Brad Mace 2 Comments

Fear of flying. Plane stupid?

A man flying in the clouds with an ipad attached to his chest looking panicked.

Fear of flying. Plane stupid?

Hello again everyone. Welcome to my latest blog about fear of flying. I apologise for there not being a blog for the last couple of weeks but this is due to me taking a much needed holiday. I always choose to go away somewhere nice and warm as it is coming to the end of winter here. It’s nice to soak up the sun after the many months of early darkness and dreary grey days knowing that on my return home that it is nearly spring and the days are getting longer and the sun is beginning to shine much more warming us both physically and mentally. Sometimes it’s not until you actually go away that you realise how much the rest is needed. While I was away it got me thinking about people that have a phobia of flying (aviophobia) and how awful it must be not to be able to just escape to another country when they feel like it. The interesting concept of phobias is that there is not normally a rational fear behind them. Even if the fear doesn’t actually prevent a person from travelling anywhere it can greatly impair their enjoyment of the journey. We all know that flying is actually one of the safest forms of transport but many still hold a fear which is out of their control. So, what can they do about it?  After all there is far greater risk, statistically, of being kicked to death by a donkey than dying in a plane crash.

I have had a very high success rate with fear of flying using a combination of Hypnotherapy and Emotional Freedom Technique. EFT is a great self-help tool that can be used to bring down any anxiety about flying and the beneficial aspect of this therapy is that, once learned, it can be used anywhere. On the way to the airport, at the airport or sitting on a plane. That is the wonder of emotional freedom technique. I would, however, look deeper into the root cause of the problem to help clear the phobia using hypnotherapy. In my experience the majority of the time it’s because of one issue – CONTROL. People feel out of control in a plane. The average person does not have is a great understanding of how planes work and what the noises are that they hear and where there is a lack of understanding people feel out of control with many not able to put their trust in a pilot that they don’t know and a machine that they don’t understand. If a client feels out of control in their life then this problem will just be exacerbated. This may not  necessarily mean that the client is feeling out of control presently but using hypno-analysis we can look into the past and find out the originating cause of the phobia. This may not necessarily even have anything to do with flying or planes but may just simply be a control issue or a deeper set condition.

I once had a client, many years ago, that had never flown and even if she saw a plane flying overhead she would duck in panic! Hypnosis regressed her to eight years old where she remembered watching a news report about a plane that crashed onto a motorway. This had made the news as it was such a rare occurrence but the fear of seeing that at her young age was repressed into the subconscious causing her phobia. Reliving this event as an adult helped release the negative emotion stuck in the subconscious and we used some suggestion therapy for another couple of sessions re-framing any negative thoughts related to flying. She wrote to me after, happily informing me she had taken a short flight and actually enjoyed it and had booked a much longer flight for her honeymoon.

So, what should you do and not do should you suffer from fear of flying?

  • Don’t avoid flying. It is a treatable problem. Fears and phobias have one of the highest success rates for treatment of psychological problems. We tend to make ourselves feel safer by avoiding things but we truly grow by stepping outside our comfort zone.
  • Think about the destination you are going to. Really focus on all the positive things about being there.
  • Challenge any negative thoughts. There is a big difference between discomfort and danger. Think about your triggers. If turbulence is a trigger, for example, think about it logically. ‘Ok I might spill my drink but the plane isn’t going to fall apart.”
  • Learn some relaxation techniques. Deep breathing exercises, meditation and of course emotional freedom technique will all help. Reading is also a very good distraction or listening to music.
  • Keep hydrated. Try to avoid alcohol and drugs. Before and during the flight, it’s important to keep blood sugar levels up. Stick to water and juices to keep hydrated and remember to eat little and often to maintain your energy, which can help control anxiety levels. Rest if you can, though sleep is not essential.

To learn more and for further support with any of these issues please contact me for a free initial consultation.

Happy Holidays! 😉

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