Anxiety

Anxiety is a feeling of unease, such as worry or fear that can be mild or severe.

Everyone has feelings of anxiety at some point in their life – for example, you may feel worried and anxious about sitting an exam, or a job interview. During times like these, feeling anxious can be perfectly normal.

However, you might find it hard to control your worries. Your feelings of anxiety are more constant and can often affect your daily life.

This is known as General Anxiety Disorder (GAD) It’s a long-term condition that causes you to feel anxious about a wide range of situations and issues, rather than one specific event.

With GAD you feel anxious most days. You often struggle to remember the last time you felt relaxed. As soon as one anxious thought is resolved, another may appear.

General Anxiety Disorder (GAD)

GAD can cause both psychological (mental) and physical symptoms. These vary from person to person, but can include:

• Feeling restless or worried,
• Trouble concentrating or sleeping,
• Feeling constantly "on edge",
• Irritability,
• Tiredness,
• Palpitations - a fast or irregular heartbeat,
• Tense muscles,
• Shaking,
• Excessive sweating,
• Shortness of breath,
• Stomach ache,
• Feeling sick,
• Insomnia - difficulty falling or staying asleep.

Calming things down

Working together we will examine your thoughts, feelings, and behaviours.

We want to teach you how to relax, both during our sessions and when you’re out and about so you can handle situations and remain calm.

Using CBT and hypnotherapy we can change the way you think, feel, and act about your anxiety.

A typical plan would look something like this:

• Let’s help you recognise the places and feelings that make your anxiety worse.
• Look at the evidence. The harm to your health. The inconvenience to your life. How it’s stopping you from doing what you want to.
  Are things really that bad?
• Write a diary of how you think, feel, and act between sessions. We can use this as the basis of our sessions when we meet again.
• Teach you how to relax. How to take control and regain a sense of perspective.
• You’re hypnotised in the sessions and will learn how to use self-hypnosis on your own. This helps you relax even more and builds confidence.
• Build your self-belief so you don’t relapse. Make sure you feel good about yourself and confident.