Panic and the Pendulum – How Hypnosis Can Help Cure Your Anxiety

Anxiety is a bit like fear – only a hundred times worse. While with fear you?re usually aware of what you?re afraid of, the thing with anxiety is that its root cause isn?t sometimes as obvious.

Say for example, when you?re afraid of flying, you?re afraid that your plane will come crashing down to the ground in a giant ball of fire. But when you?re anxious about going out in public, you?re not entirely sure what it is you?re afraid of.

Anxiety can be caused by a number of reasons such as environmental factors, medical factors, genetics, brain chemistry and substance abuse. Anxiety is also a very real phenomenon with very real physical symptoms which can include tense muscles, nausea, diarrhea, headaches, an unsettled stomach, heart palpitations, and profuse sweating and flushing.

In this article I?m going to focus on two of the primary causes of anxiety and anxiety attacks which are environmental and external factors, and I?m going to delve into how hypnosis and hypnotherapy can help out.

Some of the most common causes of anxiety are the traumatic events that individuals have experienced in the past. These could be any traumatic event like being subject to abuse, being a victim of bullying or even the sudden loss of a loved one. Such events often have long lasting consequences, which if left untreated and unresolved can often develop into crippling anxiety disorders.

For example, a person who suffered a highly embarrassing incident as a child can develop an intense fear of being humiliated or embarrassed later in life. This is called a Social Anxiety Disorder, and it?s far worse that simply feeling shy or nervous.

People suffering from this disorder will go to great lengths to avoid situations that they feel might trigger their anxiety. They will often avoid any form of public speaking and interacting with strangers. In more extreme cases, they will even be reluctant to use public restrooms and be averse to even talking on the phone in public.

The thing about the human mind is that its primary goal is to safeguard us from anything that it views as a potential threat. It always seeks to steer us clear of pain and towards pleasure. So when the mind believes that a particular action or event presents a threat to us, because of what it?s learned from a traumatic experience from our past, it will go to any lengths necessary to avoid it.

For example, say a man suffers from Social Anxiety Disorder. He would find it virtually impossible to talk himself into approaching women because his brain would be hell bent on preventing him from entering such a situation.

Now since the root causes of anxiety are primarily to do with our mind and our subconscious thoughts, it makes sense that it can be dealt with and cured by changing the way we think. And one of the most effective tools in doing that is hypnotherapy. Not only can it help replace our subconscious thoughts through suggestion, but it can also help us uncover traumatic events from our past and other root causes that are far too deeply embedded for the conscious mind to be aware of.

There are two main forms of Hypnotherapy, which can be used to cure anxiety:

Suggestion Therapy

This is a mild form of hypnotherapy and is often used to cope with mild anxiety issues like exam related stress, driving test related nerves, performance anxiety and other forms of stress. When using Suggestion Therapy to alleviate these types of anxiety problems, usually two to four sessions suffice.

Analytical Therapy

Analytical Therapy is used to cure anxiety issues which are far more deep-rooted. The techniques used in Analytical Hypnotherapy are designed to discover and eradicate the root causes of more serious anxiety problems like irrational fears, emotional problems, psychosexual problems, relationship issues, confidence issues, inferiority complexes, moodiness, sleeping difficulties and stuttering.

Whereas Suggestion Therapy is somewhat like plastering over a wall?s cracks, Analytical Therapy seeks to understand why the cracks appear in the first place, and then deal with them.

Hypnotherapists often use a combination of Analytical and Suggestion Therapy techniques, and they have been proved extremely effective in dealing with various anxiety and stress related issues.

And the great thing about hypnotherapy is that you don?t always need a hypnotherapist to help you get over your anxieties. Especially with anxiety issues that aren?t way out of hand like a mild form of social anxiety, it is possible to use self-hypnosis and affirmations to rid yourself of it.

To learn more about using hypnosis and hypnotherapy to help alleviate any anxiety related issues that are standing the way of your happiness and success, you can visit my website at Radical Inner Game here where I delve deeper into the topic.