Anxiety Affects Everybody Differently
Are you experiencing feelings of Anxiety and overwhelm? Are you continuously worrying about your finances, health, and everyday tasks that you need to perform? Maybe your sleep is disturbed due to racing thoughts. Do you experience a feeling of impending doom that just seems to come over you for no apparent reason, or do particular situations like driving, crowds of people or unfamiliar places make you feel anxious and panicky?
Anxiety is the brain's way of getting your attention when it “perceives” you to be in danger in some way, the majority of the time that “perceived danger” is no longer relevant. The problem is, this is all happening beyond your conscious awareness. So, by the time you become aware of feeling worried, stressed or fearful, high levels of adrenalin and cortisol are already surging through your body. This is why you feel you just can't stop feeling anxious. The more you try to stop feeling that way, the more you are actually focusing on fearful feelings, which in turn communicates to your brain that you are still in danger, keeping the stress response activated. Often people report feeling afraid of feeling afraid.
The stress response often results in mental & physical sensations such as
- Feeling of impending doom
- Difficulty concentrating
- Impatience
- Easily distracted
- Dizziness
- Lethargy
- Pins and needles
- Irregular heartbeat (palpitations)
- Muscle aches
- Dry mouth
- Excessive sweating
- Frequent urination
- Diarrhoea
- Difficulty falling and staying asleep
- Shortness of breath
- Feeling of dissociation
- Dreading being alone
Anxiety And Emotional Problems
In addition to physical symptoms, anxiety often has a huge impact on one's emotional wellbeing. Perhaps you don’t feel comfortable being alone and are constantly seeking out company. Maybe you have problems trusting people or letting people in. You may have a strong need to feel in control and struggle to tolerate uncertainty. When people feel anxious, they are often unable to focus on anything other than the anxiety, feeling consumed with catastrophic and negative thoughts that just continuously loop in the mind, hence short term memory loss. Self-esteem plummets, and they may often feel helpless, useless, inadequate and sensitive to criticism, fearing rejection. Often needing the reassurance of others in order to feel secure.
You Can Be Free From Anxiety
Perhaps you’ve got to a point where you don’t believe you will ever feel (normal) again. Perhaps you’ve become overwhelmed with all the treatments offered and keep getting conflicting information. Anxiety really is treatable, I know this because extreme anxiety is something I myself once endured. Brought on by stressful life events which I hadn’t dealt with. So, I really do know first hand how powerless it can make you feel, and the frightful emotions associated with anxiety and panic attacks. I tried everything to help myself. Despite the fact that I found it to be a very disabling and traumatic time of my life, I’m strangely grateful for the experience as it helped me become more insightful and understanding because I now know what works and what doesn’t.
Family And Friends Struggle To Understand
People generally find it very difficult to understand what anxiety is like, unless they have experienced it themselves. Therefore, family and friends can often feel perplexed and frustrated because you are constantly recycling your worries and fears day after day, sometimes hour after hour in extreme cases. No matter how they try to console you it just doesn’t seem to register with you, until you calm down, and the calm period can often be short-lived.
Anxiety disorders
- Generalised anxiety..... Daily and continuous feelings of anxiety and worry. Can be mild to severe.
- Panic disorder..... Panic attacks are intense and unpredictable, often mimicking a heart attack, tightness in the chest, rapid heart beat, difficulty breathing.
- PTSD..... Brought on by traumatic events, accidents, rape, childhood abuse, experiences of violence. Leading to flashbacks, constantly being on high alert, nightmares and emotional numbness.
- Social Anxiety..... Fear of being judged by others, lacking confidence in social situations, shyness, blushing.
How I Can Help with your Anxiety
Incorporating a combination of therapies, Hypnotherapy, BWRT, and cognitive therapy, between us, we can get you feeling more in control, calmer and enjoying life once more. It will take a bit of work on your part, but I can assure you, if you are willing to put a bit of effort in, you can begin to feel relief in a very short amount of time.
Depending on the type and intensity of the anxiety, it is likely you will begin to feel relief within days. The first thing we need to do is identify the triggers. Once identified, working directly with the brain (BWRT and/or Hypnotherapy) we can start to eradicate the triggers and make significant changes. BrainWorking Recursive Therapy (BWRT) is an amazing therapy that can often achieve rapid and astounding results without the need to discuss or talk about the presenting problem, it's content free. All I need to know is how you would prefer to feel, react or behave.
Hypnotherapy teaches and reminds your brain how to relax, and cognitive therapy helps you get insight into how your thoughts have a huge impact on how you feel - helping you to manage your thinking better.
Kind words from my clients:
I am so impressed with the way that Ailsa has helped me to tackle and gradually overcome a lifelong anxiety problem. I knew as soon as I met her that I would be comfortable and happy to share my thoughts and feelings and felt I could trust her to help me on a journey to what I hope will be a long lasting recovery.
Ailsa has a lovely laid back style and a great sense of humour, which really put me at ease. She is also a gifted therapist who made me feel safe and supported as we explored some long hidden memories.
Although I’m delighted to be feeling so much better, I will really miss our sessions. I can’t recommend her highly enough.
Kate