ONLINE THERAPY SESSIONS - HYPNOTHERAPY; WHEREVER AND WHENEVER.

Sometimes, at North Cardiff Hypnotherapy we have clients who recommend us to family and friends who don’t live in Cardiff, or even Wales or the UK.  We are still able to offer Solution Focused Hypnotherapy to the same high standard wherever you live.

That friend or family member of our client can now have the same North Cardiff Hypnotherapy experience, because they can have the same North Cardiff Hypnotherapy practitioner. A hypnotherapy session will be just as in our consulting rooms but from any location via an online session. 

Online sessions are not just for people who live far away from North Cardiff Hypnotherapy’s consulting rooms, they can be much easier for clients with childcare issues, who otherwise would not be able to travel to a session.

Or people whose work hours do not suit our 9am to 8pm opening times, with online sessions weekend appointments are also available. Occasionally clients have travel issues and this service makes the whole process of accessing therapy less stressful and more straightforward.

 North Cardiff Hypnotherapy have even had clients who have gone away on holiday or for a long trip, and want to keep up their sessions or get some quick advice or support whilst they are away. Of course, clients can email us and be reassured that we will respond as quickly as we are able, but sometimes an online face-to-face session can alleviate many concerns. Online services help us to help you quickly and easily, wherever you are.  

One of the most common ways people communicate over the internet at the moment is via Skype. If you’ve never used Skype before, don’t let that hold you back. The software is simple to download and set up and can be used on your computer, tablet or phone. You can find out more about how Skype works here:

http://www.skype.com/en/

If you are concerned Skype is not suitable for you, due to internet connection or any other reasons, then get in contact with us and we can discuss alternatives with you. A lot of people have worried that the therapy would not have the same effect if the client and hypnotherapist are not in the same room, but this simply is not true. Here is some feedback from one of Jade’s most recent Skype clients:  

      “I was really keen to use Jade for hypnotherapy but it wasn't practical for me to travel to the studio so she explained to me that we could carry out the sessions by Skype. At first I wasn't sure it would be as effective as face to face contact but actually, I think it was better as I was in a comfortable and familiar surrounding which made it easier to relax and open up. The technology worked perfectly and most of the time I forgot that we weren't in the same room. It also meant we could be a bit more flexible with times. I would highly recommend the Skype sessions as I enjoyed the benefits of hypnotherapy but from the comfort of my own home.”

All that is needed for an online session is a quiet room and a (fairly good) internet connection. Dorothea has had a client who had a poor skype connection, we always plan for  that, we have a pre-arranged landline or mobile number and we carry on! Dorothea’s client described the experience, as ‘totally relaxing and fun’

Prior to a skype session we have an email correspondence with you where we walk you through the details for example, information about how to get the best signal, where to set up your laptop, use of headphones and having a phone to hand. Our experience means we have systems in place so that on the day you feel comfortable you’re your hypnotherapist knows the plan and you leave all the contacting to us. The emails before the session also include a relaxation download with instructions of how and when to listen to it, so by the time we have our sessions you are familiar with our voice and ready to get started.

Being able to be face-to-face (albeit through a computer screen) ensures that none of the non-verbal communication is lost. You are able to easily see our facial expressions and body language, just as we are able to see yours. This adds richness to our therapeutic relationship, far more so than just via telephone. Think about when you are Skyping a friend or family member. Often after a while you can forget you are not in the same room! And the same is true of the hypnotherapy; in our experience, the effect of the talking side of our work remains the same online as it does in person. 

It can be helpful to have notes to follow whilst we are talking, particularly if it is the Initial Consultation. These guide sheets are also emailed ahead of time for you to have at your end and follow as we discuss things. Or we can use software such as iDroo, an online educational whiteboard so we can draw diagrams and make notes for you all in real time. If you prefer, a CD and notes can be sent to you through the good old fashioned Royal Mail! 

Even the relaxation, or trance, remains unaffected. Imagine how nice it would be to lie back and close your eyes in your own bed, or on your own sofa! The background music and our words both are transmitted from our side of the connection, so it comes out of your laptop, phone or tablet just as the CD track does. Most people are brought out of trance when we ask them to open their eyes, just as they do in our therapy room. If you are lucky enough to drift off and fall asleep during the trance, we can simply disconnect and send you a text message to confirm the date and time of our next session. We will have arranged with you first which method you might prefer.

The best part of having hypnotherapy via Skype is that you get to have just the same experience as local clients, you are no longer penalised for where you live! And, to that end, the price of online hypnotherapy remains exactly the same as in the therapy room. We can easily arrange payment by bank transfer either in a block booking or pay-as-you-go format. 

If you are thinking about having hypnotherapy via Skype or want to discuss our online services in more detail, you can contact Jade or Dorothea directly. Please feel free to email us at northcardiffhypnotherapy@gmail.com or give us a call or text. We can make sure you have everything you need in place before we get started, so all that is left to do is make a date and let us help you reach your goal wherever and whenever you choose.

Hypnotherapy and Needle Phobia

As hypnotherapists, when clients ask if we can help them overcome a phobia they may be talking about flying, or spiders. These phobias are upsetting and limiting, but not a case of life or death. However, there is a phobia that carries fatal consequences; needle phobia. Hypnotherapists may not see this very often day-to-day, but it is something that medical staff encounters much more frequently.

 

People with needle phobia strive to avoid needles or medical procedures, just as a person with a fear of flying chooses not to get on a plane. However, avoiding medical procedures can mean vital tests are not carried out, and conditions go either undiagnosed or untreated. If you see your own symptoms in this blog, please feel able to contact us or your GP to discuss further.

 

Previous research in this area suggests that there are 4 main types of needle phobia; vasovagal, associative, resistive and hyperalgesic. These groups are not mutually exclusive; patients may present with symptoms from more than one.

Jenkins (2014) suggests that the very nature of needle phobia makes it very hard to determine incidence. By definition, people who suffer from needle phobia will avoid healthcare settings and so any population estimate is likely to underrate the true number, but estimates range from 3.5 to 10% of people as having some type of needle phobia.

At North Cardiff Hypnotherapy, we pride ourselves in understanding the subgroups of needle phobia. This helps us know how to adapt our usual 3 step process of helping a client overcome their fear. As with all our work, getting to know you is key, so we use an Initial Consultation to assess what type of needle phobia seems to be present and all the background information of your likes and dislikes, hobbies and interests.

The first type of needle phobia is called Vasovagal.  This is where a patient has an immediate fainting response to an needle procedure. Vasovagal needle phobia has very high familial links; up to 80% of people with needle phobia report a close relative with a strong phobic response. As we know, with most specific phobias, exposure to the simulus (e.g. spiders, heights) causes blood pressure and heart rate to increase, as the body gets ready for fight or flight, which is our usual survival technique. People with Vasovagal phobia differ in that they will experience an initial increase in heart rate and blood pressure, followed by an often almost immediate decrease, leading to fainting.

 

Sadly, in turn, the fear of fainting itself can then lead to the development of a more standard phobic response. Needles produce fainting; fainting is anxiety provoking; and anxiety produces feelings of nausea, breathlessness, light-headedness, that can mimic the signs of fainting (Jenkins, 2014).

Because the vasovagal phobic response is as much about physiology as it is psychology, it is useful to have some practical tips that can help. For example, lying down instead of standing up can minimise the effect of a drop in blood pressure. Whereas usually in hypnotherapy we encourage our clients to relax all their muscles, in this instance we would be encourage them to apply tension to the muscles; squeezing them and releasing them repeatedly to maintain a level blood pressure and heart rate. This applied tension technique is one used by fighter pilots to keep them from passing out when they were flying at such speeds and changes in altitude.

Associative fear of needles is the second most common type, affecting 30% of needle phobics (Morgan, 2001). This type is more like a fear of flying or spiders; a traumatic event, such as an extremely painful medical procedure, causes a person to associate all procedures involving needles with the original negative experience. Associations can be formed not only with the needles but also with the hospital building, smell of clinic, sight of nurse's uniform etc. This form of fear of needles causes symptoms that are primarily psychological in nature, such as extreme unexplained anxiety, insomnia, preoccupation with the coming procedure and panic attacks.

Something interesting to note is that it does not necessarily have to be a real experience that triggers this association. We know that an imagined negative experience is stored in the same way as an actual negative experience, which is why we can see a client with a fear of snakes who has never even seen one in real-life. Or, a client can learn to be phobic of an object vicariously. This happens more often in a hospital setting; a patient who previously showed little fear towards needles or medical procedures develops a phobia after watching a negative experience of their peer. Nursing staff report that often people who watch others have an injection misunderstand the procedure, and become fearful about the size of the needle, or whether or not it touches the bone. In these cases, vicarious phobias can often be alleviated with an empathetic but clear and rational explanation of what the procedure is and how it will be carried out. Distraction techniques can also be useful for an immediate alleviation of the fear, but the effect of distraction will only be short term.

With associative phobias, we are able to tackle them similarly to any other specific phobia; like flying. This involves a 3 step process of firstly relaxation; encouraging the patient to relax their muscles and focus their awareness to a safe and secure environment. Then, a Rewind. A Rewind is a dissociative technique that allows the patient to reprocess their memories and store a new, altered version of them without the traumatic emotional component. We guide the patient to imagine themselves watching a film of their previous negative experiences, or imagined negative future experiences; fast-forwarding and rewinding that film over and over to desensitise them to its contents. Research has shown that using a dissociative technique- directing the patient to imagine themselves as merely a spectator, watching these events in a safe place- helps the client establish a therapeutic distancing from the previously aversive situation, facilitating their ability to work on it without becoming unduly distressed (Griffin, 2005). Then, we can Reframe. A Reframe means the hypnotherapists asks the client to visualise a positive experience of needles, creating a new positive memory template on which future experiences of needles will be based.

The third category is a Resistive fear of needles. Resistive needle phobia occurs when the underlying fear involves not simply needles or injections but also being controlled or restrained. This form of needle phobia affects around 20% of those afflicted. Often these are older patients who perhaps were restrained for an injection or procedure as a child, which at the time was seen as acceptable practise. Symptoms include aggression, panic and anxiety. We can easily imagine how the Primitive Brain would react if we were tied down whilst the polar bear walked towards us! In the face of potential danger, being able to escape is key and not being able to escape can cause us additional stress.

In these cases, rewinding those negative experiences is essential. In addition, we can help engage rational thought to be able to determine the difference in modern day practise compared to 10, 20, 30 years ago. We can reframe the experience for the client to remind them that they will not be forced into any procedures and they are in control.

 

The final type of needle phobia is Hyperalgesic. This is another form that does not have as much to do with fear of the actual needle. Patients with this form have an inherited hypersensitivity to pain, or hyperalgesia. To them, the pain of an injection is unbearably great and many cannot understand how anyone can tolerate such procedures.

The recommended forms of treatment include some form of anaesthesia, either topical or general. There is little cause for hypnotherapy to be used in these cases; such a strong physiological response to the pain of a needle would require input from a pain clinic or anaesthetist. However, we are able to encourage such sufferers to seek the help that is needed.

 As ever, with solution focused hypnotherapy, our skill lies in using the initial consultation to take a careful history so we can work in the best way to meet the individual client’s needs. At North Cardiff Hypnotherapy, we strive to give you the best possible service and our ongoing learning and research means we are able to understand complex feelings such as a needle phobia more easily.

If you are worried, want more information, or would like to book an initial consultation, go to www.hypnotherapy-wales.com or email Dorothea or Jade at northcardiffhypnotherapy@gmail.com.

References

Griffin, J. (2005). The role of dissociation. Human Givens journal, 12, 3.

Jenkins, K. (2014). Needle phobia: A psychological perspective. British Journal of Anaesthesia, 113, 1, 4-6.

To sleep, perchance to dream...

INSOMNIA

To lie awake in bed, desperate for sleep after a busy day but unable to drop off, is one of the most frustrating and upsetting things.  We’re all familiar with the thoughts that run through our mind: ‘I really need to sleep. Tomorrow will be hard enough without a sleepless night!’ and ‘I am so tired, why can’t I drop off?’ Then we have the unrelated thoughts that keep us awake, the ones where we go over the day’s events or worry about the work we need to do tomorrow. We can’t seem to switch off, to drift off into some much-needed sleep.
Most people have occasional episodes of insomnia but they are able to make up for it the following night. If it’s a more regular occurrence the exhaustion starts to pervade every aspect of our lives and we start to make decisions based on the insomnia rather than our real selves. We start to turn down social invitations: ‘I’ll be too tired to enjoy it: I don’t feel in the mood to socialize.’ We fret about work projects thought the lens of sleeplessness: ‘I hope I don’t mess this presentation up, I’m too tired to give it my full attention’. We start to snap at the people closest to us or we start to feel sad and hopeless.

The first step back to the real you starts with an explanation of what is happening in the thought process centre of your mind. Once we have an image of that, it becomes easier to see the path back to restful sleep.

Here’s an image for you. Picture a young child, perhaps 7 or 8, who can’t sleep. Imagine sitting next to them and saying ‘You must sleep: you won’t enjoy school tomorrow if you don’t sleep!’ So the child closes their eyes and waits, mulling over your warning. You wait for a moment, watching them and then say ‘are you asleep yet?’  The child, eyes shut tight, says ‘not yet’. You wait some more and then say ‘What about now?’  There is no way the child can sleep with the warning thought in his head and the constant reference to the problem from you. It sounds obvious doesn’t it? Yet we do it to ourselves all the time and expect a different result.  We lie in bed thinking about our inability to sleep. We dwell on the problems we may face tomorrow because of our tiredness. Insomnia is a problem that grows in size the longer we focus on it.

Our minds have two points of view in our thought processes. The first one is the fastest and it comes from the primitive mind. It is concerned with our survival. This part (the amygdala) plays a role in our freeze, fight and flight responses. If we worry about something this part focuses its attention onto the problem and adds the necessary fuel to help us deal with it, the stress hormone, cortisol. This would be great if you needed to stay awake because of a possible threat to your safety.  If you see an angry dog coming towards you it’s this primitive bit that reacts to the threat, it plays its role in flooding you with adrenaline and you run, faster than you realised you could run.  This part of our mind focuses on problems. It is fabulous at keeping you safe, but when it looks for the problems in life it can’t tell the difference between ‘worry’ and ‘danger’. These two look the same to it, so for
both of these it provides you with the stress hormone it thinks you need. This is excellent for the wild dog bit and not so handy when all you need is to go to sleep.
In the normal course of events, it is the other point of view that gets involved in your thoughts about sleeping. This is the intellectual you, the “real” you. This is the bit that can learn a language, plan a holiday, fly a plane, or whatever else you have set your focus and intellect on. This is your pre-frontal cortex, the bit where you think through a task before you do it. This is why we humans are so inventive: we are able to iron out problems in our imagination before we run into them in life. This bit is a positive, solution-focused point of view.

How Can Hypnotherapy Help with Insomnia?
There is a skill in learning to change your focus, to being aware of thought patterns and learning how to change them. Your hypnotherapist will listen to how insomnia affects you and together you will formulate a goal that you wish to aim for. There are certain mental exercises that will assist you in dealing with the accumulative stresses that result from repeated episodes of insomnia. We call this ‘emptying your stress bucket’, and we do this in two ways, by exercises and by trance. As we start emptying your stress bucket, it becomes easier for you to feel more in control, especially of the negative thought patterns that perpetuate insomnia. 

The trance state is a perfectly natural state. You will be in full control: it feels like becoming fully absorbed in a story on the radio. When we allow our minds to be in this trance state, the two parts of our minds come together in a positive way so that we are able to make a forward-looking mental plan to reach our goal. This allows us to make an inner mental rehearsal of things going well. This planning allows us to change the way we go to sleep.
We provide a CD for you to listen to when you get into bed at night.  The CD is a relaxation tool that helps you relax the body and the mind, because if your mind is ruminating on problems, your body will tense up. What we think affects what we feel physically and vice versa.

Email or phone us here at North Cardiff Hypnotherapy for more information, or come and see us for an initial consultation.  We will help you shift your focus onto the solution and away from the problem. When we do that we can break the vicious circle of insomnia and the worry about lack of sleep leading to insomnia and get you back to you at your best.

What Can I Do Before My Appointment?
First check with your Doctor that there is no illness affecting your sleep quality. Then develop good bedtime habits. Don’t use your computer in bed. Switch your phone off. Don’t watch TV in bed. Your mind needs clear clues to your intentions. If you suffer from insomnia then your mind may be ‘primed’ to expect being in bed to be a trial, a time of frustration because of your sleep problems.
 
Here’s an exercise to ‘prime’ your body to relax and rest.
Lie in bed and imagine you are running a relaxing body scan, think about the muscles of your face, check you’re not frowning or clenching your teeth. Think about your neck and shoulder muscles, allow them to relax and settle comfortably on the pillow. Imagine this wave of relaxation travelling all the way down your body, think about your arms, then your legs relaxing, settling, and becoming more comfortable. Now focus on your breathing, don’t try to change it, just notice it, and focus on it for a few moments.
Now ‘prime’ your mind to relax.The old story of counting sheep has a core of truth in it. Counting is calming, count slowly, every time your mind wanders, bring it back to the counting. Another calming mind exercise is to picture your favourite outdoor place. Maybe it’s a beach. Picture walking on this beach, what can you see? Think about the colours. What can you hear, the sound of the waves or the wind and perhaps seagulls? What can you touch? What does the sand feel like on your bare feet? Soft warm and silky or perhaps it’s cool and firm? Make your beach image detailed in your mind.

Finally, be kind to yourself! Getting cross with ourselves for having a problem is a very human response, ‘Why can’t I sleep? Everyone else seems to manage it!’ However, if a friend said ‘I’m having real problems sleeping’, we would be kind and sympathetic. We understand the value of support for others, so let’s practice it on ourselves.

Hypnotherapy provides very real strategies to help aid restful night’s sleep and get you back to feeling like you at your best rather than a tired shadow of the real you.

What is Hypnotherapy and is it the same as Hypnosis?

What is Hypnotherapy and is it the same as Hypnosis?

Sometimes people contact us just because they are interested to find out what hypnotherapy actually is. Some people have heard that hypnotherapy is helpful with something that worries them but they’re not really sure what it means. This newsletter is just for you.

Hypnotherapy is a two part process; the first part is talking. This conversation is professionally guided by your therapist and has several different components. The atmosphere is relaxed and non judgmental. The second part is the trance part. Each session lasts around fifty minutes.

 However the first time we meet is a little different. It is called The Initial Consultation and is a mixture of fact finding, you telling the hypnotherapist what you would like hypnotherapy to help with and us explaining the process. We also explain how our minds can construct a thought that can really be very unhelpful (‘I’m afraid of flying’ for example) and what we can do about it. Once you have an idea of how our minds ‘feed a thought’ then we will show you how to change that thought for something more positive. It is part of the hypnotherapist’s skill to help you move from telling us what your worry is to seeing a way forward. Anyone can get stuck in a ‘mind rut’ where they think that their thoughts (and the feelings those thoughts produce) are permanent, and that only a change in events will help. We will show you how to shift your focus to help you see that what makes the difference is not the event itself, but our reaction to it.

At North Cardiff Hypnotherapy we practice Solution Focused Hypnotherapy. This means that we show people how to focus their thoughts on the solution to their problem as we understand that thinking solely about the problem creates more stress. For example, if you have a social anxiety and are very shy when with a group of people, a problem focused thought pattern would be thoughts like

‘I can’t go to that party, I never know what to say to people.’

‘No one will talk to me if I get a job with other people, I’ll feel isolated and stressed so there is no point going for the interview.’

‘I can’t explain to my boss that my work load is too big, I’m no good at conversations like that, Ill just get upset’

Here the internal dialogue is rehearsing how bad something will be in the future and this creates anxiety.

A solution focused approach is to gently change this dialogue by focusing on things that are going well. What are the things in your life that are going well at the moment, things you don’t want to change?

The second part is the hypnosis bit. Hypnosis is the Greek word for “sleep”, but it is not a particularly accurate term for what we do.  We sometimes call it a trance state or a ‘replicated REM state’and it describes a state of focused attention where you are able to reduce your attention to stimuli from the wider environment. This doesn’t mean that you are no longer able to hear other sounds around you, just that you are less interested in them. It’s a little similar to what happens when you meet a friend in a busy loud café. Soon your friend has your full attention and you find it easy to focus on the chat you’re having.  Trance or hypnosis is a completely natural state. Have you ever found yourself staring out of a window completely lost in thought? Perhaps you can recall that feeling of being utterly absorbed in a novel and losing track of time. It is this type of daydream state that we aim to replicate in our therapy rooms.

We all experience a daydream state many times a day and  if someone asked us what we we’re thinking about as we looked as if ‘we were miles away’, we would probably reply fairly vaguely ‘Oh anything really, nothing much, I was daydreaming’.

The hypnotherapist’s skill lies in getting their clients into this relaxed state of focused awareness.  People cannot be hypnotised against their will. Our clients have to cooperate with the process. Imagine it being like someone relaxing on the sofa listening to a story on the radio. The listener has to focus on the story but this is not a difficult thing, quite the opposite. There is something very relaxing about reclining somewhere comfortable and listening to a story.  The saying ‘radio has the best pictures’ is true because the images your mind conjures up are perfect for you, they exactly match what you think the story should ‘look’ like. We have always instinctively understood that listening to a story is relaxing. That’s why we read to children before bed.

So what will the hypnotherapist’s ‘story’ be about? This part is sometimes called Guided Imagery.

The first part will be about the physical process of relaxing. If someone says to you ‘just relax’ often we think ‘I would if I could!’ so the hypnotherapist uses a mixture of specific suggestions and images to describe what relaxation would feel like to you.  We then move on to use language that will deepen this relaxed state.  It’s not possible for me to tell you exactly what we would say to any one individual as our skill involves being in pace with your current experience and then guiding your imagination towards the imagery that, in our professional opinion, will be the most useful for your particular goal.

Why does this work? Inside the prefrontal cortex of our brain there is a marvellous little thing, our imagination. It is a virtual reality simulator where we can try out an idea before committing to it. In his excellent TED Talk (do watch it, details below) Dan Gilbert says it gives people ‘experiences in their heads before they try them out in real life’. Many people will use their imagination to look at the worst possible outcomes and then spend time worrying about these possible future events. Using your imagination for this negative forecasting has a physical effect on the body; we feel queasy and have a racing heart, butterflies or sweaty palms at the thought of giving a speech in public just by imagining it. In hypnotherapy we use the imagination to help us plan a way forward that is positive. A future that focuses on solutions and not one that focuses on problems.

Our clients can remember what we’ve said and they are in full control. If a client didn’t want a trance to continue they would just open their eyes and stop listening. ‘The hypnotic state is an experience that belongs to the subject’, Milton Erickson said in 1980 (he is often called the father of modern hypnotherapy).

At North Cardiff Hypnotherapy we are always happy to answer any questions that you may have about hypnotherapy and whether it may be useful to you.

Dorothea Read and Jade Painter

Clinical Hypnotherapists at NORTH CARDIFF HYPNOTHERAPY

References:

http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_we_happy?language=en

Ernest L. Rossi (Editor). The Nature of Hypnosis and Suggestion (Collected Papers of Milton H. Erickson, Vol. 1).  ISBN-10: 0829005420; ISBN-13: 978-0829005424. Publisher: Irvington Pub; Reprint edition (Aug. 1980).

Bibliography:

David Newton  DHP HPD SFBT(Hyp) SFBT Sup (Hyp) FAPHP MNCP SHS SQHP Sup Hyp.  Hypnotherapy Practitioners Diploma Course Notes. Published in-house by The Clifton Practice, Bristol.

Feeling SAD this Winter?

Feeling SAD this Winter?

As the excitement of Christmas comes to an end and we all return to work and think about New Years Resolutions, it can be difficult to muster up motivation. But it may not just be a festive hangover.  

SAD has hit the headlines many times in recent years as awareness grows, but it’s not a new phenomenon. The Royal College of Psychiatrists suggests that for thousands of years, people have noticed that the seasons can affect our mood. It was not until the 1980s, however, that the term Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) first appeared. It is used for people who, although they sometimes can become depressed in the summer, regularly become depressed in autumn and winter.  

SAD has symptoms much like depression, but it has a clear pattern, starting in Autumn or Winter and stopping in the Spring and Summer. The kinds of symptoms that people might experience include loss of energy, low mood, which is often worse in the morning than later in the day, wanting to socialise less, a kind of need for hibernation, feelings of exhaustion for no real reason. People with SAD can often find themselves eating and sleeping more, too. There are subtle differences between SAD and depression, and it’s always a good idea to talk to your GP if you’re worried.

So who gets it? SAD is more common in women – about three times more common – and research suggests the further away you live from the equator, the more likely you are to suffer. Feeling low in mood in the winter is common enough that many of us can relate to these symptoms, but if your symptoms are bad enough to interfere with your life, you may well have SAD. In the UK, about 3 people in every 100 have significant winter depression.

If you are suffering from SAD, hypnotherapy can help. At North Cardiff Hypnotherapy, we teach you how the brain works and why you might be having the thoughts and feelings you have during the winter months. The Solution Focused approach of North Cardiff Hypnotherapy encourages people to think in new and more positive ways. We use relaxation techniques and guided imagery, encouraging people who have SAD to use the power of their mind in a positive and meaningful way. This helps to refocus the mind and work on changing our perception of our experiences. Clients are often relieved to learn that there are different ways that the symptoms of SAD can be managed. People actually enjoy the process of solution-focused hypnotherapy sessions, which often works quite quickly.

Hypnotherapy is a safe and effective therapy, which can help with a number of emotional and physical issues. However, if you have any serious concerns or worries about your physical and mental health it is always advisable to consult your GP first.

If you’d like to ask any questions about your feelings or how hypnotherapy may be able to help you, email northcardiffhypnotherapy@gmail.com or take a look on www.hypnotherapy-wales.com.

Is it possible to be happier?

‘I’ve always been a worrier’

‘My life is very stressful, I can’t change that’

‘I always think of the worst case scenario’

‘I have always had a very vivid imagination’

Do any of these thoughts sound familiar?  Negative thoughts can become automatic and this can become a vicious circle for us. These negative thoughts breed anxiety and depression and the anxiety and depression lead to more automatic negative thoughts. Our thinking becomes ‘stuck in a rut’ and we feel anxious and sad.

Here’s the good news, we can stop this, break the circle and change it.  The way to stop our thoughts repeating their negative patterns is make a new pattern. Imagine you have a large field that you walk through each day. The grass is long when you first started this daily walk, but day by day as you follow the same route you are treading the grass down, a pathway starts to appear. The walk becomes quicker and easier, so much so that you don’t make another pathway, you stick to this one. But if you needed to, for whatever reason, you could make a new pathway, it would be a little harder at first but soon it would be your well-trodden path and the old one would start to be overgrown.

We can learn to stop our thoughts travelling down the same route, we can learn a new pathway and soon that will become our usual route. Scientists call this neuroplasticity.

How to we make this new path? How do we feel less anxious and happier?

1. Notice the negative thought habit.

Sometimes we assume that our negative thoughts are true, that they present us with an accurate unbiased view of the world. They don’t. That little negative voice has a point of view, that’s all. Think about how many times you’ve disagreed with someone’s point of view. Just because it’s your thought from your mind doesn’t make it true. We humans have a brilliant imagination. Close your eyes and imagine you’re sitting on a tropical beach, the sun on you face, the sound of the waves lapping the shore…We can do this but (sadly) it doesn’t make it true.

2. Our brains sometimes get things wrong.

Our fear/flight mechanism, our adrenaline, can sometimes kick in when we have no intention of running or fighting. Remember that feeling before an exam at school? The sweaty palms and the racing heart, the feeling of dread? Those bodily sensations are there to get you to run away from that wild animal, not a maths test! Picture the bit of your mind that is ready for danger, the bit that comes out with the negative running commentary on your life. Picture the fear on his face, eyes darting about looking for problems. This bit of your mind needs you to take a friendly interest in his worries, not be cross, not to join in with his panic. Your mind has another voice, the intellectual voice, the real you. We can take a moment to ‘hear’ that voice: just breathe.

3. Breathe.

‘It can’t be that easy.’ Just trust for a moment. Breathing will relax you. It will help you focus on the present, which is calming. Breathe in for the count of 5 and out for the count of 7. This is the opposite of what we do in fight/flight mode. Just breathe 5/7 and stay with it for the moment. Think about the breath.

4. Talk about what is going well.

 When we talk to our friends about our stresses and worries we can make things worse. It’s the metaphorical equivalent of picking a scab. We will slow down the healing, maybe get an infection and leave a bigger scar. Think about the word ‘remind’. When we talk about our anxieties we re-tell the story to our mind, we relive not just the narrative but also the feelings that go with the story, the sadness or the fear. Think about looking at an old holiday picture. The way you smile as you remember you and your friend on that beach, you relive a little of the happiness you felt then. The same is true for an unhappy mental ‘picture’. So breathe and think of something that’s been good this week, even if it’s something very small then tell someone about that good thing. Tell us: tweet us @cardiffhypno. Message us on facebook, North Cardiff Hypnotherapy. We would love to hear your happy thought.

5. Take a walk                  

Get rid of that nervous energy that your body thought you needed to fight off a wild animal. Go for a brisk walk that will burn off the adrenaline, leaving you feeling calmer, more confident and more in control. While you’re walking think about what you can see, describe it to yourself, the colour of the sky and the scenery. What can you hear? What can you feel? Is it cold? Put in as much detail as you can. Our brains (brilliant things that they are!) will see that we are drawing other things to our attention and will turn down the alarm signals they’ve been sending. They will notice that you are thinking about the present.

Lao Tzu said

‘If you are depressed, you are living in the past, if you are anxious, you are living in the future, if you are at peace, you are living in the present.’

6. Accept Ambiguity.

It’s ok not to be able to predict tomorrow. Trust yourself. You can’t control the events in your life but you can control your reactions to them. You can feel calm, confident and in control.

While you’ve been reading this yourself you’ve started to build that new pathway. You’ve introduced the idea to yourself of changing your mind. You can think yourself happy.

North Cardiff Hypnotherapy will be running a half-day workshop on happiness where this is one of several happiness themes we will be exploring. Our aim for the day is that it will be fun and will leave you with some really useful tools for your path to greater happiness.

The 'How to be Happy' workshop will be running 10am-1pm on Sunday 11th January 2015 at Jego salon in Llanishen village. Places will be limited, so email northcardiffhypnotherapy@gmail.com to find out more and reserve your place.

Becoming a Non-Smoker.

Does the title make you feel a little anxious? Most people give up smoking several times before they are finally successful. The residual memory of failing makes us worried to try again. We assume that the outcome will be the same, that we will fail. We also have that deep down anxiety:  we know that smoking causes cancer, heart disease, bronchitis and many other problems such as infertility and impotence. All this frightening information is bombarded at smokers all the time, so relax for a moment and read on.

The New Scientist looked at studies covering 72,000 smokers and ex-smokers in America, it concluded that

‘Hypnosis is the most effective way of giving up smoking’. The New Scientist also said ‘Sadly, willpower counts for very little’.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg13618450.700-how-one-in-five-have-given-up-smoking.html

People carry on smoking to feed their addiction to nicotine, but just because something is addictive doesn’t mean that it is impossible to stop. What it means is that one part of our mind starts to give us ‘prompts’ to get us to have another fix of our drug,  Imagine that scared, anxious part of your mind, the bit in all of us that is resistant to change. We all have it, so what message does that bit of your mind give you to get you to light up?

‘My life is too stressful to quit, this is my calming down technique’

‘I don’t really want to give up, I’m not really addicted, I only smoke when I have a drink’

‘I’ve been smoking since I was 13, it’s too late for me, anyway my great aunt lived to be 102 and she smoked all her life’

Maybe your message is different, but you can still ‘hear’ that intellectual voice in your mind, the one that knows, with certainty, that smoking is deadly. The inner voice that tells you lots of people do give up, people do become non-smokers. The intellectual bit that knows you want to give up. That you would feel happier as a non-smoker.

Think about those two points of view, your inner pro-smoking lobby and the non-smoking lobby. Which one is stronger? It’s whichever one you choose. It sounds too simple, I know. With hypnotherapy we help you calm the part of the mind that looks after danger, stress and fear. Using trance we help you to find a positive, forward- looking way at viewing your habit. We help you change your point of view from seeing smoking as a big problem in your life to seeing becoming a non-smoker as your solution. Whenever we find a solution to a problem, and act on it, we feel calmer and back in control.

Dorothea and Jade are always happy to answer any questions you may have. Please feel free to email or phone.  There is no obligation to book an appointment.

When you’re happy that you have the information that you need, and you’re ready to breathe in some clean fresh air, a smoking cessation session lasts around one and a half hours and costs £100.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Dorothea Read and Jade Painter

North Cardiff Hypnotherapy

www.hypnotherapy-wales.com