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Helping
Stress with Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy
The word 'stress' is often confused with tension and tends to represent anything that is emotionally negative. Stress is basically anything which tests you, or puts any strain or pressure on you and thus causes tension to build up inside you. Stress can be physical or emotional, internal or external. Examples of physical stress are excessive heat or cold or exercise. Emotional stress can be caused by problems and demands in your relationships, family or work. External stresses are things such as a change of job or moving home, caring for your family, financial problems, an illness and so on. Internal stresses are your character and personality traits such as conscientiousness, a sense of responsibility, perfectionism, the need to be liked and to make people happy, a desire to excel and such like - all admirable qualities. These internal stressors are the more important when it comes to producing inner tension - for example, you might think that you have a very stressful job which is why you feel tense or overwhelmed a lot of the time but if you weren't conscientious and wishing to succeed and do well, you wouldn't generate so much tension and feel so stressed! Everyday we all face different challenges and obstacles and sometimes the pressure becomes too much to handle. This can leave you feeling overwhelmed, unable to cope and unsure how to meet the pressures and demands placed upon you, perhaps you tend to worry about things almost constantly…this is what has become known as being 'stressed' although, more accurately, it is a chronic build up of inner tension. A certain amount of external and internal stress is necessary to help you to achieve certain things, such as meeting deadlines at work or obtaining peak performance in a sporting activity for example; this kind of stress is usually temporary and rarely causes major problems. But what happens when you feel stressed a lot of the time and it doesn't pass and you can feel it wearing you down? You could be suffering from stress [tension] overload. If you are experiencing stress overload you may notice some of the following signs:
Everyone expresses their stress in different ways, some people become angry and act out their stress, taking it out on others and the world around them - this way of dealing with stress has its own problems (click here for more on Anger problems). Mostly though, people internalise it and bottle it all up and this can turn into a problem with food or a drinking problem or any number of other problems. Suffice to say, if you are suffering from stress overload you will be having plenty of unwanted thoughts and feelings which make you feel far from happy and comfortable. Many addictions and problems such as overeating, smoking, drinking, drug abuse and gambling are linked to a stressful lifestyle. They are used as an "escape" or a temporary way of "switching off" but they do not address the underlying problem. Unfortunately, from a health point of view, stress depletes your immune system and this is your only line of defence against illness and disease - just ask anyone you know who has an illness and they will tell you that, prior to diagnosis, they were often going through a stressful period. So, some people can develop a chronic illness or condition (such as cancer) and those who already suffer from a chronic illness, could find that the symptoms of their illness flare up under an overload of stress. I said before that internal stresses are the most important to deal with and the key internal stress causing the majority of problems is the accumulated tension which has been built up over the years - we refer to these as bottled up emotions. As human beings we all have the ability and the tendency to bottle up uncomfortable, upsetting and unacceptable feelings and emotions and we all do this to varying degrees throughout our lives - this is entirely normal and in no way means that we are abnormal or mentally ill! However, it is this 'accumulated stress' - the tensions we have bottled up over our lives, especially from our early years - which is the real underlying reason that makes our present, everyday stresses so difficult to deal with. Obviously we all have to work and most of us have families and relationships to deal with and there is little we can do to change our characters and personalities BUT you can resolve the underlying problem - you can resolve your accumulated stress/tension: your bottled up emotions.
CHANGE YOUR LIFE Call me now on 07722 783490 or 01424 772392 to book your free initial consultation.
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