Rest and Recuperation

Rest and Recuperation

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Rest and Recuperation

Rest and recuperation is a very important part of recovery for the body and mind. Too many people over look or deny themselves this, we all need it and it is important.

I’ve just got back from 9 days in Egypt, I needed the holiday as I been working hard on my business and haven’t taken a real break for a couple of years. I’ve had the odd long weekend away but not a solid block of time relax and switch off. I didn’t check my phone or emails or did I want to, I wanted a complete break. Apart from some scuba diving which I find very relaxing I just chilled out in the sun being very lazy indeed. I am very careful and do take days off in the week and regularly do self-hypnosis.

People live very busy life’s week in week out and don’t release the toll it can take to often it’s too late and they start to become ill. People can get flu-like symptoms and just think it a cold but it’s the bodies way of try to slow you down almost a little warning sign to say you need to get some rest and recuperation.

I have 2 friends whom I know have suffered as a results of living too much of a stressful life, one collapsed with stress which was caused by trying to do too much and not taking a break. My other friend is now suffering and this was caused by stress of work and personal issues. Both of these friends developed ME or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Chronic fatigue syndrome causes persistent fatigue (exhaustion) that affects everyday life and doesn’t go away with sleep or rest.  It is estimated that around 250,000 people in the UK have CFS

Having talked about this with them one of my friends said he believes the body has a set point of energy which we can dip in and out of every day but if we keep going into the reserves without giving it back then the body and mind will only allow this to happen before it starts the warning signs and then as a last resort it can shut us down by in some cases developing ME to not allow us to ever take too much again.  If we use 85% of energy and that safe to do every day then when we start using that extra 15% without giving back or in other words resting and having a break then it becomes a problem. My friends set point are now at a guess 50% of what they used to be getting tired very fast often feeling completely exhausted after a normal day. Please note: These cases are from what my friends have told me, and NOT me giving medical diagnosis.

We don’t fully understand what causes the illness. There are likely to be a number of factors involved. It sometimes affects more than one family member. The reasons are being studied but it seems your genes can play a part, as can the influence of your environment.

My advice would be to listen to what your body is telling you. If you know you need a break book a couple of days off and rest and give back what energy you may have taken and try not to go over that 85% if you do give it back as soon as possible. Try not to put yourself under long-term stress and strains in work or personal life. Look at learning some progressive relaxation techniques and do 10 minutes every day or even better learn self-hypnosis.

If you find yourself really struggling to de-stress then why not consider a stress buster session either with myself or someone local to you.

For a free consultation contact me on 024 75098634 or click HERE

See you soon

Adam

https://www.blhypnotherapy.co.uk

Feeling down?

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Feeling Down?

October 16, 2013
There are times in life when I have felt down and depressed. This state feeling down effects lots of people and it seem to me the help from the doctors is not working too well. From what I have seen and heard doctors want to give people anti-depressants, it may help in the short term but it is not helping long term. People need to get to the root cause to change and start the healing process.

Many years ago I went to the doctors feeling down and depressed and yes he gave me some pills. I took the pills for 3 days and felt like a zombie, it was as if I was in a daze, not really there. It felt as though I was having an outer body experience as I wasn’t connected with the real world. After 3 days I said to myself and my parents whom I was still living with at the time I was throwing the pills in the bin and no one should be legally drugged like that. I know of people who have been on anti-depressants for years, is this helping them or masking the real problem? Maybe I didn’t give the drugs a chance to work but I wasn’t prepared to be drugged up to the eyes balls until they started working, give me some laughing gas instead !

There is much research into depression and what can help. It is proved that gentle exercises can help and also Diaphragmatic Breathing exercises help.

I went on a workshop with Andrew T Austin whom is very well known in the change work world. He uses a system to explain depression and this is what I also use now. Andrew has a vast knowledge on depression. I’ve trained with Andrew twice now and find it invaluable to my business and to myself.

For more info on this training with Andrew go to

http://www.23nlpeople.com/

The Three Pillars of Depression.

Guilt Shame Remorse

Causes

Anxiety Stress Panic

Causes

Temper Anger Frustration

This doesn’t apply to every case or every individual but it is a good scale and I have found it very useful in the past.

Feeling down does not cause a chemical unbalance in the brian, there is NO scientific evidence to back this myth up.

Please feel free to read this study. http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.0020392

There are three basic molecules, known chemically as monoamines, which are thought to play a role in mood regulation: norepinephrine, serotonin and dopamine. The areas of the brain implicated in depression are the forebrain and the limbic system.

As a rule people who are suffering from depression are always looking back at past events in their life, finding fault in themselves or going over past events. If they are looking back all the time how can they see where they are going or move forward without tripping up?

I have found that people sometimes talk themselves into a bad state of mind. I was with a friend and they said about someone “What a right state to get into” to which I said “No, what a wrong state to get into”. If we look at the words, it’s true we can get ourselves into the wrong state with negative internal dialogue. We can talk ourselves into a low state of mind, thinking of the worst case. This is what happened to me I was focused on every negative parts of my life and feeling sorry for myself. I talked and thought myself into a depressive state.

There are simple steps we can take. The first is a bit obvious but true Smile! If you smile even if you don’t feel like it you can’t feel bad while smiling and its a psychologically very hard to feel low, also look at how you hold your body posture.

Walk with your chin up and shoulders back, chest out like a confident person would and the same while you are sat at home don’t slump in your chair, make your posture is correct. I also ask people to watch their favourite funny movie or comedian anything that make them laugh or smile. This will release good endorphins into the blood stream which help the brain chemistry .

Get some brightly coloured paper and write a good memory on each on and place them in different rooms of your home. Every time you see the papers take a moment to think of that good memory. When depressed the visual cortex of the brain is dulled so it important to get it working again, i.e. the bright colours. You will also start to train you brain to think positive thoughts every time you enter a different room.

Always consult with your GP if you are not sure.

I can help with your GP’s permission and help you to stay off the pills !

If you are feeling down and would like a free consultation contact me on 024 75098634 or click HERE

Adam Cowming

www.blhypnotherapy.co.uk

Helping You to Understand Anxiety and Panic Attacks

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Helping You to Understand Anxiety and Panic Attacks

First published May 22, 2013

Over the last few weeks and months I’ve seen a big increase though my therapy practise of people suffering anxiety or panic attacks.

A lot of people complain of very similar symptoms such as racing heart beat and a feeling on being on edge all of the time among other things.

So what happening to cause people to feel like this?

First of all it will be more than likely start with something internally like negative dialog, which will create a picture in the mind. These two things together then create or start the process of creating a negative and most unwelcome feeling.

So the process starts at a neurological level in the brain.  It could be argued that anxiety itself is its own neurological symptom. After all, anxiety can change neurotransmitter levels in your brain causing them to send unusual signals to the rest of your body that  actually effect all your nervous systems and causes real sensations/symptoms.

The forebrain is the area most affected in people with anxiety and panic attacks disorders. The limbic system, which is involved in storing memories and creating emotions, is also thought to play a central role in processing all anxiety-related information. Both the locus coeruleus and the dorsal raphe project to the septohippocampal circuit, which in turn projects to other areas of the limbic system that mediate anxiety. The hippocampus and amygdala are of particular importance, as they are interconnected and also project to both subcortical and cortical nuclei. The amygdala fires off the fight, flight or freeze reaction in the brain then floods the body with adenine. It is the increased activity of the amygdala that causes the symptoms of anxiety and panic. It acually happens like this freeze, fight or flight.

Normally after each anxiety event, the amygdala resets itself to a normal level. But if we continue to experience anxiety or stress over a long period of time, our amygdala is modified and becomes fixed at a high anxiety level. In other words it is in the on position and needs to be switched off.

So it is a very real problem for some people. I think that a panic attack is anxiety but a much stronger reaction, anxiety that has been allowed to grow and become somewhat out of control. A friend who was a nurse in A&E in a local hospital said that 99% of people admitted to hospital who think they are having a heart attack are actually experiencing a panic attack

Anxiety and panic attacks can be cause by increased stress and inadequate coping mechanisms may contribute to anxiety.

One of the best ways to help yourself is to try deep breathing exercise every day for around 10 – 15 minutes at time.

How to do Deep Breathing Exercises:

  1. Find somewhere comfortable where you will not be disturbed during the exercise, if necessary tell who you live with family etc than you don’t want to be disturbed and to be considerate to your needs.
  2. Lie down or sit in a comfy chair, place your hands on your lower stomach. Breathe in through your nose so that your stomach rises, this mean than you will be breathing from the bottom of the lungs not the top. Hold the breath for a couple of seconds then slowly breathe out.
  3. Repeat these 3 or 4 times then allow your breathing to go back to normal.
  4. Concentrate on different parts of the body allowing these to relax one by one starting with the top of your head and working all the way down to the tips of your toes. Image you are in a wonderfully relaxing a safe place, I like to think of myself lying on a beach sunbathing.
  5. Just allow yourself 10 to 15 minutes of relaxing this way every day making part of your lifestyle. Try not to fall asleep as relaxation is different to sleep so you don’t want to associate relaxing with going to sleep although you may find it hard not too drop off at first.

If you feel you need a little more help then please contact me via the website or the office telephone number. www.blhypnotherapy.co.uk or contact me HERE

I am available for one to one or Skype (adam.cowming) therapy sessions if you can’t get to my office in person.

Regards

Adam

Fears and Phobia’s

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I’ll explain Fears and Phobia’s in a easy to understand way in. this blog

A fear or phobia is an intense fear of something that, in reality, poses little or no actual danger. Common phobias and fears include closed-in places, heights, highway driving, flying insects, snakes, and needles. However, we can develop phobias of virtually anything.

If you have a any fears or phobia’s, you probably realize that your fear is unreasonable, yet you still can’t control your feelings. Just thinking about the feared object or situation may make you anxious. And when you’re actually exposed to the thing you fear, the terror can be automatic and overwhelming.

So what is really going on?

I will use spiders as an example simply because it’s that time of year when I start to get more spider phobia phone calls as they start to come in for in colder months.

First people will see a spider (Visual) then they may have some internal dialog(NOOOO a massive spider) or external (Scream Aaaaaaaa) this in turn will trigger the feeling(Kinaesthetic) inside like fight, flight or freeze which in turn gets processed as fear by the person.  Normaly the reaction is out of proportion to the situation, for example has anyone you know ever been in an unprovoked attack by a spider or been bitten? Not many I bet !

The thing to really think about is that we are only born with 2 fears :-

  • · Fear of sudden loud noises
  • · Fear of falling

All other behaviors are learned either directly or indirectly, the amount of clients I see who say that a member of there family is scared of the same thing. They more than likely learned to react the way they do because they have seen for example their Mum screaming that there is spider in the house and to get it out. The client learnt how to respond to spiders because it what their Mum did when they were a small child and as a child they did not have any other resources to call up on.

All of this doesn’t help a person of course who has the fear, so how can hypnotherapy help fears or phobia’s?

There are lots of different methods all will aim to do the same job of helping the client to feel differently about the phobia or fear and allow the client to disassociate themselves from the feelings. The client will just not be as scared or as concerned by the fear or phobia as before. They may not want to ever hug or hold a spider but they will be able to cope with catching one and removing it or just leave it to get on with whatever spiders do on a good night out !

I use different methods depending on what I think is best for the client, sometimes the work is already done before I even use hypnosis but the hypnosis is still a great way to help the client to think differently about the fear and allow the mind to process it in a more logical way in the future and take on some new learnings to allow the client to make a change and have a more appropriate behaviour towards the problem.

If your phobia doesn’t really impact your life that much, it’s probably nothing to be concerned about. But if avoidance of the object, activity, or situation that triggers your phobia interferes with your normal functioning or keeps you from doing things you would otherwise enjoy, it’s time to seek help with someone like myself.

Contact me HERE id you need any extra support.

Regards

Adam Cowming

Website  www.blhypnotherapy.co.uk

Relax

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What does the word relax mean to you?

Hello again,

Sorry for the delay with this blog but i’ve been very busy with my therapy business plus I’ve had a holiday as well. Enjoy.

With modern lives so busy and people rushing around so much these days I’m finding increasing numbers of clients coming to see me because of stress and stress/anxiety related issues such as IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome), so what the answer?

Learning to slow down a bit will help, as well as other things such things as relaxation techniques. People just don’t seem to take any time for themselves, then wonder why they are tired and feeling washed out. The body and mind needed a certain amount of time to rest and relax as well apart from sleep.

I tell clients to take 10 to 15 minutes a day to learn to relax and take time out for themselves. It is important not to fall asleep during this time out so the body learns it can relax without falling to sleep. Try this easy exercise.

Find somewhere comfortable where you will not be disturbed during the exercise, if necessary tell who you live with family etc than you don’t want to be disturbed and to be considerate to your needs. Lie down or sit in a comfy chair, place your hands on your lower stomach. Breathe in through your nose so that your stomach rises, this mean than you will be breathing from the bottom of the lungs not the top. Hold the breath for a couple of seconds then slowly breathe out. Repeat these 3 or 4 times then allow your breathing to go back to normal. Concentrate on different parts of the body allowing these to relax one by one starting with the top of your head and working all the way down to the tips of your toes. Image you are in a wonderfully relaxing a safe place, I like to think of myself lying on a beach sunbathing. Just allow yourself 10 to 15 minutes of relaxing this way every day making part of your lifestyle. Try not to fall asleep as relaxation is different to sleep so you don’t want to associate relaxing with going to sleep although you may find it hard not to drop off at first.

Learn to relax this way is very beneficial to mental health and can help with a whole range of issues even helping people out of depression, helping with anxiety and stress. You can even do a mini relaxation for a few minutes if you not got 15 minutes, a little is better than nothing.

This is a wonderfully easy and powerful exercise that anyone can do at home or even in their lunch break at work.

Ask yourself are you worth 15 minutes a day?

Get my free “Stress Buster” Mp3 audio here

Adam Cowming

Website  www.blhypnotherapy.co.uk

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