Feeling down?

  • Home
  • TagTags Beautiful Life Hypnotherapy

Feeling down?

Tags :

Category : Uncategorized

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

Body Language

Tags :

Category : Uncategorized

In this blog I’ll explain Body Language in a simple to understand way.

This is a very important tool that all therapist and business people should be aware of or have some form of understanding of, you’d think!

Body language means communication with the movement or position of the human body. It can be conscious – or unconscious. It is important to   remember that, although body language does give you an additional channel of communication, which sometimes contradicts the spoken word, it should be interpreted with care. For one thing, it can be affected by particular habits of the speaker. To be able to read somebody is very interesting, but it can be complicated, so watch out!

As a therapist I hope I have a general understanding but I know that I don’t know everything and it an area to which I’m looking into getting a higher level of understanding. I pride myself on my ability to be able to calibrate my client’s conscious – or unconscious body language.

The eight primary elements of body language are your face, eyes, posture, gestures, voice, movement, physical appearance and touch.

Words (the literal meaning) account for 7% of the overall message

Tone of voice accounts for 38% of the overall message

Body Language accounts for 55% of the overall message

The figure 55% comes from some research that Albert Mehrabian undertook in 1971.

The ‘Mehrabian formula’ (7%/38%/55%) was established in situations where there was incongruence between words and expression.

That is, where the words did not match the facial expression: specifically in Mehrabian’s research people tended to believe the expression they saw, not the words spoken.

Mehrabian’s model is a seminal piece of work, and it’s amazingly helpful in explaining the importance of careful and appropriate communications. Like any model, care must be exercised when transferring it to different situations. Use the basic findings and principles as a guide and an example – don’t transfer the percentages, or make direct assumptions about degrees of effectiveness, to each and every communication situation.

This is now widely used in the field of selling, where sales personnel are trained to observe and read the body language of their potential customers. Sales personnel trained to read you can now utilize this skill to read the subliminal cue exhibited by the customers to close a deal. Consequently, many companies such as insurance companies, direct-selling companies and international car-showrooms now engage body language experts.

Body Language: What It Is & How To Read It

I help out some workshops and it’s easy to tell who knows about body language and who doesn’t and the difference just pointing out little things to people can make them look at people very differently, often these workshop are not about body language but as therapists it will always be part of what we do so it good to help and pass on the skills we have to others. Some of the people who attend are not therapist so are not used to using these skills but are normally very fast at picking some of the very basic tips they get.

If you need any help, coaching or therapy contact me HERE

Regards

Adam Cowming

www.blhypnotherapy.co.uk

Insomnia

Tags :

Category : Uncategorized

In this blog we look into what is Insomnia and what to do about it.

This is one subject that can keep people awake at night thinking why can’t they sleep, Insomnia!
Have you ever suffered from a sleepless night? I know I have on more than one occasion. It is normally when we have something going on in our lives that we are worried or concerned about. Some people suffer long term problems and need more professional help from someone like me. I wanted to give you some easy to follow tips and tricks to help with insomnia.

The first tip is to stop drinking caffeine based drinks such as coffee around 8 hours before you go to bed because caffeine can stay in your system for a long time still working up to 12 hours after drinking a cup of coffee for example. Try drinking water instead or any other drink that is caffeine free, even decaffe coffee has some small amounts of caffeine in it.
The time it takes for the body to eliminate one half of a caffeine dose is normally between 3 to 12 hours. It is called the half-life of caffeine. Several factors can shorten or lengthen the half-life of caffeine. Smoking, medications and diseases are some factors. Pregnant women have higher caffeine half-life, 18 to 20 hours – pretty much longer for the fetus since its organs are not yet fully formed to be able to eliminate caffeine easily. About 99% of the elimination process takes place in the liver. Did you know that????

Don’t eat a meal before going to bed, have it a few hours at least before your bed time.

Relax before going to sleep. Have a nice warm bath or like me go and read in bed for half an hour before sleep. This allows your body and mind to unwind from the day properly.

Take 3 or more nice deep breaths just before you want to sleep. Breathe in through your nose and out though your mouth allowing your stomach to rise with each deep breath. This is called Diaphragmatic Breathing. Practise this a few times until it becomes comfortable. As you are breathing out say to yourself in your own mind “I am feeling sleepy”.

If you seem to have a lot of chatter or internal dialogue you can change it. Start by slowing the dialogue down and making it sound sleepy. Say words like “Relax” in your own mind and use the breathing exercise as above with it. You can even visualize a control panel in your mind which has dials on it with for example ”Volume” and “Tone” and make sure you turn the dials down to 1 or 0.

There are of course other factors such as anxiety linked with not sleeping which would take a while to read through that’s why I only write shorts blogs.

Simple things also help like is your bed and bedding comfy ,if not change them.

I hope this has helped.

If you feel you would like my help please contact me for a free consultation HERE or for an appointment.

Adam Cowming

www.blhypnotherapy.co.uk

The unconscious mind

Tags :

Category : Uncategorized

Have you ever wondered about The unconscious mind?

First published July 11, 2012

This is big subject of which we haven’t really tapped into its full potential. We know that it comes from the Limbic System part of the brain which has been shown to activate on MRI scans in this area.

So what is it and what does it do?

I look at it as the programming for the body and mind which is there to protect us. It is far more powerful than the conscious part of the mind. Within the unconscious mind there are parts that do particular jobs and tasks than run the programs in our mind and bodies. As a hypnotherapist is my job to work with this part of the mind to help you the client to overcome or change the programs that you maybe running that are not working for you. Imagine the brain as big computer that will only work as well as the programs we put into it. Sometimes we program the wrong programs into our mind and the conscious then unconscious mind takes on this new behaviour.

I always use this example to people who ask about how big is the unconscious, if you were to see on a neurological perspective it doesn’t look that big compared to rest of the brain. If you put your fists together next to each other like a boxer that is about the average size of a brain.

The unconscious is far more powerful so in this case size does not matter. To get an idea I say get a golf ball and put it next to a football. The golf represents the conscious mind and the football represents the unconscious mind!

Research is still on going into this but we know for sure is that it plays a massive part in our lives every micro second of the day of our life.

Here is a bit of information on the Limbic System of the brain.

The Limbic System sometimes called the “emotional brain” or “Old Mammalian Brain” is the next part of the brain to have evolved in the more primitive mammals about 150 million years ago. This is where our emotions reside, where memory begins and where these two functions combine together to mark behaviors with positive or negative feelings. It’s where mostly unconscious value judgments are made. Information going through the Limbic System are filed under “agreeable or disagreeable”. It also plays a role in salience (what grabs your attention), spontaneity and creativity. Located in the Limbic System are:

  • The Amygdala

Its name is Latin for almond which relates to its shape. It helps in storing and classifying emotionally charged memories. It plays a large role in producing our emotions, especially fear. It’s been found to trigger responses to strong emotion such as sweaty palms, freezing, increased heart-beat/respiration and stress hormone release.

  • The Hippocampus

This guy is all about memory and a little about learning. It’s primary role is in memory formation, classifying information, long-term memory. Like the RAM in your computer it processes and stores new and temporary memory for long term storage. It’s also involved in interpreting incoming nerve signals and spatial relationships.

  • The Hypothalamus

It should be called the Hypothalamus because it does so much. It’s linked closely with the pituitary gland to control many of the body’s functions. It monitors and controls your circadian rhythms (your daily sleep/wake cycle), homeostasis (making sure your body is running smoothly), appetite, thirst, other bodily urges and also plays a role in emotions, autonomic functions and motor functions.

  • The Thalamus

The Thalamus is THE relay station in the brain. Most of the sensory signals, auditory (sound), Visual, Somatosensory (from your skin and internal organs), go through this organ on their way to other parts of the brain for processing. It also plays a function in motor control.

I hope you enjoyed my blog and thanks for reading them !

If you want any help or advice please contact me HERE

Adam Cowming

Website www.blhypnotherapy.co.uk

© Copyright 2021. All Rights Reserved. Beautiful Life Hypnotherapy