Anxiety Attacks

Anxiety attacks can happen to absolutely anyone. At Oneness Hypnotherapy we’ll help you to understand the causes your panic attacks. More importantly we’ll show you how to stop them.

What is an Anxiety Attack?

Anxiety is your body’s response when it thinks something is threatening you. It’s designed for those times when we’re faced with real physical danger. Your body creates adrenalin to help you cope with the threat. Adrenalin helps you to either run away from from the danger, or to become more aggressive and fight it. But the body also reacts with anxiety when we sense other threats. These are usually nothing to do with physical danger!

They’re much more likely to be about emotions. So it could be worrying about work, your family, what people think of you, worrying that you don’t sleep, anxiety about relationships, health or money. Or you may feel anxious because you have an irrational fear (a phobia). This could be something like flying, confined spaces, or needles.

We ALL feel Anxiety and panic?

There are good reasons why humans have grown to feel anxiety. Feelings of anxiety are really just feelings of fear, and fear can be useful to us. Feelings of fear and panic SEEM to tell us there is a problem we need to something about.

For those people who don’t suffer with anxiety, then it’s just the way that the body reacts to fear and threats. Adrenalin is released when you panic or feel anxious. The purpose of adrenalin in the body is to increase your chances of survival – adrenalin make you run faster and fight more aggressively. So when things are working properly adrenalin gives you something extra – an edge or boost.

It’s an evolutionary thing. By running from things which threatened us – a hungry animal or a falling tree; or fighting with someone from another tribe who threatened to steal our food, our predecessors were more likely to survive to reproduce. They passed on their genes, which is why anxiety still exists. If they hadn’t felt fear and therefore been given that “edge” that adrenalin gives, they probably didn’t survive. There aren’t many people who get through life without feeling anxiety at some point.

The right amount of fear and anxiety can even help you...

A little bit of anxiety is still good for us. It’s about being aware that your actions have consequence and you need to do some planning and preparation. Without it, you might find yourself taking unnecessary risks, because you’re unaware of dangerous situations and don’t recognise threats.

You might dive from a height into water without checking if it was shallow or if there were rocks; you might leave all our doors open when you leave the house because you didn’t think about someone breaking in. Or we might not revise for an exam, because we don’t think that we might fail

...but being too aware of risk can easily become a habit

It’s easy to get into the habit of always being aware of potential danger, and of the possibility of things going wrong. This can lead to overthinking and over-analysing, believing that this will prevent problems from happening and keep everything running smoothly. It is very easy to go beyond the optimum level of anxiety, which actually helps to keep you safe, and get to the stage where it stops you from functioning as well as you should – or even at all.

Anxiety and Anxiety Attacks can lead to other problems

Many people with stress, anxiety and panic worry at night, leading to insomnia. IBS is very common in people suffering with stress and anxiety. People with anxiety take more time off work. Fertility can be affected, or you may develop habits which seem to help you to deal with the feelings – overeating, or drinking too much. Some people bite their nails or pick their skin to help distract the feelings of anxiety. And then not sleeping, missing work, drinking too much and physical illness are all added to the list of things you feel anxious about.

Treatment for Anxiety Attacks

Hypnotherapy, hypnosis and relaxation techniques are straightforward, common sense ways of overcoming anxiety. They are the most effective and powerful anxiety treatment there is. Put simply, hypnosis allows you to relax and let go. Not of what’s important – it doesn’t stop you from thinking; but it does stop you from over-thinking, over-planning, over-analyzing those things that you can’t control, or predict, or change.

Remember – worrying doesn’t actually change anything! The things you fear aren’t prevented because you worry about them; the things you hope for aren’t more likely to happen because you worry about them not happening! So it makes sense to learn to let go of worrying. Once you have taken whatever practical steps you can to change things or to make plans, then hypnotherapy allows your mind to let go of further thoughts.

First you learn to relax physically – this prevents the body from producing adrenalin – then your thoughts will slow down. Over time, you will be able to think more clearly and realistically about the things which worry you. Also, when you’re in hypnosis, you’re more susceptible to suggestions about how to change your thinking.

How Relaxation and Hypnosis help Anxiety Attacks and Stress

Learning techniques for stress management, whilst in hypnosis, significantly lessens both short and long term risks associated with stress and anxiety. You will learn to let go, and to get away from the vicious circle of anxious thoughts. You will forget the habit of feeling anxious in certain situations, at certain times or with certain people.