STRESS & ANXIETY
There isn’t a strict medical definition of stress.
However, we do know that everyone may experience stress and anxiety at one time or another, in our personal or our professional lives. The difference between them is that stress is a response to a threat in a situation and anxiety is a reaction to the stress.
Routine stress is related to the pressures of work, school, family and other daily responsibilities. It can be triggered by a sudden negative change, such as losing a job, divorce, or illness.
Traumatic stress is experienced in response to an event like a major accident, war, assault, or a natural disaster where people may be in danger of being seriously hurt or killed. People who experience traumatic stress often experience temporary symptoms of mental illness, but most recover naturally soon after.
Work related stress is very common. It can happen when the demands on a person exceeds their ability to cope. The workplace seems to be a source of pressure for many people. This is not surprising with demanding, ever changing jobs and roles. Stress can occur at any level in an organisation and just as easily in in your first job as in a long term high level management job. If someone is ill with stress, work colleagues may think they are making up their symptoms: this can make it more difficult for the absentee to return to work. This tends to increase stress and anxiety still further, contributing to the problem. Many people will continue to work, even when ill, until even small routine decisions cause anxiety and the smallest amount of stress can result in a downwards spiral. Productivity becomes compromised and, in 'worst case senarios', a breakdown may occur.
It’s a well known fact that many millions of working days are lost to stress related illness.
Hypnotherapy can be highly effective in generating positive and beneficial change to combat stress and anxiety in the workplace. I have worked with individuals and groups in the workplace to help reduce their experience of stress to a more manageable level.
Not all stress is bad.
Stress also can motivate people to prepare or perform, for example if they need to take a test or interview for a new job, give a presentation or perform in a sports competition. Sometimes stress can even be life-saving. In response to danger, your body prepares to face a threat or flee to safety. In these situations, your pulse quickens, you breathe faster, your muscles tense, your brain uses more oxygen and increases activity—all functions aimed at survival.
Happy events, such as getting married, moving house or having a baby can cause stress. This may be due excitement or the fact of having the pressure or need to ‘feel happy’.
Whether in good times or bad, most people say that stress interferes at least moderately with their lives. Chronic stress can affect your health, causing symptoms from headaches, high blood pressure, and chest pain to heart palpitations, skin rashes, and lack of sleep.
Hypnotherapy for Stress & Anxiety relief.
One size does not fit all. It is not the situation itself that is the direct cause of stress but our reaction to it (or everyone would be stressed by the same situation). But you can learn how to reduce the impact of stress and manage your symptoms. There are many ways to reduce stress and tension, raise mood, improve sleep and self-esteem, such as exercise, massage, behavioural therapies and hypnotherapy.
Hypnotherapy can be a powerful stress reduction tool.
Together we may be able to identify the cause of your stress, find a past life experience, a situation, a relationship or a physical cause that’s the issue. We will then agree what your desired outcome may be, such as how you would like to feel if stress wasn’t interfering with your life.
By altering your reaction during hypnosis to a more positive one, your feelings about the situation can become more positive, so when you experience the situation in real life your reaction will often be very different.
Hypnotherapy for stress depends on your response to the therapy. It may only take one session or two sessions before you find yourself feeling calm, confident and relaxed, in situations which before may have caused you to become stressed.
The Improve National Employee Wellbeing Survey 2018 found that:
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Mental ill health costs the UK £70 billion per year, equivalent to 4.5% of GDP.
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Mental ill health costs each employer £1,035 per employee, per year.
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Failure to unlock the workforce’s full potential costs UK businesses £6 billion.
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Only 2 in 5 employees are working at peak performance.
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Studies suggest that presenteeism from mental ill health alone costs the UK economy £15.1 billion per annum, almost twice the business cost of employee absence from work.
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More line managers are experiencing stress-related ill-health and symptoms of psychological ill-health.
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3 in 5 managers are concerned about the impact of longer working hours on their stress levels.
“Its not the load that breaks you, it’s the way you carry it”
Lou Holtz (Author of Wins, losses and Lessons)