Anxiety Stress and Panic Attacks

Are You Using Alcohol To Cope With Anxiety?

by Dan Regan | Mar 30, 2024 | Anxiety Stress and Panic Attacks

Are You Using Alcohol To Cope With Anxiety?

Has alcohol become the way you try to cope with your anxiety? What may have started out as a way to try and relax or to numb the uncomfortable thoughts and feelings can soon start to create more and more problems in your life.

It’s definitely not uncommon with people I work with, and in the wider community, for alcohol to be used as a way of trying to switch off from thinking and to try and quieten your mind for a bit. Many people have a drink or two in the evening just for this purpose. Having used this external means to change how they feel for so long, without that drink, all the stress, anxiety and overthinking can soon take over.

Alcohol can have this sort of calming effect but it can come at a cost. The quality of your sleep can diminish making it harder to deal with things the next day. Those empty calories can also have an impact on your health and your waist line. And, of course, that crutch to reply on means you never find effective ways to be able to manage your own thoughts and feelings successfully.

As happens with most substances, that need for a drink can creep up and up. To try and get the same effect of switching off from anxious thoughts and feelings you can find yourself consuming more alcohol. You can find that you reach for that drink to cope with any other difficult feelings too, such as any feelings of lowness and stress. Sometimes, even after your anxiety has calmed, the drinking habit persists. You know it’s a depressant, you know that it can exacerbate anxiety and you know it doesn’t help solve any problems yet that pattern still happens whether you want it to or not. And still you may not have found the healthier and more beneficial coping strategies that you need when you don’t or can’t drink for some reason.

Back when I struggled with anxiety and low self-esteem, alcohol would be my way of seeking to calm down the anxiety so I could try and relax and enjoy myself socially.

Anxiety and The Jekyll and Hyde Effect

by Dan Regan | Mar 26, 2024 | Anxiety Stress and Panic Attacks

Anxiety and The Jekyll and Hyde Effect – Hypnotherapy in Ely and Newmarket

You are more than likely already familiar with the story of Jekyll and Hyde. In many ways the theme of the story can mirror the experience of anxiety. Certainly when I used to struggle with anxiety and social anxiety, I often felt like I was split into two people, like I could be two seemingly contrasting personalities in the situations I encountered. Sometimes I would be calm, relaxed and comfortable in myself. And yet in other situations I would seemingly transform into a tense, withdrawn, anxious shadow of how I perceived myself.

In the famous novel, which is certainly worth a read, Dr Jekyll is a successful and well respected man. Through his experiments he produces a concoction that transforms him into the evil, unscrupulous Mr Hyde. Ultimately, the Mr Hyde aspect of his personality becomes the stronger and more powerful aspect of his personality. It’s a theme and story line that has been repeated many, many times in various movies and books.

Now, with Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde there is a battle between good and evil, right and wrong. With anxiety, the battle comes between the calmer, clear thinking side of you and the anxious side of you that can overwhelm how you feel.

When you are in a place or situation where you feel comfortable, you can be calm, relaxed and positive as you think clearly and logically. And then, sometimes predictably and sometimes unexpectedly, your anxiety takes over and you may try to avoid or escape the situation along with experiencing all sorts of uncomfortable thoughts and feelings. You can start to worry about your anxiety happening again and you may dwell upon how bad you feel in those moments when you are anxious and uncomfortable. Because anxiety feels so bad, you can start thinking about what if it happens again, perhaps especially during important moments or when around others.

Anxiety works upon habit, pattern and repetition. When you go into a place or situation where you have been anxious before, your brain tends to repeat the thoughts and feelings that you had the last time you were in that similar situation. Sometimes this is helpful, other times less so. With anxiety, your mind becomes primed for your anxious thoughts and feelings to kick back in. And because your mind works on patterns, anything that is perceived to be anything like a previous anxious occasion or thing, will lead to your anxiety striking again. You logically know you are safe and okay yet your ability to think clearly gets swamped by your physical feelings and urge to get away.

Your anxiety can seem to spread into more and more areas of your life as all the worry, anxiety and stress become attached to more and more people, places, environments and situations.

IBS: Reducing The Risk of IBS Symptoms

by Dan Regan | Mar 5, 2024 | Anxiety Stress and Panic Attacks, Dan's Blog

IBS: Reducing The Risk of IBS Symptoms

IBS symptoms can be totally frustrating. If you’ve been diagnosed with IBS then you’ve probably had all sorts of tests that have ruled everything else out. You may have had to struggle on with your symptoms for month after month and one intrusive test after another only to be told that it’s probably IBS. You may have tried restrictive food regimes to try and work out triggers, and you may know many food triggers, yet there is always the risk of IBS symptoms occurring at other times too.

It can all start to take over your life. I’ve worked with clients who won’t eat before they go out or while out in case their IBS strikes. You may find yourself worrying about where there are toilets and even limiting the places you will go to those you can be sure have adequate and clean toilets. Or maybe you end up cancelling plans because the stress and risk of the embarrassment from an episode is too great. You might be able to recall a few near miss occasions in the past and these loom large in your mind as a warning of future risks.

All this stress and anxiety around the risk of IBS symptoms striking is even before you deal with the discomfort and pain when your IBS is at its worst. I’ve known of sufferers who have to get up early to allow for time on the toilet, who can spend such a long time on the toilet or who have to habitually make many repeat visits to the toilet. All the discomfort, stress, anxiety and worry limits your life and leads to worrying about potential worst case scenarios. And, because stress and anxiety can trigger IBS, you can easily get caught in a loop of worry, discomfort and pain and then more anxiety.

Only recently I was working with an IBS client who would get anxious before going to work and who needed to spend ages sitting on the toilet. There was constant anxiety that the IBS may strike when at work and that disaster would ensue. Another client would look online for toilet information before agreeing to go anywhere with friends and who would worry about going away on holiday.

The positive news is that hypnotherapy has a strong evidence base for helping with both the IBS symptoms themselves, and the anxiety and stress that goes with IBS. IBS can’t be cured but you can manage it effectively in a way where you are able to be happy and enjoy life. You can reduce the stress and anxiety about the risk of IBS symptoms arising that can contribute to a greater likelihood of that then happening.

Anxiety, Depression and Agoraphobia Hypnotherapy Review Video

by Dan Regan | Feb 22, 2024 | Anxiety Stress and Panic Attacks

Anxiety, Depression and Agoraphobia Hypnotherapy Review Video

As a former anxiety sufferer, I know how limiting and debilitating it can be. It can take over your life and limit what you feel capable of doing and achieving. You struggle on in a battle with your own thoughts and feelings and missing out on doing things you want to do.

And so, one of the happiest and most positive moments during my work is when a client tells me how their hypnotherapy sessions have helped them to feel better, stronger and more confident. I love sharing client reviews because I want it to bring hope to you if you are currently stuck in the cycle of anxiety. It really is possible to overcome issues such as anxiety, depression and agoraphobia so that you feel calm, confident and in control over your own thoughts and feelings. Rather than being thrown from one anxious thought to another, you can direct your thinking, emotions and responses in a way that allows you to feel confident and in control.

I’m very fortunate in that I work with a lot of amazing people who are happy to share their hypnotherapy feedback. These videos and comments are why I do what I do and why I put so much time, effort and persistence into helping as many people as I can to overcome their challenges and move forward with their goals. I particularly love it when a client shares a hypnotherapy video review because I want you to know that these are real people sharing their real life results.

And here in this article I’m sharing my latest hypnotherapy video review from a client who was battling anxiety, depression and agoraphobia and who is now feeling stronger and more confident and being their true self. It’s definitely worth a watch!

Storm of Anxiety – Hypnotherapy in Ely & Newmarket

by Dan Regan | Feb 15, 2024 | Anxiety Stress and Panic Attacks

Storm Of Anxiety – Hypnotherapy in Ely & Newmarket

Sometimes anxiety can seem to come crashing in upon you like a storm. One moment you may feel calm and ok. And then in no time at all, the wave after wave of anxiety comes crashing in upon you and you find yourself struggling with all those anxious thoughts and feelings that bombard you. In the midst of the anxiety storm it can seem hard to remain grounded and present and to stay strong and resilient enough not to get carried along by the forceful tide of your anxiety.

Anxious thoughts and feelings can come at you seemingly out of nowhere. Sometimes it builds up slowly and at other times it falls upon you fast. And when the anxiety takes over, the thoughts and feelings are like an emotional storm that you try your best to just battle through until it passes. Anxiety can seem very powerful and it’s easy to get caught up and carried along in the swirl, waves and force of the storm. You can feel overwhelmed and start to engage in worst case and catastrophic thinking that only serves to amplify your uncomfortable feelings.

Anxiety storms can vary in their severity and duration. Sometimes things pass on quickly and at other times it seems like the storm is never ending and that you will never feel better. The process I’m sharing with you here today (and I’ll have a hypnosis download version for you soon too) is designed to help you to stay present and grounded when the anxiety storm falls upon you. It sits nicely alongside many of the other cognitive behavioural strategies for anxiety that I’ve covered in these articles on my website.

This storm of anxiety process is designed to help you to stay present and grounded as you handle whatever challenges may come your way. You imagine being out on sea on a boat in the calm waters before a storm falls upon you. You drop your anchor to hold you steady. And then, like you are also anchored in to the present moment, you find that rather than getting swept away by anxious thoughts and feelings you can think clearly, handle things well and come out the other side even more resilient.

Anxious Intrusive Thoughts – Hypnotherapy in Ely and Newmarket

by Dan Regan | Feb 15, 2024 | Anxiety Stress and Panic Attacks

Intrusive Thoughts – Hypnotherapy in Ely and Newmarket

One of the most characteristic features of anxiety is intrusive thoughts. These are the thoughts that just come into your head and that can take over your thinking. They are filled with words, images and ideas that can be distressing and fear provoking.

Sometimes, especially when you are busy and preoccupied during the day, you may be able to distract yourself and sideline these unwanted thoughts. Yet often, because they are associated with so much emotion and anxiety, in your quieter moments they come back with seemingly renewed force and distress. It’s quite common to struggle with these anxious intrusive thoughts when driving or last thing at night (or during the night when you wake). And these distressing and anxiety filled thoughts lead to anxious feelings, which in turn then accelerates and strengthens those catastrophic, unpleasant patterns of thinking.

Now, the key thing to keep in mind here is that everyone experiences these unwanted intrusive type thoughts. Sometimes the things that just arrive in our awareness are pleasant, and sometimes they are less so. Our minds are funny things and you can find yourself thinking about all sorts of things which may or may not be based upon the present reality and how things actually are.

Anxious intrusive thoughts become problematic when they provoke anxious and fearful feelings. You think something, or it just comes to mind, and because it is unpleasant or distressing it scares you. That fear then adds to how intensely and persistently you think similar types of things. You start to become afraid of your own thoughts and what they mean. You start to worry that you might act upon the things you are imagining and so cause harm to yourself or others.

Someone without anxiety could contemplate the same thing as you and could then decide to move onto thinking about something else and forget all about what they were just imagining. With anxiety, you find yourself absorbed and engaged in whatever intrusive thought has taken over your thinking. You start to feel worried and anxious about thinking it and you then start to feel tense and hypervigilant to your own negative thinking patterns.

Health Anxiety Disorder Risks – Hypnotherapy in Ely and Newmarket

by Dan Regan | Feb 12, 2024 | Anxiety Stress and Panic Attacks

Health Anxiety Disorder Risks – Hypnotherapy in Ely and Newmarket

Health anxiety disorder is one of the common forms of anxiety and can have a massive detrimental impact upon your life. You struggle with your persistent preoccupation that there is something seriously wrong with you. You pay close attention to bodily signs and symptoms and you become convinced that something catastrophic is occurring with you.

You can overthink and ceaseless worry that there is something seriously wrong with you. The fear of how awful that would be continues to drive your imagination as you think of how your life will catastrophically unfold before you into the future. And those health anxiety thoughts drive your anxious feelings. You feel tense, restless, low, agitated and doomed.

Sometimes when I work with health anxiety clients, their anxiety has taken hold to such an extent that they struggle to concentrate upon anything else for any period of time. All that consumes them is their health and the feeling that there is something wrong. The tendency then can be to start looking things up online, and that only leads to more fuel being added to the never ending cycle of anxiety.

Some people find that any mention of an illness by others or in the media starts them on a frenzy of checking and seeing whether how they feel matches that illness. You can easily convince yourself your symptoms match and that you have an undiagnosed serious health condition.

And so after endless checking of your symptoms and how your body feels, you may go and see your doctor. For some with health anxiety disorder the reassurance from a medical professional puts their mind at ease for a time. Yet for others, even after all the tests have been comprehensively done, that feeling of dread and of something being wrong lurks on. You start to think that clearly they’ve missed something and that your serious health issue just hasn’t been found yet.

With all the media channels, campaigns and adverts these days it’s almost impossible to avoid health related content. And each time, you can start to notice how the symptoms described seem similar to those that you are experiencing (especially online where symptoms are described in such vague terms).

You may find yourself fixating on one specific part of your body. You feel anxious, fearful and full of fear and dread. You catastrophise, think the worst and become convinced there is something unknown and bad happening to you. Even if you are able to reassure yourself that you don’t have one thing, any period of calm can easily become unsettled as the focus of your anxiety just moves onto something else health related.

Recording Hypnosis Downloads

by Dan Regan | Feb 9, 2024 | Anxiety Stress and Panic Attacks

Recording Hypnosis Downloads

I love recording hypnosis downloads because of all the positive feedback I get about how helpful they are. Whether it’s anxiety, confidence, self-esteem, weight loss or something else, I’ve probably got a download to help you!

I always give some downloads to my clients to support them in achieving their goals. The feedback is invariably positive. And there are many people who find, buy and download tracks and who message me to let me know how much it has helped them. It really does inspire me to get busy creating more titles for you!

I headed into the recording studio again today to record the latest batch of tracks. These will be available for you very soon. There are new hypnosis downloads to help with positivity, calmness, anxiety, self-esteem and about maximising your strength training.

Exam Room Anxiety

by Dan Regan | Jan 21, 2024 | Anxiety Stress and Panic Attacks

Exam Room Anxiety – Anxiety Hypnotherapy Ely and Newmarket

Do you suffer with exam room anxiety? You revise and know your stuff when you feel calm, yet as the exam gets closer your stress and anxiety levels just rise and rise. And then, on the day, just when you want to perform to your best, your exam room anxiety kicks in and you panic, struggle to think clearly and it’s like all your knowledge has somehow faded away.

Exam anxiety and stress can mess up all your hard work and plans. You may be fine with your subject when the pressure is off. Yet anxiety will block your ability to think clearly and make decisions. In the exam room you struggle to think and focus and you burn up and waste so much energy as your heart races and the panic attacks.

Recently, I’ve been helping several students to manage their thoughts, feelings and emotions around exams. Mocks have been taking place and they’ve gone from believing they can’t do exams successfully to being calm, positive and confident as they head towards their end of year exams in the summer. Exams are not just all about the learning and knowledge. To perform to your capability you need to be in control of your thinking as you revise and in the lead up to exams, and then to calmly manage how you feel from before the exam starts and right through to successful completion.

You don’t want to be wasting your revision time stressing out and letting your anxious imagination run wild. All the anxious thinking, dwelling and catastrophising stops you learning and retaining the subject matter you are covering. You become more focused on thoughts of failing, messing up and going blank in your exam. It can interfere with your eating and sleeping. The worrying, rather than the learning, revising and getting everything covered, starts to dominate your mindset and leaves you feeling stressed, tense and agitated.

Anxiety Ely and Newmarket

by Dan Regan | Jan 21, 2024 | Anxiety Stress and Panic Attacks

Anxiety Ely and Newmarket

Anxiety is one of the most prevalent issues right now, and the one that can have the most debilitating and limiting impact on your life. Whether you’ve always had a bit of a tendency for worry and now it has grown out of hand, or it’s something newer, anxiety thoughts and feelings can lead to you feeling lower and lower.

There are all the anxious thoughts that take over your focus and that dominate your awareness. You think the worst, catastrophise, think of the worst case scenario and dwell on things. Your anxious imagination takes over and thoughts accelerate through your mind. Everything seems negative and daunting. You feel that you aren’t in control over what goes on inside of your own head. Even where you know your worries may not happen or aren’t totally logical, that doesn’t stem the tide of ongoing anxiety that rolls on from one thing to another.

Alongside those anxious thoughts, there are all the uncomfortable feelings that you struggle with. You feel hot, tense and restless. Your sleeping and eating can be affected. You lack energy and feel weak. Your heart pounds, your breathing rate increases and you may feel wired all the time, like you can’t switch off. And you can get stomach issues where you feel nauseous and sick, meaning you want to eat less and do less. These are all things your body can cope with in times of stress, yet where they are too much and last too long, you feel awful.

You then get stuck in the habitual anxious cycle. Your anxious thoughts lead to you feeling anxious. And feeling anxious leads to thinking even more worst case scenarios. On top of that, you don’t want to do things because you feel so anxious and so you withdraw from normal activities. And you avoid as much as possible that could cause you anxiety and in doing so strengthen the sense of threat about those things that your mind has somehow learnt.

As a former anxiety sufferer myself, I know how dominating and debilitating it can be. Yet, I also know that you can learn how to master your own thoughts, feelings, actions and reactions. And you can change those thoughts and those feelings and the patterns of anxiety into new habitual ways that leave you feeling calm, confident and in control.

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