Dan’s Blog

When Anxiety Feels Out of Control: How to Know What Really Helps

by Dan Regan | Jan 6, 2026 | Anxiety Stress and Panic Attacks

When Anxiety Feels Out of Control: How to Know What Really Helps

Sometimes anxiety can feel like it has taken over. It can show up as constant worrying thoughts, sudden panic, physical symptoms, avoidance, or a feeling that you’ve lost control of your own reactions.

In my anxiety therapy in Ely and Newmarket, people with anxiety and panic often tell me how they feel out of control. It can stop you doing things because there will be things outside of your control. And as well as external things, some people think they are going crazy because they can’t calm their own feelings and calm their own thinking.

Anxiety brings unpleasant physical symptoms such as feeling shaky, restless and tense. Your chest feels tight and your heart races.

You get that sense of dread before you do things and your mind races through all the worst cases. Your mind jumps from one imagined catastrophe to the next. Even when you feel okay, you still feel anxious because you know your anxiety is still lurking and could strike again at any time. You start to worry about feeling anxious.

Your confidence plummets, your sleep is broken and you feel fraught and exhausted.

If that sounds familiar, you’re not alone – and the most important thing is knowing that anxiety can be helped. The next step is understanding what tends to make the biggest difference.

January Weight Loss Mindset

by Dan Regan | Jan 6, 2026 | Weight Loss

January Weight Loss Mindset

Why ‘New Year, New You’ Thinking Makes Weight Shifts Harder – And What Actually Helps

Every January you might hear the phrase ‘New Year, new you over and over – but that idea can unintentionally create pressure rather than progress.

Rather than motivating, this mindset often leads to:

Stress about making the ‘perfect start
Feeling you must be disciplined from day one
Frustration when life doesn’t bend to your plans
A cycle of ‘start / stop / punish / restart’

You end up with so much stress, anxiety and frustration that you give up. You start January with a mindset for weight loss but struggle to maintain it. It’s why so many people in Ely and Newmarket tell me about their history of failed diets and their years of yo-yo dieting.

This article explores why the fresh start narrative can work against you, and how a calmer, more manageable approach helps sustainable change – especially when anxiety, emotions and habits play a role.

Driving Anxiety Hypnotherapy

by Dan Regan | Jan 2, 2026 | Anxiety Stress and Panic Attacks

Driving Anxiety Hypnotherapy: Fear, Confidence and Feeling Back in Control

Driving anxiety can make even short or familiar journeys feel overwhelming. This article explains why driving anxiety develops, how it affects confidence, and how hypnotherapy can help you feel calmer and more in control behind the wheel.

Driving anxiety is one of the common issues that I help people with in Ely and Newmarket.

Like all types of anxiety, you get caught up in a self re-enforcing spiral. You feel anxious thinking about driving even when you aren’t in the car. Those anxious feelings increase the closer a journey gets and the thoughts of the worst happening race through your imagination. You may avoid all driving or going on certain roads or in particular situations. If you do get in the car, your heart races, your chest feels tight and you worry about everything to do with what you are doing and what other drivers are doing.

The particular roads and situations that cause you anxiety can vary. In this area, it’s very common that people avoid the busy A14, especially the sections where there is no lay-by to pull into or no nearby junction to escape on if it were all to get too much. However, driving anxiety can equally apply to smaller roads, unfamiliar routes or anything that feels too far from home.

Sometimes driving anxiety arises because of something that previously happened when you were in the car. Or it can be that, in the solitude of the car with time to think, all the stress and anxiety from the rest of your life catches up with you. You feel anxious or have a panic attack and your mind associates the fear with where you are at that moment, in the car. Suddenly, even where driving was previously fine, being in the car triggers anxiety, tension and overwhelm.

However your driving anxiety started, and whatever the roads and situations, hypnotherapy can help you to start feeling more calm and confident behind the wheel again.

How Hypnotherapy Can Help You Through Dry January

by Dan Regan | Jan 1, 2026 | Excessive Drinking and Binge Drinking

How Hypnotherapy Can Help You Through Dry January

Have you ever wondered how hypnotherapy can help you through Dry January?

As the festive season winds down, you may have decided that you need to go on a health kick after the indulgences of Christmas and New Year. I help people take control over excessive drinking and binge drinking all year round. However, many people decide that January, full of New Year’s hope, will be their time to take back control over their drinking.

Drinking alcohol can easily become habitual. You drink to relax after a long day, to accompany a meal, to celebrate, because it’s the weekend and socially with friends. You know too much alcohol is bad for you and can damage your health. Indeed, in Ireland they are moving to label all alcohol with a warning that drinking causes liver disease and is linked to fatal cancers.

Drinking too much is expensive, bloats your waist line, is risky for your health and it can steal your sleep, motivation and energy. It can also be linked to low mood and anxiety. And yet, despite all this, you still find yourself drinking more often, or more volume, than you’d really like. You wake in the morning full of determination to have an alcohol free day. And yet by the evening you are there again with a glass in your hand. You want to cut down your drinking but it just never happens successfully. The alcohol is in control.

At this time of year, many people start looking to Dry January – that month long commitment to take a break from alcohol, reset your habits and boost your mental and physical well-being. For some, it’s a simple challenge to go a month alcohol free (although those excessive drinking habits can soon kick back in once February arrives).

For many others, Dry January is a colossal challenge. You can battle with cravings, urges, social pressure and a sense of doubt whether you can manage the whole month. You may even have started thinking of exceptions, times during Dry January you’ll allow yourself a drink or two, to help make it seem more achievable. I’ve helped clients who secretly drink during Dry January, or who only apply it to certain alcoholic drinks (e.g. only to wine and not beer) to try and cut back their drinking.

If you are thinking about taking part, or you’ve tried before and found it tougher than expected, hypnotherapy can be an effective, practical way to support your Dry January success.

Fear of Flying: Anxiety or Phobia?

by Dan Regan | Dec 31, 2025 | Phobias and Fears

Fear of Flying: Anxiety or Phobia?

I work with many people in Ely and Newmarket who struggle with a fear of flying. The anxiety and fear can stop you flying altogether, or make it a thoroughly uncomfortable experience. So is your fear of flying an anxiety or a phobia? And how can you tackle it so that you can fly calmly and confidently. How can you overcome your fear of flying so you can look forward to going to the places you want to go?

For many people, flying isn’t just uncomfortable, it’s deeply distressing. The thought of getting on a plane can trigger anxiety days or even weeks in advance, and for some, it leads to avoiding travel altogether.

If you are able to tackle the initial barrier of buying a ticket, your anxiety and panic starts to increase. You imagine all the worst case scenarios, from the plane going down to having a panic attack and feeling trapped. The closer flying gets, the more you feel restless and get that sinking feeling. The airport can feel hot and uncomfortable. And being on the plane can lead to panic, hyper alertness and wave after wave of fear. You can arrive at your destination feeling drained and exhausted from all the anxious thoughts and feelings you’ve been trying to deal with.

If you struggle with a fear of flying, you may wonder whether what you’re experiencing is anxiety or a phobia. Understanding the difference is an important first step toward feeling calmer and more in control. And, as my many clients in Ely and Newmarket have gone on to discover, you an feel more calm and in control before and during flying.

All or Nothing Thinking Around Food

by Dan Regan | Dec 30, 2025 | Weight Loss

All or Nothing Thinking Around Food

All-or-nothing thinking around food is a common pattern where eating choices are viewed as either “good” or “bad”, often leading to guilt, restriction, or giving up altogether after small slips.

This way of thinking often sounds like:

“I’ve ruined today, so I may as well eat whatever I want.”
“I’ll start again properly on Monday.”
“If I can’t do this perfectly, there’s no point.”

All-or-nothing thinking isn’t a lack of willpower. It’s usually a response to pressure, stress or anxiety, especially after periods like Christmas, holidays, or busy life changes.

When food becomes tied to strict rules, black and white thinking, self-criticism or control, even small deviations can feel like failure. That emotional reaction often drives overeating, comfort eating, or abandoning healthy intentions altogether.

Weight Loss After Christmas

by Dan Regan | Dec 28, 2025 | Weight Loss

Hypnotherapy for Weight Loss: Getting Back on Track After Christmas

If you are struggling to get back on track with healthy eating after Christmas, then hypnotherapy for weight loss can help you. You can take back control over your eating habits, end emotional eating and overeating and enjoy eating the right amount for you.

Christmas can be a difficult time when it comes to food, routines and self-control. For many people, the structure they normally rely on disappears, emotions run higher, and eating is more about comfort than hunger. All your previous good efforts went out the window and the pounds piled on. You may well have ended up feeling lethargic and bloated. Now you are struggling to reign it all back in and get back on track after Christmas.

If you’re now feeling frustrated, guilty or “behind” with your weight goals, then it’s time to take back control over your eating habits. Rather than snacking, eating it because it is there or eating more than you need, you can start eating healthily and eating the right amount. You can get your mindset in place to move forward towards the size, shape and weight that you desire.

What helps weight loss now is not more willpower or another restrictive diet. You need a calm, effective and supportive approach that changes your relationship with food and become your new habitual lifestyle.

Hypnotherapy for weight loss can help you break unhealthy patterns so that you move forward towards the size, shape and weight that you desire. Rather than weight loss after Christmas feeling hard, you take back control over your eating thoughts, feelings and habits.

Physical Anxiety Symptoms

by Dan Regan | Dec 27, 2025 | Anxiety Stress and Panic Attacks

Physical Anxiety Symptoms: Why Anxiety Feels So Physical

Anxiety fills your mind with racing thoughts of the worst happening. You get caught in a loop of worrying thoughts, fear and overthinking. Alongside this, you experience all the unpleasant, frightening and uncomfortable physical anxiety symptoms. For some people, the most distressing part of anxiety is what they feel in their body.

It doesn’t matter whether your anxiety is about something specific or more general. Your heart races, your chest tightens and you can experience dizziness, nausea and a wave of fear. When those bodily sensations and feelings strike and hit you, it can feel debilitating and crushing.

These symptoms can be frightening and feel overwhelming. They can appear suddenly or without any obvious cause. The bodily feelings can become more and more frequent. You start to focus upon them more and more. Even when you feel fine, you worry about feeling that bad again. You may start limiting what you do and avoiding things. You just want to retreat to somewhere where you feel more safe.

It’s very common for people to start worrying that something is physically wrong with them. The medical tests all come back normal but your anxiety about your health continues.

This article will help you to understand why anxiety causes physical symptoms and how you can start feeling better.

Hypnotherapy For Habits: Why Hypnotherapy Works Better Than Willpower

by Dan Regan | Dec 27, 2025 | Hypnotherapy Hypnosis and NLP

Hypnotherapy For Habits: Why Hypnotherapy Works Better Than Willpower

As January begins, you may feel motivated to make changes. It could be healthier habits, better routines or leaving behind some old behaviours. Yet even with the best intentions, these changes can feel difficult to sustain. That’s where hypnotherapy for habits can help you.

After the excess of Christmas, and with some extra time on your hands over the holidays, you may well decide that it is time to do things differently. You may start eating healthier, drinking less or exercising more. You are motivated and focused and things may start well. Then normal routines and demands kick back in and it feels harder to commit to change.

And some people only get as far as thinking they should change their habits and never even get started.

Changing habits can feel hard if you rely on willpower alone. You try to push along and you put effort in, only to end up back where you started after a while. Your mind works on pattern and repetition. In similar situations you are designed to do things in the same way as before. By simply relying on good intentions and forcing a change in behaviours you are not addressing how your mind works. After a while your focus and willpower get depleted and the same old patterns resurface. It feels frustrating and defeating.

I work with many people in Ely, Newmarket and Online who really want to change habits but struggle to maintain any momentum.

If you’ve ever found yourself saying that you know what you should do, but you just can’t stick to it, then you are not alone. This is where hypnotherapy for habits can help.

Returning to Work Anxiety

by Dan Regan | Dec 26, 2025 | Anxiety Stress and Panic Attacks

Returning To Work Anxiety: How To Ease Post Holiday Stress

Returning to work after the holidays can trigger anxiety.

During the festive break you may have found time to relax, rest, see people and do fun things. If you’ve had time off you’ll have fallen into new patterns and routines, perhaps staying up later and sleeping in. There may have been changes to what you eat, drink and how you have used your time.

Now you face the prospect of returning to the work routine. That likely means getting up earlier and dealing with the rush. You’ll have deadlines, demands and people to deal with. It may feel overwhelming just to think about it after your break from it all. The decorations and lights are taken down, the weather is dark and cold, and the next real break is not for quite some time.

Your anxiety about returning to work may mean you notice tension, restlessness, overthinking and a sense of overwhelm as you face emails, tasks and deadlines. Post holiday anxiety and stress affects countless people each year.

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