Anxiety at its simplest level is a warning signal, a very normal response to help keep you safe. Sometimes we need to take action to remove the threat.
If you were a Stone Age hunter gatherer faced by a charging heard of wooly mammoths then;
Anxiety = Warning Signal = Adrenaline Surge = Flight Response (run as fast as you can to get out of the way)
In this case anxiety is your friend!
However in our modern world threats do not present themselves in such straight forward ways and this anxiety mechanism can go off piste. Various aspects of our lives can become overloaded which creates anxiety such as:
- Work
- Relationships
- Financial debts
- School, college, exams
- Our need not being met
- Being wracked by guilt about things from the past
- Catasthrophizing about what might happen, imaging the worst for the future
On the physical level, several parts of the brain are involved in anxiety, your brain stem, also known as your “animal brain,” “reptilian brain” or the “survival brain” and you Limbic System which includes the hypothalamus, hippocampus and amygdala, also known as the “emotional brain.”
When you are anxious these parts of your brain take over and shut down the frontal lobe, your “thinking brain” or “smart brain.” So your brain still reacts as if you are being chased by those wooly mammoths.
What we would prefer to happen is that the parasympathetic phase of the nervous system (the calming phase) becomes triggered. This enables us to be calm and to solve problems easily, efficiently and in a composed manner. Everyone has this calmness potential!
Our unconscious minds control our feelings, beliefs, behaviours, perceptions and thought patterns because hypnotherapy accesses and works with the unconscious mind it is an ideal way to reduce anxiety and enable potential solutions.