Life has become a little scary for many of us, particularly at the moment. We are afraid for ourselves, our children, our parents, family members and our friends.

It sometimes feels like you don’t know what is up or what is down anymore because the world feels like it’s completely upside down.

You feel like you are being stretched in all directions.

Statistically, our chances of living a long, healthy life are better than ever. Many of us can comfortably expect to live into our seventies and well beyond, especially in the developed world.

Unfortunately, a message of widespread safety and security doesn’t sell newspapers and it doesn’t keep people glued to their TV sets. So to boost their sales, news broadcasters typically
highlight fear based stories, like terrorism, gun and knife crime, plane crashes and health scares.

I’m not saying that news broadcasters are wrong to do this, and I am not saying we should bury our heads in the sand and ignore tragedies and threats to our safety, however, it is important to remember that, if you regularly expose your mind to pictures of violence and death, your brain will tend to draw very inaccurate conclusions about how safe the world really is.

The brain is heavily influenced by emotion. If you regularly feed it stories that bring up negative emotions, the brain can start to conclude that the world is very dangerous, even though
statistically we live in safer times. So it is worth limiting our exposure, keeping in mind that the news and negative influences can be a biased, edited view of reality deliberately designed to fill the public with enough fear or outrage to keep them buying newspapers and watching their TV channels.

Of course, not feeling safe can also be due to actual events in our own past, however, the past is not causing us to feel unsafe, it is our thoughts and habitual emotions in the here and now that are creating the anxiety, like an internal news channel in the mind that focuses excessively on potential dangers and unpleasant memories.

Hypnosis is an excellent tool for changing such negative thinking patterns, to retrain that worrying part of the mind and teach it to calm down and relax, just as you might soothe a child
to sleep who may have been upset. So as a person learns to relax, they can notice themselves feeling more and more appropriately safe and relaxed in the days and weeks ahead.

It is often worrying thoughts that create our fears and anxiety, causing uncomfortable feelings as well as physical symptoms:

• Feelings of not being able to cope;
• Not able to think logically, clearly or to resolve concerns;
• Lack of concentration;
• Thoughts that you will pass out or say something ridiculous;
• That you want to escape and run away;
• Feeling suppressed or angry, and
• And that you are worthless, no good and hopeless.

However stress symptoms make us stronger, more aware and stupid!

To defend ourselves or our family we need to be able to respond immediately with extra energy and strength so your body prepares you to stand and fight or run with flight. It does this by:

• Increasing your levels of oxygen levels within the body and assist in taking more blood to your limbs so that they are stronger;
• Constricting the blood vessels so they can pump more blood and oxygen;
• Heightening your senses so you can hear, smell and see better;
• Stopping you accessing your rational mind so you act on instinct instead of thinking things through;
• Suspending all non-essential functioning - you don’t need to digest food or have sex if you are in ‘defend and protect’ mode; and
• Bypassing your conscious mind as your brain prepares for immediate action

With your body ready for action you become faster and stronger – for example - a middle aged woman had a ceiling collapse on her whilst relaxing in the bath and managed to force the door open when two burly ambulance men had been unable to move it!

How to reduce your stress and anxiety symptoms:

A way to reduce symptoms of stress and anxiety is to change the way that you think and feel about situations – this will then change the chemical message that your body receives and this will switch off the fight or flight response and your body will become calm.

Hypnotherapy can assist greatly in reducing the fight/flight response, therefore, through guidance and hypnotherapy Karen will be able to assist you with ways to overcome those
triggers that set off the flight/flight response and improve the ability to make you more resilient to the challenges of life, which in turn will also benefit many other aspects of your life.

Practice Being Present:  We are either living in our past or our future, but the truth is, life is lived in the present. The next time that you are with someone you care for, be fully present with them. It is the greatest gift you can give them.

You can also focus on your breath. You cannot have a thought and focus on your breath at the same time. It’s the best practice for being present.

Accept The Things You Have NO Control Over: It’s important to really have clarity and distinguish what you have control over and what you do not.

You have the CHOICE to choose how you respond to any situation. When you are reacting constantly, you end up going round and round, and it causes continued stress which
suppresses your immune system.

Limit Your Exposure To The News/Negative Influence:  While it’s important to be educated and aware of changes that may impact on our safety, consuming negative information nonstop will keep you in a constant state of fear and worry. Your immune system will become severely compromised as a consequence.

What are some ways you can limit your media exposure?

Practice Self-Compassion: No one has a handbook on how to live through these times. Know that at any given moment you are doing the very best that you can. No matter what.
Practice self-compassion, hypnosis is a powerful tool that will teach you how to maintain a sense of peace and calm in these challenging times.

We are all going to get through those moments. Stronger. Wiser.

Further allow hypnotherapy and counselling to assist you in:

• Maintaining a positive outlook and attitude;
• Achieving specific goals;
• That you are comfortable in your life and to feel safe, and
• Learn your brain science. Create new neural pathways in the brain so that day by day it will become easier to stay calm consistently

For further information contact us on (03) 5223 2370 or via email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.