Is Online Hypnotherapy As Effective?

When I heard about the lockdown, my first concern centered around my ability to support my clients. I knew that carrying out hypnotherapy online was just as effective as doing it in person. I had used the video conferencing app, Zoom to help clients in the past. These tended to be clients who were housebound or those who lived too far from my practice to see me in person. In fact in 2017 I had started to see International clients via Zoom from Countries as far away as Vietnam. I saw clients achieve their goals in just the same way as if they were attending a face to face session. Clients with anxiety related issues got better, weight loss clients lost weight and the one gentleman I saw for stopping smoking, stopped.

So, I was confident that my online hypnotherapy sessions via Zoom would be just as effective as sessions at my clinic. Despite this I knew that some clients would struggle to find somewhere relatively quiet for their session. Initially, some clients were not entirely comfortable with the technology, but as we all got to grips with living online, that soon changed. However, I became aware that some clients weren’t convinced that online hypnotherapy would be as effective as that done in person. As the covid-19 session worsened this was a real concern to me. I began regularly hearing about the increasing number of people struggling with anxiety related symptoms

Recent Study And Testimonials Suggest Effectiveness

I realised that it was important to help people to see how effective it could be. Interestingly a recent study in 2018 looked at online hypnotherapy sessions carried out via Skype for IBS. The study compared the effectiveness of online versus face to face sessions. The format and content of all the sessions were the same. The study showed there to be no discernible difference in outcomes between the online group and the face to face group.

Among my own clients, I received comments such as ‘its so much nicer not having to drive home after a hypnotherapy session. I can just relax at home for the rest of the evening.’ Another commented ‘ I feel so much more relaxed being in my own home for the trance session’. One client was even kind enough to write a testimonial about their online therapy on my Facebook page. They said “I’ve had several sessions with Jenny and have recently changed to have them online. I was amazed that as promised there was no difference in the quality of the experience. The feeling of relaxation and reduction in stress level felt afterwards was the same. Thanks Jenny.”

Feedback From Students & Written Articles

I also train students to become qualified hypnotherapists with the CPHT Leeds training school. Nearly all the students on the current training course saw their clients face to face until Covid-19 stepped in. However, one student saw all her clients online from day one. She lives in Germany and was travelling over each month to attend the hypnotherapy training course. Her clients were spread across 6 continents at one point and all of them responded well to therapy, just as though she’d seen them in person. The other students have now moved all their hypnotherapy sessions to online, in line with Government advice.

An article in the Washington Post spoke about the increased intimacy of online hypnotherapy sessions. This was mirrored by another student, who had known her client prior to therapy starting. After moving to Zoom for her sessions after lockdown, her client confided things to her therapist that she possibly wouldn’t have done prior to online working. A sure sign of a higher level of rapport than she’d had before?

On top of all the therapeutic benefits, client’s save time & money by not having to travel to the clinic. They can really capitalise on the relaxed feeling they notice at the end of every session. Clients can see the hypnotherapist that’s right for them, regardless of where in the UK that therapist works. So if you’re suffering from an anxiety related condition and you’ve been putting off seeing a hypnotherapist until after the lockdown has been lifted, why wait? Get in touch with me today and start getting your life back on track.

How Can Hypnotherapy Can Help Infertility?

When we decide to have a family we all tend to assume that if we stop our birth control, we will get pregnant. Although this is true for many people, for a few it can be the start of a struggle. Some of these people will go to their GP and after a number of tests, find and sort out the problem and go on to have their baby. Others will find that they will need to look at other options. However, every year there are couples for whom there appears to be nothing physically wrong. Despite the reassurances of their GP and other health professionals they still don’t achieve the pregnancy they’re hoping for.

How Can Hypnotherapy Help Couples Conceive?

Hypnotherapy might be able to help couples conceive. You see when we are anxious or stressed, our brain shuts down all non-essential functions in the body. This is because our brain believes that we are in a life threatening situation. Getting pregnant is obviously not in our best interests if we are truly in a life threatening situation. So the brain floods our body with stress hormones which are not conducive to allowing conception to occur.

Hypnotherapy helps us to relax and encourages the release of Serotonin. This Serotonin helps us to feel more positive and able to cope better with life. The body can then allow conception to take place. During an initial consultation with a Solution Focused Hypnotherapist you will be given an explanation of how the brain works. This can give you more detail about what role the brain plays in preventing conception from taking place. More importantly you will find out how you can get the control back. In the subsequent sessions, Psychotherapy techniques will be used to help you to focus on the positives in your life and your preferred future. The trance session will then help you to relax deeply while focusing on this preferred future. Maintaining this state of relaxation throughout your pregnancy is supported by the free CD given at the initial consultation.

If you would like to find out how hypnotherapy could help you to get pregnant or to carry a child to term, then book an appointment by clicking here . Alternatively call me on 07748 511841 and I’ll be happy to help.

15 Top Tips To Help You Lose Weight And Keep It Off!

Have you always wondered how to lose weight and keep it off? Here are some tips to point you in the right direction.

  1. Establish why you want to lose weight. Put it in positive terms, “I want to be fit and healthy”, rather than “I don’t want to be fat and bloated”. The brain thinks in pictures and when you think about being fit and healthy, it sees you as being fit and healthy. When you think about not being fat and bloated it sees you as being fat and bloated.
  2. Be positive and set yourself a goal. What weight do you wish to be? Choose a realistic weight for your age and height. When would you like to achieve that weight by? Be realistic, if you want to lose three stone then a healthy timescale at 2lbs per week might be 20 weeks or 5 months. Once you’ve decided on the date mark it with your new weight on the calendar.
  3. If you can, find photos of you at that weight and display them at key points around the house. The fridge, the biscuit jar and any mirrorsThese will help you to stay focused on your goal.
  4. Make a list of all the healthy foods you enjoy eating and combine them into your diet. Focusing on what you can eat will help the sensible part of your brain to stick to your diet. Focusing on the foods you can’t eat will only encourage the emotional part of your brain to crave those very foods and sabotage your efforts.

    #DrinkingWater #LoseWeight
    Drinking water can help you to lose weight.
  5. Drink lots of water. Drinking water is good for the body as it helps you to avoid feeling dehydrated without adding to your calorie count. Always drink a glass of water before meals, it will help you to feel full more quickly and avoid temptation.
  6. Eat small regular meals. Avoid starving yourself for any length of time. If you do this then your body will believe that it is in some sort of crisis situation. Once this happens, your body goes into survival mode and as soon as you start to eat it begins to store food as fat.
  7. Deal with your stress. Cortisol is created by stress and anxiety. Too much cortisol can cause weight gain. Excess weight stored around the middle of the body is often due to stress or anxiety.
  8. Raise your serotonin levels. Serotonin is the feel-good neurotransmitter. When we are feeling positive then we are not tempted to overeat.  Serotonin is created by being positive. There are 3 ways that we can be positive and improve our serotonin levels: by thinking positively, by being active in a positive way and interacting with others in a positive way. So think about solutions rather than problems. Exercise or simply get on with life – do something to move your life forward every day. Be sociable and avoid negative conversations.
  9. Find an activity that you enjoy and do it – often! Weight gain is a simple formula, more fuel (food) in than activity expended equals weight gain. Less fuel (food) in than activity expended equals weight loss.
  10. Think about this as a lifestyle change rather than a diet. This will help you to change your attitude towards food. Short term goals = short term weight loss. Long term goals= long term weight loss.
  11. If you occasionally eat something you know you to be unhealthy, accept it and move on.  Don’t allow it to ‘neg you out’. It won’t do you any harm as a one-off, so accept it and make sure that everything else you eat today is healthy. Failing to do so will encourage the emotional part of the brain to convince you that there’s no point in eating healthily for the rest of the day/week or month.
  12. Find some healthy foods to use as treats. This will help to rewrite the instruction in our brain that tells us that we deserve something unhealthy when we’ve had a great/dreadful day. I have seen people spend an hour in the gym and then reward themselves with a huge portion of fish and chips. It’s time to change your mind!
  13.  Eat from a smaller plate/bowl. This sounds too simple to work, but it really does. Sitting down to a plate filled with food does help us to avoid the temptation of eating too much. A large plate with the same amount of food leaves us feeling as though we’ve been short-changed.
  14. Stop eating when you feel full. This one sounds simple, but if you eat too quickly then the body doesn’t have time to let you know when you’re full. So take your time when you’re eating and allow your body to ‘catch up’ with the amount you’ve eaten. If you still feel hungry after a meal, wait 10 minutes before eating anything else. You might just find that the hunger passes.
  15. Change your routine. If you know that when you sit at your desk at 10.30am you reach for a packet of crisps then at 10.25am, get up and walk about. Our emotional brain believes that what we did yesterday will keep us safe. So if you have a habit that is fuelling your weight gain, find a way to change it.

I hope these 15 top tips  help you to lose weight. If you need a little more support to return to your ideal weight then maybe hypnotherapy can give you that extra push you need. Want to know more? Then either book an initial consultation here, of give me a call on  07748 511841. The initial consultation is half price and allows you to find out if I am the right therapist to help you.

Copyright © 2015 Jenny Mellenchip.

Binge Eating Disorder

To be clear, overeating  occasionally, is not binge eating. We all do it, especially during the holiday season and during times of celebration. Binge eaters overeat on a regular basis with a lack of control that many find extremely disturbing. Binge eaters tend to use food to cope with stress and emotional pain and although they may feel better at the time, they often feel much worse afterwards. For binge eaters, it can feel as though they are in the grip of a vicious cycle, but the condition is treatable.

A Dozen Tips To Help You Break The  Binge Eating Cycle.

  • Stop dieting. The hunger caused by strict dieting can trigger food cravings. The urge to overeat can then build throughout the day. Rather than dieting, fit is better to focus on eating healthy foods in moderation. Find healthy nutritious foods that you enjoy eating and eat only until you feel content.
  • Manage your stress. Stress and anxiety can cause us to turn to food as a way of coping with difficult feelings. So find effective ways to control stress such as exercising, meditating, using hypnosis or breathing exercises.
  • Exercise. Being active in a positive way is known to help us to naturally increase the brain chemical serotonin. There is evidence that low serotonin levels can play a role in compulsive eating. Exercise can help you lose excess weight in a healthy way, but it can also lift depression, reduces stress and improve overall health. Exercise also has natural mood boosting properties that can help us to avoid emotional eating.
  • Avoid boredom. Often we can resort to eating when we feel bored, so instead of snacking, distract yourself. Go for a walk, read a book or magazine, call a friend, or take up a new hobby such as painting or some other craft.
  • Get enough sleep. When we’re tired we sometimes feel the need to eat, to ‘keep us going’. Go to bed at a reasonable time and avoid alcohol before bed as this can reduce the amount of REM sleep. This type of sleep is essential in helping us to control our emotions.

    #sleep #insomnia
    A good night’s sleep is vital to help us make the right choices
  • Avoid alcohol. Alcohol can destroy all our best intentions. After drinking alcohol, our calorie intake can also rise dramatically. It is a known depressant and when we feel low we may be tempted to resort to binge eating again.
  • Avoid temptation. You’re much more likely to overeat if you have junk food and unhealthy snacks in the house. Give yourself a break, remove the temptation by clearing your fridge and cupboards of your favorite binge foods.
  • Listen to your body. Are you really hungry? Learn to tell the difference between physical and emotional hunger. If you’ve just eaten then you’re probably not hungry. Give yourself 20 minutes to see if the craving time will pass.
  • Eat regularly every day. It can be tempting to miss breakfast, particularly if you binged the night before. However, breakfast kick starts your metabolism and helps you to avoid snacking on high calorie food the rest of the day. Balanced meals at regular intervals supplemented by occasional healthy snacks can prevent or reduce the urge to binge-eat later in the day.
  • A little of what you fancy… Avoid a complete ban of certain foods as this can make you crave them even more. It’s better to allow yourself a few small treats each week to prevent a binge session at the end of the week.
  • Write it down! Keep a food diary, this will encourage to consider what emotions you were feeling when chose to eat what you did. Make sure you write down how you felt before and after you ate as well as during. Look for patterns in your behaviour as this will show you the connection between your moods and binge eating.
  • Get help!  Solution Focused Hypnotherapy aims to help you to create new healthier habits and make you more aware of how you use food to deal with your emotions. SF Hypnotherapy can teach you to relax and the free CD will help to encourage good sleep habits. SF Hypnotherapy can help you to accept yourself as you are and encourage you to deal with stress and anxiety in a more positive way. Book an initial consultation today by clicking here.

Copyright © 2015 Jenny Mellenchip.

Jenny Hopes To Make Travelling Stress Free

Do you suffer from a fear of flying? This article explores how hypnotherapy from Jenny Mellenchip could help to make travelling stress-free.

Published Sunday 9 August 2015 in the Northwich Guardian. Reported by James Wilson

SUMMER holidays in the sun are just a dream for some people, especially if they have a fear of flying.

One Northwich practitioner can make taking to the skies a stress-free and more relaxing time with just three or four sessions of hypnotherapy.

Jenny Mellenchip is based at Absolute Beauty on Station Road in Northwich and she uses solution focused hypnotherapy to help people overcome minor phobias that have been holding them back.

Jenny said: “We work with clients who may dislike aspects of flying that can result in them feeling a bit nervous before they get onto a plane or while they are on board.

“Over a period of normally three to four hypnotherapy sessions, we can help someone feel more confident about flying with the sole aim of helping them to board a plane feeling calm and relaxed.”

Jenny uses specific hypnotherapy techniques to help clients with a fear of flying put business trips and family holidays abroad back on the calendar and people with a fear of heights or spiders face them calmly.

Jenny said: “To be able to help someone gain confidence in an area of their life is a fantastic feeling and it is great that clients can themselves, go on to gain confidence as an air passenger or in other areas of their life thanks to solution focused hypnotherapy.

“It’s about a desire for positive change.”

Jenny Mellenchip trained at Clifton Practice Hypnotherapy Training in Manchester and achieved her hypnotherapy practitioner’s diploma, which is wide regarded as the gold standard in the business.

Jenny and her team are also part of the Association for Solution Focused Hypnotherapy (AfSFH), which requires members to adhere to a high standard of professional conduct and on-going supervision alongside attendance at regular training events throughout the year.

In addition to helping people overcome their fears of flying, heights or spiders, solution focused hypnotherapy can also be used to help ease stress and improve confidence as well as aiding in weight management and stopping smoking.

For more information about the range of treatments on offer email Jenny at jenny@jennymellenchip.co.uk or ring 07748 511841.

Please note that Jenny no longer offers appointments from Northwich. However, she is happy to see people via Zoom. Online sessions have proven to be just as effective as face to face sessions. Book in for an initial consultation by clicking here.