We all need a little stress to help us to get out of bed each day, as it helps to motivate us to achieve our daily tasks. However, if you’re feeling stressed much of the time, it is likely that it is interfering with your life, rather than helping. It may be that high stress levels limit the places you are able to go and what you are able to achieve each day. You may have already tried a few different things to see if you can reduce your stress levels but nothing seems to be working.
Hypnotherapy has been shown to be very effective for people with stress. It enables you to experience a sense of relaxation and calm during hypnosis. If you have any physical symptoms relating to your high stress level, such as headaches or acid reflux, then hypnosis will help to reduce these also.
Most hypnotherapy sessions are split into two distinct parts, ‘the talky bit’ and hypnosis. The talking part of the session, which could be either counselling or psychotherapy, will help you to understand why you feel as you do and what can be done about it. The length of your hypnotherapy session could vary between 30 – 90 minutes.
An initial consultation will generally be held prior to your hypnotherapy sessions starting. This is to agree the aims and goals of your treatment, to discuss your symptoms and to give you a guide as to the number of sessions required. This will vary from client to client due to the severity of symptoms and the length of time you have suffered with high levels of stress. As a rough guide, for long term results, most clients with high levels of stress can be helped with around 8 hypnotherapy sessions.
Everyone has feelings of stress at some point in their life. You might be going through a particularly stressful situation such as a driving test or job interview. In these types of situations a certain level of stress can sometimes be helpful, or at least, seen as normal. However, if you’re feeling stressed most of the time, then worries can spiral out of control and can develop into a feeling of overwhelm. Once this happens it can affect your daily life, particularly if your reactions are seen as out of proportion to the issue at hand.
If your stress levels are high and you feel overwhelmed, you might find it hard to make decisions and have lost your motivation. This would be difficult enough on its own but high stress levels can wear you down over time and may lead to a range of physical issues. Although it is rare for specific medications to be aimed solely at lowering stress levels, you may be offered medication to deal with the symptoms you are experiencing. Hypnotherapy has been shown to be helpful in reducing overwhelm and helping you to cope better with life.
Stress can affect each of us differently and the level of stress you are able to cope with might vary from your friends and family. Things that can cause you to feel stressed are called stressors. These can be both positive, e.g. a holiday or a wedding, and negative e.g. a job loss or relationship issues.
You could start by worrying about the event but this then spreads to other areas of your life. You may worry about situations that could take place in the future, imagining things going wrong in huge amounts of detail. You may constantly beat yourself up for things you’ve done or not done. You could feel constantly on edge and irritable, snapping at people over little things.
It’s possible that you feel drained of energy much of the time and struggle to sleep properly. Physically, you may experience unexplained muscle pains, headaches or stomach aches. You could have experienced a panic attack. These can be extremely frightening: the symptoms include a dry mouth, rapid heart rate that sometimes leads to heart pain, a churning stomach, feeling clammy, and a strong sense of danger where you feel out of control.
Long term stress can leave you feeling drained with no energy to exercise. It can also change your relationship with food, smoking, alcohol and drugs. Ultimately, you might start to withdraw from life and no longer be interested in the hobbies you used to enjoy. Over time, long term stress can result in health issues such as heart disease, stroke, obesity and type 2 diabetes.
If you experience a few of these symptoms, then it is a sign that your stress levels are too high and you should make an appointment to see your GP. If you have already seen your GP and you’d still like more help with your condition, then hypnotherapy has been shown to help with stress.
The most frequent stressors include:
Mental and emotional symptoms such as:
Physical symptoms such as:
Certain careers are known for their high levels of stress due to demanding workloads, long hours, or emotional challenges. The most stressful jobs in the UK include:
Stress is a part of life, but when it becomes overwhelming, it can impact health and well-being. Recognising the causes and seeking support, such as hypnotherapy, can be a step towards managing and alleviating stress.
Hypnotherapy can help with anxiety by relaxing you so that you can let go of any tension and see things from a different viewpoint. Different brain waves become more prevalent and you will likely be able to problem-solve more easily. The change in brain waves will also make it easier for you to take on new ideas and new ways of thinking. Most hypnotherapists use an element of talking therapy these days and this supports the trance session by helping you to evaluate your current behaviour and the way you think.
It is always important to contact your GP about your stress levels before seeing a hypnotherapist. This is because sometimes the stress might be masking another medical condition.
The amount of sessions you will need for lowering high stress levels will vary from person to person. The questions that your hypnotherapist will ask to help them calculate the number of sessions you might need might include : “How long have you had the condition or symptoms?” or “How severe are the symptoms?” Another factor to consider might be the level of your commitment. You might be expected to listen to an MP3 download every night or to perform some other task in between sessions. You will see results much more quickly if you do the things your hypnotherapist suggests.
The cost of hypnotherapy for stress can vary from one therapist to another. This will depend on your location and the qualifications and experience your hypnotherapist has. To give you a rough guide prices can vary from £40- £150 per hour.
Although there are many anecdotal stories of children being helped with high stress levels via hypnosis, there are very few good quality studies that reinforce this. However, there are studies that confirm that Hypnotherapy is able to help children with their anxiety. What we do know is that there is a lot of overlap between the symptoms of stress and those of anxiety. In fact children often find it much easier to go into a trance state than their adult counterparts. This is thought to be because children are more open about trying new things than many adults.
Even before lockdown many hypnotherapists were running online hypnotherapy sessions for anxiety. The good news is that there is now evidence to support the effectiveness of online hypnotherapy sessions for anxiety related conditions including stress. All you would need to take part in an online hypnotherapy session would be a laptop, tablet or smartphone, access to the internet and somewhere quiet where you can relax.
As hypnotherapy is considered to be a complementary therapy in the UK, we are not allowed to publish success rates for stress reduction. Your commitment to the hypnotherapy process is also very important. If you engage with your hypnotherapist and follow their advice, such as listening to an MP3 download every night, then your treatment will be more effective than if you don’t. However, all that said, a study carried out in 2019 found that the stress levels of participants in receipt of hypnotherapy showed a significant and large decrease in symptoms.
Start out with the basics, Search for “hypnotherapy for Stress” in Google or Bing. The results will contain a map with local hypnotherapy businesses. Start looking through their reviews either in the search engine or on their social (Facebook) pages.
The best hypnotherapists will be registered with a professional association and with organisations that are accredited by the professional standards authority. There are only two in the UK and they are the Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council (CNHC) and the National Hypnotherapy Society.
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