Issues that hypnotherapy can help treat

28Apr

Social Smoking When Drinking Alcohol

Social Smoking When Drinking Alcohol

Do you give in to social smoking when drinking alcohol?

For the aspiring non-smoker, it can be a recurrent problem setting up your non-smoking goals and then relapsing when you next socialise and drink alcohol. Not only do you wake up feeling guilty that you have crossed your own non-smoking boundaries, but you feel disgusted because your chest feels tight and you reek of cigarette smoke. Then you spend the morning coughing up the contents of what you’ve inhaled and feel hung-over from the heavy night’s drinking session. Does this sound like a night out that you wanted to avoid?

Social smoking when drinking alcohol
Is drinking alcohol connected to your social smoking lapse?

If your goal is to ultimately stop smoking, it’s important to appreciate the impact that your social smoking rituals and the affect that drinking alcohol has on your behaviour and brain chemistry. Combine the two and it can transform many people’s healthy smoke-free intentions into a “Jekyll and Hyde” night out.

Where does it all go wrong?

Social smoking when drinking alcohol: Adolescent social smoking

Nearly 80% of adults who smoke said that they started smoking before the age of 20. The reasons that people start smoking are very similar to the reasons that people start drinking alcohol.

Psychosocial factors play an important role in encouraging young people to smoke and to form habits that will keep them smoking. During this transition from adolescence into adulthood, the appeal is particularly strong to take risks associated with imitating adult behaviour. It can also be just as attractive to develop reactions that defy controlling behaviour from adult authority figures.

The desire to act like adults however is not matched with an adolescent’s level of brain development. Adolescents tend to be impulsive, ignoring the long-term consequences of short-term behaviour, and tend to lack the analytical decision-making skills that can come from experience. More notably, adolescent decision-making values are filtered though peer group influences.  Being praised or criticised by one’s peers motivates adolescents to act or avoid participating in situations.

It’s during these extreme shifts in one’s values that adolescents are particularly vulnerable to starting and persisting with smoking. Smoking cigarettes can seem normal, functional, and deceptively rewarding. It’s not surprising that smoker’s attach beliefs that when smoking, you are: relaxing, having fun, being daring, taking back control, being sociable, being admired and being “grown up”.

What continues the integration of these psychosocial values at a deeper level is repetition with a highly addictive substance. Habits can become consolidated and the “positive” beliefs can then form attachments to other situations. During times of stress or anxiety, the associations of relaxation, having fun etc. create the urge to smoke a cigarette to relieve this stress or anxiety. In addition to other intrapersonal factors, it’s during these habit-consolidation stages that a smoker will convert from being an intermittent social user to a higher personal dependency on nicotine. In other words, you become the “regular smoker” building your dependency on nicotine into addiction.

Contrary to this development, some people are able to place tight boundaries around their smoking rituals, ensuring that it stays within the domain of social situations. They may have already crossed-over into personal nicotine dependency for a many years before reverting back to occasional use. Or it was never their intention to become a “real” smoker, perceiving it as a socially-defined ritual from the start.

Social smoking when drinking alcohol: The social smoker

The social smoker is also known as the occasional smoker, the light smoker or the casual smoker. You may never buy a pack of cigarettes, but instead prefer to scrounge cigarettes off your mates. Without buying a cigarette, it may maintain a state of denial, helping to convince you that you don’t really smoke and could quit at any time. You may also believe that the intermittent nature of your smoking carries no health risks, but this is a myth as even second-hand smoke can harm your health.

Social smoking when drinking alcohol
Social smokers are convinced smoking it helps you to socialise

As a social smoker, you may view your smoking as a legitimised “dirty habit”, but continue because you are convinced that it helps you to socialise. Unlike some defiant smokers, you are respectful of and are sympathetic towards other non-smoker’s wellbeing. You will suppress your smoking habit in a situation if it is likely to set a bad example e.g. if smoking in front of young children. You will resist your urge to smoke if it might offend someone or be considered harmful to their health.

Your occasional social smoking ritual may involve binge smoking, as your patterns involve conforming to the social rituals of others. You lose track of the number of cigarettes that you smoke since you are unable to register having an empty packet. Over the course of a social weekend, the number of cigarettes that you smoke might exceed the level of a genuine “regular” smoker who smokes constantly throughout the week.

Social smokers may use nicotine for its psychoactive effects, such as for stimulation and pleasure. You are not addicted to nicotine, since you suffer none of the cravings, irritability or withdrawal symptoms in common with regular smokers. You are probably addicted to the ritual of smoking in social situations however, defined by some as a compulsion. Compulsions are prone to growing uncontrollably. With the potential for social-smoking being part of whole days spent during social weekends with your peers, your social smoking habits can place you on a slippery slope towards addiction.

Challenging peer group values and personal values

If your goal is to quit social smoking, it will mean confronting the identity and group culture of your peer group. Can it change or is your peer group defined by conformity? In some social group situations, many individuals want to change something negative about the group but fear being judged or evicted from the group.

Alternatively, quitting social smoking can involve strengthening your personal non-smoking values and believing that they are good enough for your peer group to accommodate. You can be proud to stand out as being different. Ultimately, if all that matters to the peer group is your conformity to do what they do, you may decide to join a different group that accepts you and the life that you want to lead – and not the life that others expect you to lead.

Social smoking when drinking alcohol: Adolescent drinking

Adolescent reasons for drinking alcohol are very similar to the reasons for starting smoking listed above. The reasons include peer pressure, self medication, defiance, sensation seeking, desire to take risks, and imitation of adult behaviour. As with smoking cigarettes, associating a potentially addictive substance with these values is likely to consolidate the “rewards” when combined with the repetition of drinking alcohol.

Another feature of drinking regularly is one of an increased tolerance to alcohol, whereby you need to consume more of it to have the same beneficial effect. Often, this means bypassing the initial “high” that you previously gained from it whilst in pursuit of your sought-after reward. At the physiological level, as your tolerance increases, you are changing your brain’s wiring system.

During the adolescent period, there is still a significant level of brain development. The short term effects of alcohol on the still-developing brain include lower cognitive attention, reaction, functioning and memory. Possible long term effects can include increased alcohol dependency.

There are many different reasons that someone can end up being dependent on alcohol to some degree, even if it means struggling to get through the weekend without at least one binge-drinking session. Having sustained periods to consolidate your “rewards” during adolescence when there is a significant amount of brain plasticity may form a deep association and possible dependency into adulthood that the only way to access these “rewards” is by drinking alcohol.

Combining alcohol into the social smoking mix

Not all adolescents smoke and drink alcohol, but these “gateway drugs” are often amongst the first experimental substances to be used concurrently. In one research study of smoking and drinking amongst youth over 98% of the sample of smokers also drank alcohol, suggesting that smoking is a reliable indicator of alcohol use.

The reasons that adolescents both smoke and drink relate to the same reasons listed above for drinking and smoking e.g. peer-pressure, looking cool, looking grown up etc.

Binge drinking and binge smoking
A cocktail effect of alcohol and cigarettes

Believing that both substances give you these rewards will compound these associations, integrating the links that smokers often make that drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes “go hand in hand”. When these rewards have been integrated, these combined substances can change your brain chemistry and deceive your brain into thinking that the respective behaviours of smoking or drinking will actualise these beliefs from one another. So when you are participating in one activity e.g. having a great time when drinking socially, the activity can act as a cue for the rewarding memory that powers your craving or urge to then smoke a cigarette.

Social smoking when drinking alcohol: The desire to quit smoking

As adolescents move into adulthood, values can change. What was previously considered a good habit can become a bad habit. The previous adolescent beliefs that activated your smoking or drinking habits may not be important to you, or may not justify your reasons to continue those habits as the young adult. Obviously, you don’t have to “look grown-up” by smoking cigarettes when you are a “grown up” adult for example.

The young adult will also create new beliefs and want to form new habits that complement that stage of your life. Attention to your health and the cost implications to maintain these habits can be reasons to change your habits.

In a survey, about a quarter of the adult sample that drank alcohol just wanted to cut down their alcohol consumption into “controlled drinking”, but not quit drinking completely.

In another survey, it was found that 70% of adult smokers wanted to quit smoking completely.

How does drinking alcohol socially affect a smoker’s ability to kick the smoking habit?

Social smoking when drinking alcohol: potential relapses

From my experience of helping clients quit smoking, one of the main reasons that people have previously lapsed and relapsed back into smoking is due to attending a major social drinking occasion in which several of the peer group smoked cigarettes.

When I’ve treated clients for smoking cessation, one of the biggest fears when stopping is to put in all of the hard work to not smoke for a few days, to then think that you have nailed it, only to lapse on a social drinking night out.

Many smokers quit using NRT, medication from the GP, with therapy or even with self help quit smoking methods. Some smokers may vape as a progressive shift away from smoking cigarettes. Adopting an effective quitting process can involve identifying your potential relapse triggers to prepare you for situations that will trigger your urge. Your stop smoking goals can run smoothly until you hit that situation that helplessly eliminates your good intentions.

When you have background experiences of social smoking when drinking alcohol, the force of habit can make this situation particularly difficult to change what you do when you are in that situation again. Deeply entrenched values from adolescence can form the learned associations that intensify the urge to lapse or relapse back into social smoking when drinking alcohol.

But it’s not just the background experiences that are causing these urges though. Once you have created the “cocktail” of chemical pathways by using both substances concurrently, there are research-based explanations that will then drive your urges to continue that behaviour. It will also explain why so many aspiring non-smokers lapse and relapse when they drink alcohol socially. The urge to smoke and drink together is not just a coincidence.

Why people are prone to social smoking when drinking alcohol

The research-based explanations for why people lapse (and relapse) into social smoking when drinking alcohol includes:

Rational decision-making processes are diminished when drinking alcohol

You can probably relate to the scenario when you have kept off cigarettes for a few days, are dealing really well with the cravings and think that you have cracked it! Then to you decide to enjoy a night out, drinking with your friends to celebrate. In the pub, they venture over to the outdoor smoking area and you join them without giving it a second thought.

Now, if you were driving and staying sober for example, your self-discipline would see this situation as a threat to your quit-smoking goals and would stop you in your tracks. Having shared a few rounds of drinks with your friends however, the implications of your smoking behaviour are rapidly brushed aside.

Social smoking when drinking alcohol
Moderate drinking raises your impulsivity

Even moderate drinking raises your impulsivity. It does this by increasing the amount of nor-adrenaline in the brain, elevating your levels of arousal and excitement. When drinking alcohol, it means that you are prone to seeking immediate rewards rather than the risks associated with those rewards.

Alcohol also removes your rational decision-making abilities by dampening activity in the pre-frontal cortex part of your brain. This means that you will find it hard to resist the offer of a cigarette because your inhibitions are reduced and you are not thinking about the consequences of your long term quit-smoking goals.

Nicotine counteracts the drowsy effects of alcohol

You may already be aware of the sluggish, depressant effects that a heavy drinking session can have on your mood as the night continues. Researchers have identified that the stimulating effect of nicotine can counteract the sleepiness caused by alcohol. This can explain why smokers crave a cigarette when they have drunk excessively and rather than “call it quits” for the night (knowing that you have had more than enough), you will use the stimulants in nicotine to prolong the evening. According to the research, nicotine thus increases your mental alertness, neutralising the sluggish effects of alcohol.

Alcohol and nicotine reinforces/eliminates the effects of one another

When you have had a few drinks and crossed the barrier of smoking one cigarette, the alcohol and the nicotine will be boosting the rewarding properties of the other substance. Nicotine and alcohol act on the same brain pathways, particularly on the mesolimbic dopamine system.

This process would substantiate why so many people say that smoking and drinking goes “hand in hand”; the feelings of pleasure are increased when you combine alcohol and nicotine, flooding your brain with high levels of dopamine and increasing the cravings of one another.

However, other researchers have argued that the combined effects of both substances aren’t all pleasurable. When smoking and drinking simultaneously, stress hormones effectively interact to cancel out the release of dopamine.

This research is suggesting that you feel happy when you smoke and drink separately, but when you smoke and drink together, drinking alcohol is first bringing up the happy memories of smoking. You then smoke a cigarette with your alcoholic drink and your dopamine levels drop. So you drink alcohol more to recover your dopamine and this reminds you of the pleasures of smoking...and so the reaction-cycle continues. Thos who smoke and drink together may find this process particularly tough to eliminate in that moment when a mix of different chemicals are flooding the brain.

Social smoking when drinking alcohol: Quitting smoking

With drinking alcohol increasing the urge to smoke cigarettes and smoking cigarettes increasing the urge to drink more alcohol, the risk of binge behaviour and addiction are high.

Refusing alcohol and cigarettes
Quitting smoking can lower your alcohol consumption

By quitting smoking cigarettes however (which the majority of adult smokers want to do), it can lower your alcohol consumption and potential for alcohol-related health problems.

Your may seek help from a hypnotherapist to assist your journey. Or work on some self-help strategies:

First things first...

In your smoking cessation journey, first ensure that nicotine is out of your system for at least three days. Use relaxation techniques to counter the cravings and to deal with stress. Continue to replace any smoking habits with new non-smoking habits and repeatedly integrate them with a feeling of achievement. The social smoker won’t have too many problems with this stage.

Temporarily avoiding social smoking when drinking alcohol

For the social smoker who socialises heavily on the weekend, achieve three days without smoking by recovering from the previous weekend’s activities and waiting until midweek to focus on your smoking cessation goals for the following weekend. Try to curb your midweek socials for a while.

In the short term, change your routine as this will help you to confront your smoking and drinking habits and it will help you to be aware of your smoking lapse triggers.

Some situations target drinking and smoking behaviour. Pubs often welcome smokers as their main audience by creating bigger outdoor spaces to accommodate smokers.

New activities and locations

Can you organise a non-social drinking situation by changing the activity? Do you feel the pressure to smoke because of the location e.g. by going to a specific pub, or because of the people you socialise with e.g. do all of your friends smoke? Can you temporarily socialise with your non-smoking friends?

What would happen if you asked trustful friends to give you a reminder of your non-smoking intentions when you are out? Can you avoid leaving the non-smoking area and venturing over into the smoking area? Can you plan to leave early if you feel the growing pressure to drink in “rounds”?

Lowering your alcohol consumption will help you smoke less. What non-alcohol drink can you drink instead? If you don’t smoke whilst socialising, it may help you reduce your total alcohol consumption.

Reappraise what drives your binge behaviour

Then consider if your socialising is a binge activity. What aren’t you dealing with through your week (or in your life) that is being channelled into the binge drinking and smoking habit on the weekend?

What other more effective ways can replace how you cope with stress throughout the week that will take the pressure off the weekend?

Hypnotherapy to help social smoking when drinking alcohol

If you are a social smoker and your goal is to become a non-smoker, confronting your social habits is an essential part of achieving your goal. With persistence, changing those old negative habits will lead to you forming new positive socialising habits. Initially it will seem like something is missing, but keep focused on your goal and it will become a natural part of how you socialise.

You can contact me for more help if you are struggling with any part of your quit smoking programme.

For more information on social smoking when drinking alcohol, contact Richard J D’Souza Hypnotherapy Cardiff

By Hypnosis, Hypnotherapy, Insights, Issues that hypnotherapy can help treat, Self Help0 Comments
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28Mar

Misophonia Treatment

Misophonia Treatment

Misophonia Treatment: Misophonia (also known as selective sound sensitivity syndrome) is a condition characterised by negative reactions to specific auditory stimuli. The negative reactions predominantly relate to anger.

Misophonia treatment sounds cause distress
Misophonic sounds don’t have to be loud to cause distress

The sounds can be common everyday sounds that most people would normally dismiss or barely remember hearing as the sounds don’t have to be particularly loud.

Misophonia usually starts as a negative reaction to soft sounds but can also become a negative reaction to visual stimuli that accompany those sounds. Misokinesia is the hatred of seeing specific movements.

The prevalence of misophonia is not fully understood, but some symptoms have been reported as early as mid-childhood. Research completed on a group of medical students found nearly half of the sample to have some level of sound sensitivity. A third of the sample was found to have mild symptoms and less than one percent had severe misophonia symptoms.

The term misophonia literally translates as a “hatred of sound”.

 

 

Misophonia Treatment: What causes misophonia?

The exact causes of misophonia are not fully understood, but a number of issues can contribute the condition. They can include an over-activation of certain parts of the brain (limbic and autonomic nervous system) responsible for processing emotions and the connections to the auditory cortex. In other words, it’s related to how sound affects your brain and automates the responses in your body. Whilst these tests have been done on subjects who already have misophonia, it may not verify whether the parts of the brain have developed as a result of individual learned or conditioned responses see below).

Causes can also be attributed to neurological disorders like Tourette syndrome, OCD and other anxiety-related disorders. Misophonia may also run in families, indicating a genetic link that can increase your risk of developing the condition.

Misophonia is particularly common with those who suffer with tinnitus.

 

 

Misophonia Treatment: How is misophonia learned?

For the sufferer of misophonia, common sounds which others may take for granted can be compared to hearing “nails on a chalkboard” on a regular basis. There is a constant, intense agitation when hearing those misophonic sounds that can take someone to the level of rage.

Misophonia usually starts during late childhood and early adolescence, affecting more females than males, and affecting those with higher IQ’s.

Sounds that cause the negative reaction can be learned by association from a variety of situations. Those sounds then become connected to the negative emotion and when those sounds are heard again, the negative emotion is re-experienced. Situations in which you associate those sounds can include:

  • When you are trying to concentrate on something importantg. having a conversation, doing an assignment or work project etc.
  • When you are trying to relaxg. when reading, watching television, falling asleep etc.
  • When you are experiencing anxiety or stressg. social anxiety whilst eating and hearing cutlery sounds, when dogs barking or traffic sounds are heard after you have woken early, repetitive sounds like clocks ticking heard during periods of abuse, hearing neighbours playing music late at night when you have to wake early for work.
  • When you have a medical condition or are experiencing medical changes that are affecting your tolerance to those sounds.
  • When you have communicated your condition to others and they have mocked or teased you (rather than help you), by imitating the sounds that cause your distress. This may inhibit you from being open about the condition in the future in case it is met with ridicule again.
    Misophonia treatment anger management
    Misophonic reactions are more challenging with uncontrolled anger
  • When you have high expectations and you need the world around you to meet those expectations. Anger can be experienced when expectations are not being met. This can make your negative reaction harder to manage when compared to someone else who is able to moderate their expectations and lower their anger reaction.

Misophonic triggers can associate first in situations with one’s parents or primary caregivers. They can then be learned in situations with immediate family like siblings, friends or work colleagues where a significant amount of time is spent with them. Tolerance is usually given to those people with whom you have a close relationship, but the reaction can still be present regardless of the company.

Misophonia can intensify over time, rapidly and uncontrollably trapping more triggers or stronger reactions for the individual - in the same way that an infectious disease might spread. Or for some sufferers, misophonic learning can hit a peak and then can subside where there is a significant lifestyle change.

Infrequent situations with strangers in adulthood can set up new misophonic triggers, but they usually act as reinforcing events that exacerbate the situation created earlier during childhood.

With chronic misophonia, some people may abuse substances like alcohol or drugs to cope with the severity of the condition. Whilst these substances give some immediate relief to the negative reaction, in the long term they can increase your sensitivity to your misophonic triggers. There are other health risks associated with substance misuse.

Long-term sufferers with misophonia experience a diminished quality of life, trying to avoid sounds that can be heard in so many situations of everyday life. Constant panic and paranoia can develop when chronic misophonia is untreated.

 

 

Other sound-sensitive conditions related to misophonia

Misophonia differs from other sound sensitivity-related conditions, but can exist alongside these other conditions. Hyperacusis is a condition in which you are sensitive to sound and feel discomfort at a certain frequency or volume, whereas with misophonia, the negative reactions can be triggered at any volume of sound, including low volume sounds.

Phonophobia is a type of phobia dominated by a fear of certain sounds that are usually loud and unexpected e.g. from a popping balloon or from a firework. When hearing those loud sounds it typically causes a panic attack. As mentioned earlier, the dominant emotion with misophonia is usually anger.

Common with all of these conditions is a degree of anticipation and hyper-vigilance in which the autonomic nervous system prepares you for danger when hearing these specific sounds. Your negative over-reactions can become conditioned by the various sound-related triggers, intensifying and automating your reaction.

Misokinesia is the negative reaction to seeing specific movements that may originally be associated with the “misophonic” sounds. For example, a negative reaction of anger to the sound of nail biting can rapidly become a negative reaction to seeing someone who has the habit of biting their nails, regardless of whether you can hear them bite their nails or not. It is thought that the parts of the brain responsible for filtering these misophonic sounds can then provoke other neural processing problems.

 

 

Misophonia Treatment: Sounds that can trigger misophonia

The majority of the sounds that trigger a misophonic response are created by the human body, but some can originate from inanimate objects. Ironically, misophonia sufferers do not experience the same level of irritation when they produce the same sounds themselves.

Below is a list of common misophonic sounds. The sounds that trigger your negative reaction can be specific to your situation.

Vocal sounds – breathing, snoring, snorting, throat-clearing, sneezing, sniffing, sniffling, hiccups, burping, whistling, humming, singing, yawning, screaming, specific voice sounds, specific types of crying, general “din” from group conversation or children in playgrounds, several people talking simultaneously,  words pronounced incorrectly, etc.

Nail biting misophonic reaction
Nail biting: one of the many sounds that cause a misophonic reaction

Non-vocal sounds – nail-biting, finger tapping, knuckle-clicking, fidgeting, passing wind, kissing etc.

Meal time sounds -, chewing, chomping, crunching, swallowing, drinking, sucking, slurping, lips-smacking, culinary sounds, clinking of glasses, utensil/plate sounds, saying “ah” after a drink, talking whilst eating etc.

Sounds from inanimate objects – food packaging noises, ballpoint pen clicking, rustling papers, writing sounds, flossing, nail clipping, keyboard typing, mouse clicking sounds, board writing, cleaning sounds, windscreen wipers, general traffic, ticking or chiming clocks, drills, ringing phones and other phone sounds, ringing bells, buzzing sounds, lawn mowers, air conditioning noises, refrigerators, car doors slamming, electric toothbrushes or razors, taps dripping, other household appliances etc.

Musical sounds – specific genres of music, percussive rhythm, sounds from specific instruments etc.

Animal/insect sounds - Dogs barking or whining, claws scratching, pets licking their fur, birds chirping, insects buzzing, crickets chirping,

Environmental sounds – Various weather sounds e.g. rain, wind etc.

Some sounds can become visual annoyances (misokinesia) – repetitive motion, foot wagging, nose rubbing, hair twirling, nail biting, yawning, thumb sucking, lip movements, nose, ear or skin picking, inner cheek biting, removing food in-between teeth etc.

 

 

What affects the severity of your reaction?

As a sufferer of misophonia, the sensitivity of your reaction can be variable depending on:

  • Your emotional state in that situation.
  • The frequency, repetition and loudness of the noise.
  • Your previous evaluations of that sound.
  • The conditions in which those sounds were experienced.
  • How your medical conditions are affecting your experience.
  • You may be able to tolerate the sounds more when you have a close relationship with the person making the sound.

Your reactions typically become more intense when you are unable to change the situation from which the sounds are being made or alter your reactions.

 

 

Signs, symptoms and diagnosis of misophonia

The signs and symptoms of misophonia include:

  • Anger or rage.
  • Guilt or shame from your expression of anger.
  • Panic attacks.
  • Disgust.
  • Stress.
  • Anxiety.
  • Impatience.
  • Feeling of claustrophobia or need to escape the situation quickly which can be connected with agoraphobia.
  • Self isolation and loneliness.
  • Crying related to your intense irritation or agitation.
  • Teeth grinding (bruxism) as a symptom of suppressed anger.
  • Inability to communicate or move.
  • Violent or impulsive thoughts towards others or towards the source of the noise.
  • Frustration resulting in mimicking or mocking those sounds.

With regards to a diagnosis of misophonia, your GP who may refer you to an ENT specialist or audiologist who can help you manage the condition.

 

 

Common misophonia treatments

There are few evidence-based misophonia treatments. Current misophonia treatments can include cognitive behavioural therapy in which you challenge your negative thoughts. Medication can also be prescribed from your GP to treat the anxiety and depression associated with misophonia.

Another type of misophonia treatment is Tinnitus Retraining Therapy (TRT) which can also benefit those with misophonia. With this treatment, devices are worn to help you ignore or divert your attention away from your misophonic noises. It can also include learning relaxation techniques to lower your stress response.

Other self-help coping strategies can include using earplugs or headphones when you feel overwhelmed by your misophonic noises. You may also benefit by using other background noises like music, the television or “white noise” to drown out your misophonic noise.

Disturbed sleep misophonia treatment
Changing proximity to those sounds may ensure a better night’s sleep

Other self-help strategies can include learning new ways to manage stress, changing your proximity to those sounds in a situation and establishing a moderated exit from the situation where it is reasonably possible.

Being open about your condition and assertively communicating your needs to others may help them to assist you by empathising with you or by moderating their habits where possible. Learning ways to reinterpret your perception of those sounds and your reactions is fundamental to misophonia treatment.

 

 

Misophonia treatment using hypnotherapy

Hypnotherapy can treat your misophonia in a controlled environment

Your alertness and sensitivity to the sounds that irritate you is maintaining this sound-reaction loop. Hypnotherapy can help you to detach your emotional reaction in a controlled environment, learning to stay relaxed as you are progressively reintroduced to those sounds. In hypnosis, you can accept positive suggestions or affirmations to target your misophonia reactions. This approach is similar to “Sequent Re-patterning” techniques, and “Exposure Response Prevention” techniques used in the treatment of OCD.

Control your anger and stress response

When you suffer with misophonia, your anger and stress response has become automated and is now overwhelming you. The intensity of your anger and stress is magnifying your perception of those irritating sounds. Being mindful of your anger in hypnosis will enable you to observe how it is affecting you at the sensory, cognitive, emotional and behavioural levels. Relearning how to control your anger will further assist the dissociation of your response to those sounds.

Treat anticipatory anxiety

The demands you need to cope with the noises in the situation can be exaggerated by your anxious anticipation. You will build up your negative emotional response before you actually hear those sounds, waiting for the sounds to be triggered. You may even imagine those sounds to be audible in the situation, even in their absence. Managing your anticipatory anxiety will enable you to separate and disconnect this anxious build-up so that you can apply positive techniques when it’s needed.

Assist your desensitisation (controlled exposure)

Desensitisation (also known as controlled exposure) is an effective dissociation process. It is commonly used in the treatment of phobias. By itself, the method can be cumbersome however. When combined with hypnotic techniques, the desensitisation process can be accelerated. In hypnosis, you can mentally rehearse confronting those irritating sounds with a calmer response, acting as if you have already completed the desensitisation practice with a positive emotion.

Treat the causes of your misophonia

Regression to release the emotion from the significant past sensitising events can be an effective tool in a treatment programme. This does not mean arduously tracing through every year of your life as is often considered by solution focused hypnotherapy. Instead, only the most relevant experiences are reappraised, enabling you to appreciate your beliefs and conflicts that may have exacerbated your condition in its early development. With effective regression, you can then freely move forwards with the achievement of your goals.

Misophonia hypnotherapy
Hypnotherapy can help treat your misophonia

Visualisation of your desired positive response

Visualisation can act as rehearsals for how you want to cope with those irritating noises. In hypnosis, you can enhance your visualisation abilities, engaging more of your imagination, your thinking, your emotions and beliefs into the experience. This can accelerate your learning potential to positively change your negative misophonic reactions when you are not in the “live” noisy situations that are currently distressing you.

Hypnotherapy can help you communicate your needs

Being assertive (rather than being aggressive), communicating your needs, being prepared to handle conflict and believing that you have “rights” can prevent you from suffering in silence (or should that be – in noise!?) for extended periods and then overreacting. Hypnotherapy can explore your approach and identify where you can communicate effectively.

 

For more information on misophonia treatment using hypnotherapy, contact Richard J D’Souza Hypnotherapy Cardiff

 

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24Feb

Reduce Alcohol Consumption

Treatment To Reduce Alcohol Consumption

Reduce alcohol consumption: Alcohol is one of the most widely abused substances in the world. But you don’t have to be drinking in excess to develop a problem with alcohol. Your reliance on alcohol can vary from having a mild to a severe attachment. With a mild attachment, you might struggle to imagine a Friday night going by without having a few drinks to get merry. With a severe attachment however, alcohol has more value than anything else in your life including your relationships, your work and possibly life itself.
Reduce alcohol consumption wine
A glass of wine in the evening is a common way of relaxing
Reaching for a glass of wine at the end of your working day or when the children have gone to bed, or sharing some drinks with friends in a social setting are common unwinding, relaxing and socialising rituals for many adults. When you are drinking alcohol in moderation and you are keeping within the Government’s guidance limits, your drinking is unlikely to be a cause for concern.When these rituals become daily habits however, the pleasure that you gain from your drinking habit can switch to an ever-increasing “must have” at the end of your day, or as a way to cope with an ongoing demanding situation.  When regular drinking habits are not monitored in some way, physical and psychological attachments can lead to deeper alcohol abuse problems; you need to consume more alcohol to have the same effect, bypassing the “enjoyment” phase that you previously experienced. As you increase your alcohol intake your tolerance to it will also increase. At the physiological level, your reliance on alcohol is being affected by changes in your brain’s wiring system.If your reliance on alcohol is not too deeply entrenched, just being aware of these habitual “alarm bells” can be enough for you to reduce alcohol consumption by yourself. For some people who struggle with an alcohol attachment problem however, professional assistance is needed to confront the compounding effects of habitual drinking at the cognitive, emotional and behavioural levels.  

Reduce alcohol consumption: What causes a reliance on alcohol?

A reliance on alcohol can stem from a number of different risk factors. These include:Family history – If you have a close member of the family who abuses alcohol, then this will increase your risk of forming attachments to alcohol. Although genetic associations have been found with alcohol attachment, there is no single genetic factor that can be attributed to its cause. Family histories of alcohol attachment can also indicate a conditioned learning factor or a combination of both genes and conditioned learning from the alcohol-reliant authority figure, since your environment can also influence how your genes are expressed towards alcohol.What you learn from your social environment can alter your perception of alcohol even when there is a low to moderate attachment to alcohol in your family. Young children can be influenced by the associations that adults make with alcohol. Observing the ways that adults punctuate the weekend, manage stress, socialise and celebrate an occasion etc. can form values that accumulate into patterns of acceptable behaviour. These patterns can then be increased by other risk factors affecting one’s own personal choices.Mental health disorders – Having a mental health condition can increase your likelihood of developing an attachment to alcohol. The connection between mental health and alcohol reliance isn’t always clear however, as some individuals can abuse alcohol before they develop a mental health condition or have a formal mental health diagnosis.Traumatic experiences – Suffering traumatic experiences and post traumatic stress disorder  (PTSD) can increase the risk of self medication with alcohol. Certain traumas have a strong connection with alcohol abuse, particularly when being a victim of a violent crime, suffering sexual or physical abuse and losing a parent at a young age (including a loss through parental divorce).
Reduce alcohol consumption stress
Turning to alcohol to relieve stress can be habit-forming
Lifestyle Stress – Turning to alcohol to relieve short-term feelings of stress can become habit-forming when stressful events are recurring. Stressful occupations and experiencing numerous major lifestyle changes in close succession such as suffering a bereavement, divorce or redundancy can then trigger heavy drinking and increased alcohol attachment to cope with these major lifestyle events.A lack of family cohesion or cooperation – An unsupportive family background in which the adult authority figures are abusive, controlling or neglectful towards their young children is a risk factor for alcohol attachment for those abused children in later adulthood. Alcohol can then be used as a coping mechanism to gain control over these traumas, to spite the abuser, to reduce feelings of isolation and loneliness, and for “building” self esteem. In contrast, alcohol can also be used as a form of self harm when there is an unsupportive family network.Peer influences – Pressure from one’s peers to drink alcohol in social situations is a significant risk factor for alcohol attachment. Teenagers place great importance on peer approval and the need to “fit in” led by active encouragement or criticism to motivate peer behaviour. Teenagers can feel alienated if they don’t participate in similar behaviour performed by their peers. These social norms can continue into adulthood with social drinking patterns being considered a necessary part of a social occasion.Age of first alcoholic drink – The earlier age that someone starts drinking alcohol, the more likely it is that they will become reliant on alcohol. Habits are usually reinforced over time.Gender differences – Men are more likely to have a higher alcohol attachment than women with some explanations relating to the increased amount of dopamine release that men experience when consuming alcohol.It can be concluded that there are numerous risk factors that can affect your reliance on alcohol. These risks include genetic and environmental (experiential) factors. How these factors connect through your childhood and your period of personal alcohol consumption will also impact on your alcohol attachment. When you want to reduce alcohol consumption understanding the background risks may help you appreciate your predisposition to drink alcohol and what you are struggling to cope with in your life.  

Reduce alcohol consumption: Common reasons for drinking alcohol

There are generally two broad categories that characterise the reasons for drinking alcohol. People generally drink as a coping mechanism or for mood/behaviour enhancement. Understanding your motives can be useful when you want to reduce alcohol consumption. Click this link for more information on the reasons for drinking alcohol.  

Signs and symptoms of problem-drinking and alcohol use disorder

Problem-drinkers and those with alcohol use disorder (AUD) both have an unhealthy relationship with alcohol but there is a difference between both categories.Those who suffer with AUD are addicted to alcohol. Each day is a struggle not to drink and although sobriety can be achieved for extended periods, the risk of having one drink will cause a relapse. Those with AUD will always suffer with AUD, whether drinking alcohol or if your addiction is in remission.There are various terms to describe those who abuse alcohol, but are not addicted to alcohol. These terms include: problem drinkers, habitual drinkers, heavy drinkers, binge drinkers, compulsive drinkers, social drinkers etc. This category of drinker does not experience the same physical and mental withdrawal symptoms as those who are addicted to alcohol.For problem-drinkers , extended periods can be achieved without drinking alcohol, but when you do drink alcohol, it can be excessive and can have a detrimental impact on the quality of your (or someone else’s) life. At the time of drinking excessively, these problems may go unnoticed. After the period of drinking, the full extent of the problems and the decisions made whilst drinking heavily are then realised. Some might argue that with some types of problem-drinking, the "addiction" is related to the confined act of drinking, rather than to the substance of alcohol.A problem-drinker uses alcohol to achieve a certain state of mind. Alcohol might be used to “enhance” your mood or feeling of self importance. Or alcohol can be used to cope with problems, suppressing your negative emotions like anxiety. Some people use alcohol to momentarily escape your awareness of problems.The symptoms of problem-drinking (alcohol abuse) can include:
Drinking alcohol mood swings
Mood swings can be a symptom of problem drinking
  • Experiencing mood swings (getting angry, violent or depressed).
  • Neglecting one’s responsibilities with your family, your work or study obligations.
  • Social isolation from your family or peer group.
  • Being abusive towards your family, peer group or strangers.
  • Taking sexual, criminal, financial or personal risks that may be regretted after the drinking has stopped.
  • Experiencing blackouts.
Problem-drinkers are often defensive of one’s drinking behaviour, particularly if you appear to be functioning well, maintaining your responsibilities and seem to be emotionally stable. But the boundary of denial can creep in without fully admitting more subtle issues like deteriorating sleep quality and fatigue the morning after.Problem-drinking is not just about the quantity of alcohol that you drink. It can also include the frequency of drinking, how you are using alcohol, how alcohol affects you when you drink and how your mood changes when you stop drinking. The physical signs and symptoms of a growing alcohol dependency can be accompanied by behavioural symptoms like hiding drink from others and drinking alone.Having two or more symptoms in the past year from the list below is an indication that you are advancing from problem-drinking into a level of alcohol dependency. Some of the signs and symptoms of alcohol dependency can include:
  • Feeling like you need a drink (cravings) from the moment you wake up.
  • You obsess over the need to have a drink.
  • You plan your life around drinking alcohol.
  • You find it hard to stop once you start drinking alcohol.
  • You drink to help you cope with situations e.g. social or work situations.
  • You have abandoned other activities to accommodate drinking alcohol.
  • You drink more alcohol and for longer periods than you initially planned.
  • The majority of your time is spent drinking, being hung-over or being sick from drinking too much alcohol.
  • You drink more alcohol than before to access the same “benefits”.
  • You’ve tried to reduce your alcohol intake but failed more than once.
  • You neglect your responsibilities, continuing to drink even though it is harming your health, your relationships, your work and social life.
  • You have experienced blackouts or memory loss from drinking excessively.
  • You continue to drink even though alcohol has made you depressed, anxious or increased the risk of being harmed e.g. by driving or operating machinery.
  • You have experienced symptoms including muscular tremors, nausea, fits, anxiety, panic attacks, insomnia and delusions when you have tried to withdraw from alcohol.
  

Reduce alcohol consumption: The risks of high alcohol consumption

In UK, the Chief Medical Officer currently advises not to drink more than 14 units per week to maintain a low risk of developing alcohol-related health problems e.g. cancer. This quantity of alcohol should be spread evenly over 3 of 4 days to ensure that you have alcohol-free days in your week.The health risks connected to drinking alcohol increase when you drink heavily (binge drinking), when you drink on a regular basis or if you are in a high-risk category e.g. if you are on certain medication, have pre-existing mental or physical health problems or if you are pregnant.Some of the short-term health risks associated with binge drinking can have immediate effects. These include alcohol poisoning and miscarriage, still birth and foetal spectrum disorders if you are pregnant. High alcohol consumption can change your behaviour, increasing risk of injuries from motor vehicle accidents, falls, drowning and burns. Some people can become more violent and take more sexual risks when inebriated.Long term health risks can include the development of chronic diseases like liver disease, stroke heart disease, obesity, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and cancer of various organs. As the immune system is weakened, risk of other illnesses is increased. Mental health can also be affected including the risk of impaired brain function, dementia, depression, anxiety. As alcohol dependency becomes established, long term risks can impact on close relationships and work opportunities.  

What prompts people to want to reduce alcohol consumption?

Realising that your drinking habits are excessive may not be enough to reduce alcohol consumption; the underlying needs (e.g. coping with anxiety) can still drive your drinking behaviour. But it’s the negative consequences of your excessive drinking patterns that can influence you to review both your underlying needs and the consequences of your drinking habits and follow through with reducing your alcohol intake.Some of the reasons that prompt people to reduce alcohol consumption can also be the same reasons that you increase alcohol consumption:Your new role has responsibility – Whereas alcohol can be used to cope with too much pressure and responsibility, a new responsible role like parenthood can be the trigger to reduce alcohol consumption. The potential shame of child neglect can be too much of a weight to carry for many prospective parents, prompting a review of your drinking patterns.
Reduce alcohol consumption health
Health concerns are a common reason to reduce alcohol consumption
Health concerns – Some people want to cling to the mild health benefits of drinking alcohol in moderation (e.g. antioxidants in red wine) as the green light to drink excessively. But it’s the short term drinking-related health changes and long term development of medical conditions that can activate the need to reduce alcohol consumption.Weight gain – Alcohol can be a food substitute for those who are trying to lose weight, but the high calories in alcohol are generally a risk factor in obesity, influencing those who are overweight to cut down on alcohol consumption.Financial cost – Being shocked at the expense of drinking alcohol at social venues like nightclubs can influence those who want to cut spending to limit the frequency of drinking-related social outings. But for those more determined to keep drinking heavily with reduced costs, the habit can switch to home drinking instead.Standing out from the crowd – Comparisons are constantly being made in social situations. If you have social anxiety, you may feel anxious when you are doing something different to your peers. As a teenager, drinking more than your peers might have won you “trophies” of admiration, but as you mature, being the only one drinking excessively can be a reason to re-evaluate your personal alcohol consumption and lower your intake.Being judged for drinking – Whether you are judging yourself or being judged by others, feeling judged for abusing alcohol is a significant reason that people lower alcohol consumption.You have been advised to reduce alcohol consumption – Receiving advice from the “wrong” person at the wrong time can trigger a defiant “control” reaction to drink even more alcohol. Whereas accepting professional advice from an authority figure e.g. doctor or therapist, is usually a positive catalyst to reducing how much alcohol you consume.  

How are alcohol dependency and alcohol abuse treated?

There are various evidence-based methods used to treat different levels of alcohol dependency. These include alcohol detoxification, inpatient alcohol rehabilitation programmes, medication, outpatient individual and group counselling or therapy.If you are addicted to alcohol or have alcohol use disorder (AUD), you should initially consult your doctor to assess your risk of developing severe withdrawal symptoms e.g. seizures or delirium tremens. This may require inpatient treatment and use of medication to treat your withdrawal.If your doctor has predicted moderate to mild withdrawal symptoms, they may have prescribed medication to be used at home and advised being in a supportive environment. Therapy may be used at any stage to assist your alcohol reduction goals.Treating alcohol abuse may not need medical treatment, medication or support to stop drinking or reduce alcohol consumption. Personally identifying that your level of alcohol consumption is too high can activate self help methods to change your drinking habits.When you are struggling to make effective changes however, and find that your alcohol levels keep increasing, professional support can motivate you to change your drinking habits and help you understand your behaviour and underlying needs that are causing your drinking relapses.  

How can hypnotherapy help you to reduce alcohol consumption?

Hypnotherapy is gaining popularity as a form of treatment to modify drinking habits and reduce alcohol consumption, particularly where alcohol is used to relieve anxiety, stress and depression. There is some evidence that it can be as effective as other forms of therapy when hypnotherapy was previously used in an inpatient treatment programme.Hypnotherapy can help you reduce your alcohol consumption in the following ways:Identify and treat what you associate with drinking alcoholObjectively analysing your drinking habits, the reasons that you drink alcohol, the beliefs connected to your drinking patterns and how it is affecting your lifestyle forms the early part of the individualised hypno-therapeutic process. Even though you will already have some insight into these processes, some patterns will be masked by your drinking habits and internal conflicts, currently preventing you from taking control of your alcohol reduction goals.Hypnotherapy can help you control your alcohol cravingsHabitual drinking patterns that are formed over extended periods of time create automated patterns of drinking behaviour. Your mind has set up a need-reward cue that expects to be fulfilled with the ritualised drink. When the underlying need is exposed, the craving kicks-in to drink alcohol. Repetitively releasing stress at the end of your working day with an alcoholic drink will create a cue or trigger to drink at that time of day and/or when you feel stressed. Hypnotherapy can help you control and reduce your craving-association, dealing with the underlying emotion and accessing a positive replacement habit. Learning self hypnosis will reinforce this positive change.
Reduce alcohol consumption hypnotherapy
Hypnotherapy can motivate you to reduce your alcohol consumption
Hypnotherapy can motivate your alcohol reduction planRegardless of the outcome of your previous attempts to cut back on drinking or the anxieties about what you will confront without drinking alcohol, having a strong desire to reduce alcohol consumption will keep you focused throughout your reduction plan. Hypnotherapy can install suggestions to activate these positive changes, emphasising the benefits and the confident beliefs to stick to your alcohol reduction programme.Hypnotherapy can help you develop effective habits to cope with stressIf you are using alcohol to manage stress, anxiety, depression or cope with other negative emotions (self medicate), you will be reluctant to change your drinking patterns until you have accessed alternative ways to cope with your life. Hypnotherapy can help you activate new positive habits to cope with stress and negative emotions more effectively, thereby reducing your need for alcohol as you integrate these changes.Hypnotherapy can treat the traumas that increased your alcohol dependencyPast traumas like relationship break-ups, bereavements and recurrent major lifestyle changes may have influenced you to drink excessively or restart drinking after a period of abstinence. You may be continuing to drink alcohol to suppress how that trauma affected you, fearful that if you stopped drinking, the distress of that trauma will resurface and overwhelm you. Using regression techniques, hypnotherapy can help you release the emotions from these traumas, dissociating your drinking habits that continue to overwhelm you.Hypnotherapy can identify and treat your alcohol relapse triggersAlcohol relapse triggers are the emotional and situational triggers that create an intense craving or urge to drink alcohol (again). They can include stress, boredom, loneliness, despair and feelings of worthlessness. Situational triggers can include when you have finished work, when the children have gone to bed, or when socialising in a pub with certain people. Understanding your relapse triggers and finding strategies to control your urges can help you manage these emotions and situations more effectively. Support is given as you embrace new emotions and reintegrate back into these situations without needing alcohol.  

For more information on how hypnotherapy can help you reduce alcohol consumption, contact Richard J D’Souza Hypnotherapy Cardiff

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31Jan

Erase bad memories or forget someone with hypnotherapy

Can you erase bad memories or forget someone with hypnotherapy?

I am frequently asked if you can erase bad memories or forget someone with hypnotherapy. The question often stems from misconceptions of the power of hypnosis from the media. Films like “Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind” further reinforce the fantasy of these possibilities that you can undergo some brainwashing process to erase the bad memories of someone.
Erase bad memories or forget someone with hypnotherapy
Is memory erasure with hypnotherapy a fantasy?
Or maybe the enquiry originated from being a member of the audience in a stage hypnosis show in which the memory of a subject was temporarily “erased”. Witnessing the subject being placed in a “trance” and then forgetting their own name can sow seeds of belief into the audience that memory erasure is possible.Then you are faced with a personal trauma. You find out that your partner has been cheating on you...more than once! You’ve managed to break out of the relationship but the trauma doesn’t end there. You are desperate to get your (ex) partner “out of your head”. But there’s another problem: the more you try and forget them, the more the memories of them just rebound back into your consciousness.It’s in those moments of helplessness that what you have “learned” from the movies or stage hypnosis shows can seem plausible. You’re desperate to find a memory erasing process that can rescue your torment in a “flick of a switch”. But is it really possible to erase bad memories or forget someone with hypnotherapy? Or is it just something that exists in fantasy movies and stage hypnosis shows? 

Erase bad memories or forget someone with hypnotherapy: fact or fiction?

In order to distinguish what happens in the fictional portrayal of hypnosis against what typically happens in a hypnotherapy treatment, it can be useful to redefine what hypnotherapy is and how hypnotherapy works in practice.Hypnotherapy is a form of psychotherapy that uses hypnosis to create therapeutic change. Various hypnotic techniques are used to enable you to achieve a “heightened state of consciousness” in which you can concentrate your attention into the achievement of your hypnotherapy goals.Depending on hypnotherapist’s approach, relaxation techniques may also be incorporated into the hypnotic induction without diminishing your focus of attention.The word hypnosis is derived from the Greek word “to sleep”, but the state of hypnosis is not a state of unconsciousness. Ask someone to “role-play” being asleep and they would instinctively close their eyes. When watching hypnosis in films (and in hypnotherapy treatments), eye closure is often promoted to focus the attention inwardly, but the hypnotherapist is not encouraging sleep in that treatment session.The state of mind in hypnosis is often compared to states in meditation and mindfulness. In these different practices you are refocusing your own awareness into (or away from) different situations for calmness or re-clarification. Assisted externally by the hypnotherapist, it can be argued that hypnosis is a state of guided “meditation”. Similar to these other practices, it can enable you to perceive your situations with different thoughts, emotions and beliefs.When defining hypnosis, hypnotherapists refer to being able to access the subconscious mind that holds many of the automated “patterns” of thoughts, emotions, beliefs and behaviours that can remain hidden from the conscious mind. Some of these patterns are negative and self limiting.Whilst in hypnosis, you are more receptive to the hypnotherapist’s suggestions to access these self-limiting and negative automated “patterns”. You are then encouraged to re-imagine them in alignment with your positive therapeutic goals.Many conditions like smoking cessation, phobias, weight control, anxiety, stress, panic attacks and depression can be treated with hypnotherapy. The treatment process requires your active participation in which you can recall some of the therapeutic suggestions used during hypnosis. Contrary to popular belief, you cannot be made to do anything against your will with hypnosis.Having distinguished some aspects of fact or faction, is it still possible to erase bad memories or forget someone with hypnotherapy? 

Erase bad memories or forget someone with hypnotherapy: reality check

Erase bad memories or forget someone with hypnotherapy
Memories might be weighing you down but they can’t be erased
As much as you may wish to forget the existence of a person or a painful memory, there is no modern therapy that will enable you to do so. Memory erasing or brainwashing techniques do not exist; nor would it be an ethical practise if it did exist. So when asking whether you can erase bad memories or forget someone with hypnotherapy, it stems from the fictional depiction of what people want to believe about hypnosis at a desperate time of need.  

The irony of trying harder to forget a recent painful memory

A memory of someone or of something is not a tangible object; memories are complex and contain far more than just the subject-matter. One memory may lead to countless other memories and associations such as other people, places, thoughts and feelings. If you were able to simply erase a memory from your mind, your mind would be missing lots of gaps and connected pockets of information.Furthermore, whilst studies have shown that you can forget an isolated “emotionally-weak” object that has recently been shown to you in a test; you cannot forget a recent emotionally-charged memory connected to lots of experiences that are typical say, in a long term relationship.Bad emotionally-charged memories, in particular, are pushed into your subconscious mind to protect you from re-experiencing pain and trauma. This is termed as repression. Whilst you may not be dwelling on those issues, the emotions from those memories can resurface with an appropriate connected trigger causing you to feel distressed.Often, when someone wants to forget a person it’s because you associate negative feelings and behaviour towards them. These negative associations make it almost impossible to forget this person, as they are marked as “significant” in your subconscious (or unconscious) mind.When you forcefully try to forget (suppress) a recent painful memory, the memory is recalled. You are then adding more importance to the memory as you re-trigger the painful emotions. By also adding additional emotions like frustration into this effort, you are effectively keeping the bad memory active.To summarise then, vigorously trying to forget recent (or distant) bad memories backfires, keeping the memory active and causing you more upset. But dealing with bad memories can be managed in different, more productive way.  

Remoulding the context of memories with hypnotherapy

Memories are not static constant structures that are fixed in your mind. Memories (and their associated thoughts and emotions) are adaptable and flexible. They are open to suggestion and can accept small deletions or “add-ons” to change some of their original meaning.Each time that your mind replays memories, minor details of those memories are being remoulded, sometimes without even realising it.By creating new associations and narratives to that memory, you can effectively change what that memory means to you and how you feel and respond towards it. What will surprise some people is that when you apply these changes, these changes don’t need to have happened in reality, but they still need to be “reasonably acceptable”.
Hypnotherapy change bad memories memory stick
Change the meaning of your bad memories with hypnotherapy
Hypnotherapy is an effective tool to help you “re-edit” the negative emotional associations of a memory. These associations can be reinterpreted into ones that are aligned towards your therapeutic goals. And as you then change the way you feel about the memory, it alters your “template” of mental discomfort and the negative physical reactions.So whilst you can’t erase bad memories or forget someone with hypnotherapy, hypnotherapy can help you change the specific thought, emotion, and behavioural associations that are connected to the memory. In other words, hypnotherapy can change “how you remember” the memory, not the “raw” memory itself.But some people may be worried about the ethics of such a process that “meddles” with someone’s personal painful memories. Is it right to change something in your negative past that could help you develop a higher sense of morality? It’s a valid concern, but you can take into account the following:
  • As mentioned earlier, nothing is done against your will and nothing can be changed without your cooperation.
  • The decision to seek therapy is a tentative and personal step. It’s important to seek a therapist that you can trust and whom you believe will guide you towards emotional positivity. The change is for your emotional benefit.
  • You will have assessed the need for this change, weighing up the quality of your life that you currently have by maintaining the status quo and the benefits of being free of these painful memories.
  • The re-evaluation of one’s past is happening naturally and informally without even trying to change it. When you look at photographs, engage in conversations, watch the television, read newspapers etc. memories are being altered in some way. If your self-help methods are not helping you break free of these painful memories, professional therapy becomes a viable option.
  • All therapies, not just hypnotherapy, seek to remould your memories in some way. The approach may actively look back at those memories or deal with them incidentally when looking ahead at what you want to achieve.
When you actively want treatment for a bad memory, hypnotherapy regression techniques and/or rewind techniques may be used in this process. They can be combined with or without solution focused hypnotherapy, which tends to “leave the past behind”. Even the most basic hypnotherapy relaxation inductions that involve a “glance” at a bad memory can help you reduce the intensity of your distress connected to the bad memory.The hypnotherapist who uses numerous hypnotherapeutic strategies will use regression to treat your bad memory, but will still ask confirmatory questions about the achievement of your (future) goals e.g. “when you have “forgotten” this memory how will you lead your life? How will you then react or feel when you think about this memory or see this person again?”  

Which conditions can benefit from a reinterpretation of your memories?

Having discussed whether it’s possible to erase bad memories or forget someone with hypnotherapy, there are certain treatment-areas that particularly benefit from a reinterpretation of your bad memories. Your specific issue does not have to fall into the categories below to be treatable.With some treatment areas, you may not actively dwell on those bad memories, but the beliefs connected to those memories are inhibiting you from moving forwards and accessing positive change.Fears and Phobias There are various causes of phobias. Most phobias are learnt during childhood when these traumatic experiences shape your beliefs about your phobic object or situation. Combined with progressive desensitisation, the reinterpretation of the “causal” traumatising event can help you to release the emotions connected your phobia.RelationshipsTraumas from your parent’s relationship and from your own previous relationships can compound unresolved emotions. They continue to contaminate your current and future relationships. The effect of past abuse, infidelity and parental divorce can cause deep insecurities and jealousy towards to your partner.Lack of self confidenceAvoiding new challenges because you fear failure can be connected to events in your past. These past “failings” now shape your belief that things will go wrong again in the future, but without taking risks your confidence suffers. Releasing the emotion from these past memories can change the pathway of this negative self-fulfilling prophecy.Low self esteemPast criticism, abuse, bullying and neglect can be internalised as a definitions of your worth. Without realising that you are holding onto these memories, you can continue to believe that there is something wrong with you. Reappraising those bad memories can help you challenge your beliefs and rebuild your self esteem.PTSD (Post-traumatic stress disorder)With post traumatic stress disorder, the traumatic experience is considered to be fragmented and “misfiled” when your mind originally presented it for memory storage. The traumatic memories of the experience are now being reactivated by triggers causing symptoms like distressing flashbacks, nightmares, panic attacks and sudden fits of rage. Hypnotherapy can enable the traumatic memory to be safely reprocessed reducing your distressing PTSD symptoms.  

Summary: the “memory erasing” potential of hypnotherapy

Erase bad memories or forget someone with hypnotherapy
Hypnotherapy can help you change how you feel about the memory
When a memory continues to haunt you, accessing a “silver bullet” that will remove the struggle remains a fantasy. But that doesn’t mean that the memory should continue to haunt you.With the right expectations, what surrounds the memory can be altered. And it’s important to have the right expectations when starting a therapeutic process of change. This hypnosis test and the article that follows it can help demystify many of the common misconceptions about hypnosis.Ultimately, you cannot erase bad memories or forget someone with hypnotherapy, but you can change what you associate with that memory.  Hypnotherapy is a useful tool to facilitate this change with a variety of conditions. When actively focusing on the memory and its associations, you can then remould what that memory means to you. 

For more information on whether you can erase bad memories or forget someone with hypnotherapy, contact Richard J D’Souza Hypnotherapy Cardiff

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31Dec

Needle Phobia Treatment

Needle Phobia Treatment

Needle phobia treatment: An extreme fear of needles is also known as belonephobia.  Common with all simple phobias is a distressing level of high anxiety or

Needle phobia treatment
Anxiety and disgust are common reactions when you have a needle phobia

a panic attack when the sufferer thinks about, sees or comes into close contact with your object of fear.

The situation in which a needle is used (e.g. an injection or blood test) can also cause extreme disgust.

As a needle phobia sufferer, you know that your emotional responses are irrational, but you are unable to control the symptoms that overwhelm you.

 

 

Needle phobia treatment: Confronting avoidance

Avoidance is a common way of coping with a needle phobia and this strategy keeps you safe in the short term. Inevitably, your fear of needles (or the situation that accompanies it) will conflict with other goals like travelling, health changes or external demands from your work situation. This is usually the moment that you contemplate confronting your needle phobia.

The period of avoidance can be extensive. Sometimes it can be years before you are ready to challenge your phobia. During this time, your phobia can transform from being a simple phobia into being a complex one.

Self-help needle phobia treatment methods can be successful when applied with determination however. Furthermore, when medical professionals know that you have a needle phobia, they will usually do what they can to assist you. They want to ensure that their medical administrations (e.g. a blood test to diagnose your condition) do not “flood” your anxiety and make your situation worse in the long term.

Hypnotherapy can be a useful needle phobia treatment method when the situation does not allow for your fears to be dealt with in “chunks”. It can incorporate other research-based methods with rapid results.

 

 

Needle phobia treatment: Needle phobia associated situations

Identifying precisely what you fear is an important part of your needle phobia treatment. Sometimes the fear is related to the specific object i.e. the needle. In the majority of cases, it’s the situation in which the needle is being used and other fears that you bring to the situation that heightens your anxiety and makes the situation so difficult to manage.

Other fears can include being disgusted with the sight of blood, coping with pain, a fear of contamination, trusting the medical staff, a fear of fainting and wider issues like coping with embarrassment of panicking in front of strangers.

Here’s a comprehensive list of situations commonly associated with a fear of needles:

  • A general fear of sharp objects (aichmophobia and enetophobia) including pins, scissors, pens, pencils etc.
  • A fear of medical procedures (trypanophobia) including injections, vaccinations (jabs or shots), blood tests, use of local and general anaesthetic etc.
  • A fear of dental procedures (dentophobia) including local anaesthetic for fillings.
  • A fear of blood (haemophobia) particularly during a blood test.
  • A fear of pain (algophobia or algiophobia) cause by the medical procedure.
  • A fear of germs or contamination (misophobia) if the needle or the foreign materials entering your body are believed to be infected. This is common with OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder).
  • A fear of becoming ill (nosophobia) from the procedure or suffering illness from any side effects. This is common with hypochondriasis or health anxiety.
  • A fear of death (thanotophobia) where is it believed that something will go catastrophically wrong.

By association, a needle phobia can also be connected to wider issues that can intensify your level of anticipatory anxiety. These include:

Fear of needles can attach onto other fears
A needle phobia can connect to other fears e.g. fear of medical staff
  • A fear of injury (traumatophobia) that might necessitate a medical procedure involving an injection.
  • A fear of medical staff (iatrophobia) caused by a distrust of doctors.
  • A fear of medical establishments (nosocomephobia) such as hospitals, infirmaries, doctor’s surgeries etc.
  • A fear of fainting common with needle-blood-injury phobias and a drop in one’s blood pressure.
  • A fear of confined spaces (claustrophobia) experienced during medical procedures and where you may have been previously restrained.
  • A social phobia (fear of embarrassment); you can feel embarrassed because you are unable to cope with the medical procedure.
  • Agoraphobia (fear of open spaces or being unable to escape a situation) when you need an extended medical procedure in a hospital as an in-patient.
  • Panic disorder (fear of fear) in which you have numerous fears and phobias, and experiences random panic attacks.
  • Coping with disgust. This emotion can be ignored in phobias but often contributes to the distress (nausea) suffered in many phobias like needle-blood-injury phobias. You can then fear feeling disgusted and faint.

 

 

Needle Phobia Treatment: Living with a needle phobia

It is estimated that up to 10% of the population suffer with a needle phobia. It’s not surprising that this ratio is so high when toddlers are unlikely to understand why they are having an injection and can sense their parent’s emotions so easily. Some parents who have a needle phobia or have other fears (like health anxiety or fear of contamination) themselves are probably aware of the possible parental display of anxiety to their child.

Instead of displaying anxiety, some parents can misinterpret a display of aggression as a show of confidence to their child by using force to complete a vaccination procedure. Restraining your child during an injection will get the job done in the short term, but in the long term it communicates to the child that these procedures are done “to them” (rather than “with them”) and should be completed without their permission. Distrust, high anxiety and physical tension (in a form of claustrophobia) are likely to be experienced in future medical procedures, believing that restraint will be necessary for an injection.

These negative experiences can be traumatic and feel like a betrayal of trust. Misplaced reassurance can also feel like a betrayal when adult authority figures or medical staff try to dismiss a child’s concerns with “everything will be fine!” only for the child to experience that the injection was anything but fine! Or when you are also told that “this won’t hurt a bit” and it does hurt more than a bit.

The anticipation of pain then becomes another feature of the procedure to be managed for those with a growing fear of needles. A child who anticipates or fears pain will increase tension in their arm muscles (or site of the injection) as a reflexive defence mechanism. Having an injection into tense muscle will feel more painful.

Needle phobia treatment television dramas
Realistic television medical dramas can be a source of negative learning for young children

The anticipation of these feared experiences can be learned directly or vicariously (through significant adult authority figures). They can also be learned indirectly from a friend’s account of their negative experiences and from media sources. With the latter, children can be easily convinced by television medical dramas. They portray medical traumas so realistically that children can associate pain, blood, medical errors, distrust etc. into the anticipation of their next medical procedure. It’s not surprising that some children will avoid watching these programmes despite them being considered family viewing, often citing what they have seen on television as a secondary cause of their fear of needles.

In UK, several vaccinations are available throughout childhood. Fear of needle sufferers who avoid these vaccinations can risk contracting an infectious disease themselves and then spreading it to other members of the community who cannot be vaccinated. Then there is the issue of delaying an early diagnosis and treatment of a medical condition when avoiding having blood tests. Being hospitalised for a medical emergency or serious medical condition can mean confronting several fears within a short period of time with a possible need for injections, blood tests, the insertion of a cannula and possible surgery.

The fear of needles with some dental procedures can also become an issue when local anaesthetic is needed for fillings in deeper cavities. Communicating your fears to your dental practitioner can help ease your anxiety and help how these situations are managed. But for some dental patients however, the sensitivity of the site of the injection (into the gum) is too distressing when compared to say, having an injection into the arm, regardless of how much the dental practitioner can help to ease your anticipation.

But it’s not just medical and dental situations that are affected by a needle phobia. Children with a fear of needles can miss out on school trips and hinder family holidays abroad as there are many countries that require proof of vaccination before being able to enter the country.

For some young children who are disgust sensitive, having a medical or dental procedure with needles can also mean rapidly learning about and experiencing medical situations as the “subject” before they are ready to accept it. These medical concepts can include: the skin and muscle being pierced by a needle, foreign materials being injected into the body, the sight of blood, a tourniquet being used to bring the vein to the surface in the arm, a sample of blood being taken from your body etc. Coping with these medical concepts before the child is ready to understand and be naturally curious about the human body can cause them to feel disgusted, nauseas and feel faint. Fainting when feeling disgusted is not usually a medical concern, but it can still cause the child embarrassment and insecurity; something that they would want to avoid around people that they don’t trust.

During teenagehood, social anxiety (social phobia) tends to dominate a teenager’s choices, usually avoiding attention and embarrassment where possible. A fear of needles can be difficult to admit to one’s teenage peers when it might provoke ridicule from them. But then without the confidence to admit a fear of needles and face the possible taunting, a teenager with social anxiety may try to suppress their anxiety. The suppression of emotions can cause them to come to the surface when you least want them to be released. Risking a panic attack in the queue leading in to the school medical room or school hall will draw lots of curious, negative attention from your peers. You then risk being labelled by those insensitive members. But there are alternatives. Fortunately, when social anxiety adds to the general anxiety experienced with a fear of needles, the vaccination may be possible at your local GP surgery.

As avoidance behaviour takes its grip with a fear of needles, the condition can rapidly convert into a needle phobia. The young adult may be faced with a variety of new situations where they need to confront their fears. Vaccinations are advised when studying at a university and could again be essential if travelling abroad during a gap year.

Certain career choices can be limited without confronting a needle phobia. When joining the military services, vaccinations will be needed when being deployed abroad. Or if you choose a career in medicine, the ability to perform medical procedures is essential unless you choose a non-clinical medical career.

In adulthood, a needle phobia can continue to affect your personal life. If you avoid vaccinations, it will restrict some holidays abroad with your partner. It can also cause your partner unnecessary worry when certain medical conditions need blood tests to be fully diagnosed or treated. Then in a progressing relationship, deciding to have children will mean confronting your needle phobia with possible vaccinations needed during pregnancy and with medical procedures needed during child birth.

Needle phobia treatment for coronavirus vaccination
The Coronavirus vaccination has alerted people to their needle phobia

The effect of the coronavirus pandemic has meant that many needle phobia sufferers have had to re-evaluate the effect of their avoidance behaviour in order to be protected against covid-19 and limit its spread to other vulnerable people. When seeking an effective needle phobia treatment, many will have resorted to self-help methods or accessed help from a therapist.

In summary, without you seeking an effective needle phobia treatment, living with a needle phobia will restrict your life in many medical and health-related situations. Being open about your needle phobia can be a limited way of coping with it. When healthcare providers know that you have a fear of needles, they can offer you some short term assistance to get you through the procedure.

For many needle phobia sufferers, once the needle phobia has developed however, it’s the anticipation and other connecting fears that make the medical procedure so distressing. An untreated needle phobia can associate claustrophobia, fear of blood and injury, panic disorder, agoraphobia into the complex experience. So even when a medical procedure is completed, the experience is not considered an emotional achievement. Instead, it serves as yet another anxious trauma and a setback to your confidence. You view the situation as something that you survived “with no other choice” and would still prefer to avoid these situations when you do have a choice. Very few people “want” to have an injection or a blood test, but when you can focus on the benefits and freedom that it offers you, a medical procedure with a needle can become something that you gradually accept and learn to manage.

 

Self-injecting medication

Some people with medical conditions need to self-inject medication using needles or pens on a continuous basis. Medical conditions can include diabetes, arthritis, psoriatic disease, autoimmune disorders, fertility treatment, Crohn’s disease etc.

When you are first diagnosed with the condition, you confront what you associate with your fear. You are in complete control of the situation but you may not feel in control of the needle. Some people need help to self-inject medication in the initial stages of a medical diagnosis.

 

Needle phobia treatment: Causes of a needle phobia

Direct learning from personal traumas is considered to be one of the main causes of a needle phobia. Vicarious learning from authority figures and media sources can also contribute to external factors that cause a needle phobia. Certain endogenous factors (within the individual) can include one’s biology and personality. Click this link for more information on the causes of a phobia.

 

 

Needle phobia treatment: Needle phobia symptoms

The symptoms of a needle phobia can be intense and debilitating. They can be triggered by seeing a needle or watching a procedure with a needle on television. Your reaction can seem disproportionate the actual danger that you are faced with, but this does not calm the severity of your response.

When the needle phobia is related to anxiety, symptoms common with a panic attack can include a rapid heart rate, strained breathing, profuse sweating, trembling, severe muscle tension etc.

Some needle phobia sufferer’s reaction is related to disgust (and a possible vasovagal syncope – the potential to faint caused by numerous potential triggers). Symptoms can include fainting, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, blurred vision, clamminess etc.

It’s not unusual to have anxiety and disgust symptoms common in both categories listed above.

 

 

Treatment for a needle phobia

Treatment for a needle phobia is usually treated in the following ways. Anti-anxiety and sedating medication can be prescribed from your GP. This will help to reduce your anxiety symptoms when you need to have a medical procedure using a needle.

Medication can also be combined with therapy such as cognitive behavioural therapy to help you challenge your fearful thoughts and feelings. Your therapy can also include exposure therapy which involves being gradually exposed to situations involving needles. Techniques include learning to cope with these progressive situations using breathing techniques.

 

 

How can hypnotherapy treat you needle phobia?

Needle phobia hypnotherapy fear of needles
Hypnotherapy can treat your needle phobia

People with phobias tend to be highly receptive to hypnosis (you can assess your level of suggestibility using this hypnosis test.

Your needle phobia treatment will use a combined approach including controlled exposure, visualisation, hypno-analysis, anxiety control and regression to remove the “cause” of your needle phobia. There is more information in this link on how hypnotherapy can treat your phobia.

 

 

Can your needle phobia treatment be completed remotely?

Yes, if you do not live in the Cardiff area or you are unable to travel to the practice, then your treatment can be completed remotely by video call.

Here is more information on remote hypnotherapy.

 

For more information on your needle phobia treatment using hypnotherapy, contact Richard J D’Souza Hypnotherapy Cardiff

By Hypnosis, Hypnotherapy, Insights, Issues that hypnotherapy can help treat, Uncategorised0 Comments
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30Nov

Reasons for drinking alcohol

17 Common Reasons For Drinking Alcohol

People have various reasons for drinking alcohol without their drinking patterns being a cause for concern. An alcoholic drink or two can be part of an occasional celebration or to complement a special meal. Other people may avoid alcohol altogether if they don’t like to taste, fear being out of control, or associate alcohol with past distress.

: Social reasons for drinking alcohol
Peer pressure is a common reason to drink alcohol

In the early stages of drinking, you may not enjoy the taste. However, the situation surrounding your drinking behaviour e.g. feeling intimidated by peer pressure, will motivate you to push through your negative taste reaction until you accept it.

After some persistence, you find out that alcohol produces many gratifying effects on your mind and body. If you perceive this effect as rewarding, then your habits will draw you in to establish a level of alcohol dependence, however small. The associations you make with your drinking experiences will shape your values and expectations to continue drinking. But the effects of alcohol on the mind and body are so deceiving that people persevere with drinking alcohol compulsively even after it becomes a problem.

The reasons for drinking alcohol listed here include a further analysis of that reason. When you want to reduce your alcohol consumption, examining your underlying motivation or reason for drinking can help you re-evaluate your perceived reward. This can start a process of change in which you can then find better emotional and behavioural alternatives that are aligned with your new drinking goals.

 

 

Reasons for drinking alcohol: two broad categories

There are generally two broad categories that define the common reasons for drinking alcohol. One category uses alcohol as a coping mechanism to ease discomfort (or for negative reinforcement). The other category involves using alcohol to be cheerful and lively at social situations (for positive reinforcement). Both categories are vulnerable to habitual and binge drinking behaviour depending on the situation and individual beliefs. Situations can involve a mix of both categories e.g. when someone’s mood is jovial with moderate alcohol consumption, but after heavy drinking their mood becomes hostile causing them to release repressed anger from childhood experiences.

 

 

What are some common reasons for drinking alcohol?

You drink alcohol to relieve stress – Alcohol has anxiety reducing (or anxiolytic properties) and diminishes the feelings of stress. This is often acknowledged in the early stages of drinking, but as the dependency grips you, drinking continues even when the stress-relieving benefits have faded. The memory of the past benefit pushes the misconception that the feeling of relief will arrive after another drink. Ironically, for those with a high alcohol dependency, the increased alcohol consumption intensifies the feeling of stress that you were hoping to escape in the first place.

 

You are influenced by peer pressure (social norms) – The UK has an established drinking culture and following these social drinking norms and rituals is one of the main reasons for drinking alcohol, regardless of age. Drinking influences can come from your peers, your family, the media, the occasion etc.

In a social situation, you may not want to drink, but the fear of offending someone or standing out from the crowd if you don’t “keep up” can trigger feelings of isolation, a fear of being criticised or fear of being rejected from the social group (or activity). These fears can pressurise people into drinking because it’s socially expected particularly when it is connected to occasions like weddings and large parties.

For some people and social groups, drinking is the activity and the term “drinking buddy” can be used to form a relationship in which heavy drinking is normalised. Ironically, those with a high alcohol dependency will frequently drink alone with minimal social interaction in a social setting. Peer pressure can then be used as the hidden excuse for yet another occasion to believe you are drinking and having fun with friends.

Teenage reasons for drinking alcohol
Young people can feel grown up when they drink alcohol

You drink alcohol to feel grown up – Teenagers are highly curious and suggestible when they see adults doing something that they don’t do. With adulthood approaching fast, their impatience can encourage them to imitate adult behaviour. Tell your teenage children not to do something when you are doing it yourself and it’s likely to fire their curiosity when you are not around and see what all of the fuss is about. For teenagers, acting like an adult is one of the most common reasons for drinking alcohol. Ironically, when drinking excessively, it’s an excuse for many adults to act like young children!

 

You drink as an act of rebellion – If you are a teenager who is surrounded by rules and is constantly being told not to do things, being defiant about breaking the rules can be exciting. And when the members of your peer group haven’t “found” alcohol yet, it can seem very cool to do something excessively that they don’t do. The need to stand out as a non-conformist can continue into adulthood however, justifying the drinking behaviour as the definition of your individuality. Being the adult rebel with a high alcohol dependency, others will probably pity your behaviour rather than admire it, thinking that you have somehow lost your direction and now hide behind the “glamour” of your rebellious drinking.

 

You drink alcohol to take back control – If you have experienced control, manipulation or abuse from a parent or partner, you may use alcohol to “take back control” or even take revenge on your oppressor, particularly if they don’t like you drinking alcohol. Or maybe you are struggling to control a part of your life e.g. post-traumatic stress disorder, and having something that gives your mind moments of “release” can feel like you have momentarily escaped your torture and can “control” something. Drinking alcohol to cope with the despair of abuse and to take back control and is one of the most common reasons for drinking alcohol heavily. Even when you have battled your way out of your situation, the subtle reminders of your previous loss of control can be a strong trigger to drink again. It’s a long path back to heal the damage of your situation, but alcohol never really gave you the emotional resources to conquer it.

 

You drink alcohol to lower your inhibitions – Social phobia or (social anxiety) is a common phobia in which the individual fears embarrassment and attention. Alcohol is often used as “liquid courage” to take the edge off shyness particularly when coping with situations like a first date or a large party filled with strangers. You can feel anxious and drink alcohol to cope in anticipation of the actual event.

As your intolerance increases with a hectic social life, those spontaneous moments of awkwardness can trigger the need for another drink. Ironically, when you then become a binge drinker, your lack of inhibition can create situations that are often embarrassing, aggressive or attention-seeking. This is something that you can obviously blame on alcohol and “shrug off” the next day to hide your blushes, rather than developing skills like using affirmations, breathing techniques to control your anxiety, self hypnosis and meditation.

 

You drink alcohol to improve your sleep quality – When you are going through major lifestyle changes or work-related stress, your sleep quality can be affected. Introducing alcohol as a sedative to break the sleep-worry cycle can have a short term benefit, but when the effects of alcohol wear off, you are likely to wake up in the middle of the night. As your intolerance to alcohol increases, it means that you will need more alcohol to have the same sedating effect though the night. If the stressful conditions continue, those benefits can fool you into believing that alcohol is helping your long term sleeping habits. Since alcohol is a depressant, it reduces the amount of Rapid Eye Movement (REM) necessary for quality sleep. So when you have drunk alcohol, you tend to wake up feeling fatigued with poor concentration levels. Learning how to regain your natural sleep quality will help you break the sleep-worry cycle.

 

You drink alcohol to manage pain – It’s common to manage chronic pain with alcohol, but in order to be effective, you will need to binge drink over long periods to achieve some level of benefit. As you build up a tolerance for the quantity of alcohol, you will need more to achieve the same pain-relieving effect. There are further dangers of causing harm to other organs when mixing alcohol with painkillers.

 

Drinking alcohol helps you to feel better – Another term for using a substance like alcohol to feel better is called self medication. This is a broad category within the reasons for drinking alcohol that includes gaining any perceived benefit whether it’s shared by others or just personal to you.

Self medication with alcohol
Self medication is a major reason to drink alcohol

Common reasons to self medicate (other than reasons already listed in this article) include feeling angry, lonely, depressed, bereft, worthless, frustrated, guilty, ashamed, bored etc. Using alcohol becomes the crutch to help you avoid, escape, divert, deny, suppress, repress, relieve, replace, numb, punish, block, hide, erase, stall, mask, forget etc. actively confronting or dealing with the discomfort associated with another situation.

In so many of those situations, the underlying problem doesn’t go away after you have finished drinking. Drinking alcohol just gives you a momentary release that is more bearable until you have accessed (if ever) a better way of coping with the alternative. If, for example, you drink to block feelings of guilt about something that you did wrong, your attention can be temporarily diverted from that guilty feeling that connects to the situation.

Some problems become more complex with time and latch onto additional situations causing the sufferer to feel more guilt and increase your dependency on alcohol. You don’t find an active solution to their problems; instead, drinking alcohol becomes the solution. Forming new good habits without alcohol takes time; prepare for a long road ahead.

 

You enjoy the taste of alcohol – Tasting ethanol for the first time as a child is rarely a pleasant experience. Evolution has hard-wired humans to dislike bitterness. But the taste can be “acquired” when it is suggested to you to “give it time” or you attach other reasons to persist with the bitter taste until you accept it e.g. because you want to fit in with your peer group.

Adding sugar to disguise the bitterness will help that acquired “liking” for you alcoholic drink and this addition also takes care of the other half of what evolution has programmed us to do (like sweetness). Flavour it with a whole range of mixers in enjoyable surrounds and your perceptions quickly convert it to the acquired taste that you enjoy.

And despite many people having drunk excessively to the point of vomiting to indicate that your body doesn’t like this, it only serves as a temporary aversion when your peers boost your drinking and vomiting achievement as “cool”.

 

You really want a drink – When you already perceive pleasure from something, the neurotransmitter that controls the reward centre in the brain called dopamine is playing a major part in motivating your behaviour. Drinking alcohol has an effect of increasing the release of the dopamine giving some people this temporary euphoria of enjoyment. Then add to that physiological process numerous pleasurable experiences like parties and celebrations to set up habits and your “want” and expectation to want more will be amplified.

Unfortunately, with continued alcohol use, the brain adapts to the dopamine overload by producing less of the neurotransmitter and lowering your mood. To regain your euphoria, the brain is tricked into thinking that you have to keep drinking to stay happy, meaning that you may need more alcohol to have the same effect. At this stage of alcohol dependency, your want is bordering on a “need” to feel good again. If you maintain a high level of alcohol consumption, you are on the early pathway to alcohol dependency.

 

You drink alcohol to warm you up – Drinking alcohol can temporarily feel warming by the receptor nerves in your skin detecting a rise in skin temperature caused by vasodilation. But this effect actually lowers the body’s core temperature as the thermoregulatory system would normally perform this function to cool your core temperature down.  Natural ways to warm up include moving around and putting on warmer clothes and wrapping your hands around a hot cup of tea if your hands are cold.

 

You drink alcohol to quench your thirst – Drinking alcohol has a diuretic effect, helping you to eliminate water from your body by increasing the production of urine, hence you tend to feel thirsty in the night or morning after a drinking session. It’s likely that when you are thirsty and you consume one alcoholic drink, you believe that the next drink will taste better because of the false belief that it is thirst quenching. If you are thirsty, there are many non-alcoholic drinks that will quench your thirst.

 

You drink alcohol to improve the taste of your food – Pairing your food with alcohol can seem like a sophisticated ritual that is built into fine dining culture.  Excessive alcohol consumption however can damage your sense of taste.

Moderate drinking activates the taste and smell receptors connected to the brain to generate a chemo-sensory perceptive experience along the lines of “ah, plenty of berry fruits...etc.” This response makes it an ingenious marketing opportunity to mark up the cost of a bottle of wine in a restaurant. When you then buy your “deliciously” described steak from the menu (another way to build expectation about having something better than it is), you are fully buying into the illusory benefits of wine pairing.

 

You drink alcohol to feel powerful – Power can mean several things to different people. It can mean feeling confident, self-assured, authentic, courageous, being assertive, funny, sexy, beautiful, sociable, impulsive, flirtatious, important or liberated as an ideal version of your “self”. For some people, it can mean an excessive “high” feeling of arrogance or aggression that can be admired by one’s peers (social confidence) and would not come to the surface without using an elixir to immortalise you in some way. The reason that you might feel powerful is again connected to the brain’s flooding of dopamine (pleasure neurotransmitter) that can have the effect of lowering one’s inhibitions. Then there’s the placebo effect – believe that that an amount of alcohol “caused” you to have a good outcome last time and you will drink alcohol again to “create” the same effect.

If you have low self belief and low self confidence, and fear being exposed as dull, unintelligent, ugly etc., you are probably using alcohol to fill your void of insecurities. You remain convinced that alcohol will give you “power” or another emotional boost and guess what, it will probably will!

Reasons to drink alcohol to improve sexual performance
Heavy drinking can leave your partner feeling frustrated

You drink alcohol to improve sexual performance – Drinking alcohol to improve the quality of your sex can have variable benefits. Depending on your gender, people may drink alcohol to increase your desire to be intimate, be less “fussy” with your choice of partner, lower the level of performance anxiety, increase or decrease arousal levels depending on your underlying negative issue (e.g. premature ejaculation), sustain an erection and delay orgasm. But there is an optimal amount of alcohol to achieve the desired result. Excessive alcohol can have a detrimental effect on the quality of your sex, decreasing sensitivity (common with erectile dysfunction), reducing arousal and your ability to achieve orgasm. As with using any substance excessively, achieving natural sexual satisfaction can become more difficult to achieve as you drink heavily. Many people who binge drink often regret their sexual experiences whilst being drunk.

 

You drink to get drunk – Drinking with the intention of getting drunk can be motivated by a number of underlying reasons. People usually get drunk to cope with negative experiences, to be more sociable, to conform to ritualised behaviour and to feel more excitable. The physical effects of alcohol include reducing stress by acting like a common tranquilliser in parts of the brain, dimming your judgement abilities so that you “don’t care”, releasing dopamine to increase pleasure and releasing endorphins (opiates) to help you “feel good”. With alcohol being legal, it’s not surprising that people want to get drunk in the short term with all of these physiological effects. Continue to binge drink over an extensive period of time and the changes in your brain chemistry steer you towards high alcohol dependency.

 

 

Common reasons for drinking alcohol: Summary

The reasons for drinking alcohol are numerous and personal but can be generalised into drinking for positive and negative reinforcement. Any behaviour associated with a substance can become habit-forming. A behaviour that is part of cultural norms and values can quickly accumulate positive beliefs as you multiply those experiences.

If you are seeking to reduce your alcohol consumption, interacting with your underlying needs will help you to focus on positive changes.

  • Relying on any substance like alcohol to cope deceives you that you are really dealing with it.
  • The perceived rewards can become a habitual.
  • Your initial rewards can be redundant, but you continue to believe that you are still benefitting even though your lifestyle has changed.
  • You can be convinced that things would be worse if you didn’t drink.
  • As your tolerance to alcohol increases, you need more alcohol to have the same effect.
  • When you drink heavily, the rewiring of your brain chemistry makes it harder to cope with those situations naturally.
  • Heavy drinking patterns can creep up on you.
  • You increase the number of health risks as your drink heavily, including risking alcoholism.

 

Reasons for drinking alcohol: for more information on hypnotherapy to lower your alcohol consumption contact Richard J D’Souza Hypnotherapy Cardiff

 

By Insights, Issues that hypnotherapy can help treat, Self Help, Therapy0 Comments
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28Oct

Break a bad habit with hypnotherapy

Break a bad habit with Hypnotherapy

Do you want to break a bad habit? Well, here’s a new notes on habits first to help you understand how you have arrived here...

Break a bad habit: What is a habit?

Break a bad habit
Habit formation is a mind-management tool
A habit is an automated mental and behavioural activity that enables you to shape aspects of your daily life. Habits give you structure, stability and security so that you can focus on the more important tasks. Without habits, you would need to regenerate creative and complex thinking into every part of your day. Compare the current effort needed to type on your “qwerty” keyboard with typing on one that has been randomly rearranged. Typing up a project on the latter would be a frustrating process until you have learned the new keyboard format and formed the new habits needed to type proficiently again.Habit formation is a mind-management tool. When you form a habit, it enables you to save mental energy and to take short cuts on certain activities. Automated behaviour demands less effort from you than activities that demand your complex and creative thinking. Habits thus act as one of the brain’s power-saving mechanisms, “chunking” the routine behaviours to free up energy for those other “essential” tasks.Habits are important to understand because they contain specific aspects of your thinking, your emotions and your beliefs, which in turn, can also become automated. In many ways, a habit is a reflection of your direction, who you are, and what you believe. When you achieve your goals, it is a result of your well-nurtured habits.Habits are also important to understand because when a habit has been formed, it creates a huge influence in how you expect to behave, think and feel. This can be ideal if the habit is serving a good purpose. If the habit is (or has become) a bad habit however, then it can have a negative impact on many aspects of your life, how you feel about yourself and your confidence. Ingrained bad habits will conflict with what you want to do, displacing your rationality and what you might consider to be your “free will”.Habits are more challenging to adjust when you are experiencing a number of major lifestyle changes e.g. a change of job, a relationship break-up, a bereavement etc. When you are under pressure, letting go of the old habits and establishing new ones can be frustrating. It can seem easier to continue with the bad habit particularly when you are under stress, even though you can appreciate that it’s not working for you and that it’s conflicting with underlying beliefs (cognitive dissonance).If you want to break a bad habit, layers of repetition that you have formed in one direction will now need to be undone and replaced with a new positive process. If this habit has taken many years to develop, it can be particularly challenging to work against the tide of expectation, break down the bad habit and install a new self-affirming behaviour. When you want to break a bad habit it’s not surprising that you get stuck in a recurrent loop.Have you reached a dead end with your bad habit? Then maybe professional help would benefit you.  

Break a bad habit: how are habits formed?

Approximately 40% of your daily behaviour is determined, not by conscious decisions, but by habit. Have you ever tried to be conscious of some of your basic routines? Take your morning routine for example. It can be exhausting analysing every action, the methods available, the pros and cons, assessing and evaluating if the behaviour was good enough etc. Like most people, you slip into subconscious mode and prepare for your day ahead.Let’s consider one part in that morning routine, like brushing your teeth. For many of you, rewinding back to the day when it all started will have connections with your parents or relevant authority figures. The cue (or trigger for the behaviour) will have originated from a suggestion, demonstration or assistance from them. The reward or perceived benefit is the reason for your brain to store the pattern of behaviour. This may have come from your parent’s praise, your own reward for “looking very grown up” imitating what they did, enjoying the feel of the toothbrush on your gums or taste of the toothpaste etc. With the repetition of daily teeth brushing, the routine or habit was created.
Break a bad habit nail biting
Nail biting: Cue, reward, repetition: HABIT
Now let’s consider another habit that is not so fundamental for the general population, but is essential to those who do it – the habit of nail biting (onychophagia). Again, the cue for nail biting can derive from observation and imitation of an authority figure or a peer. For some, having the irritation of an uneven nail that was torn or split was the cue. Biting off the torn nail reduced the irritation and became the reward. And with the repetition of biting more nails, the habit was formed.As a nail biting habit becomes ingrained over a period of years, it integrates additional needs (emotions and beliefs) and incorporates more rewards. This intensifies its effect on the individual, as if it’s part of your identity. By now, the nail biting habit has numerous triggers and is taking over many situations in your lifestyle. You may even be biting your nails in your sleep.Some of the underlying needs that can develop over the years for nail biting can include personal grooming, perfectionism, problem-solving, achievement, emotional comfort (from stress, anxiety etc.), alleviation of boredom, control, self punishment, time-efficiency (using your teeth is easier than fetching nail clippers), defiance, loneliness, a thumb-sucking replacement, hunger satisfaction, appetite suppression etc.With such a complicated needs-reward pathway, wanting to break a bad habit like nail biting as an adult can be a challenging process.  

Habits, compulsions and addictions

What are the similarities and differences between habits, compulsions and addictions?As discussed, habits (whether good or bad) are routine behaviours that are consolidated through repetition. You may or may not notice that you are performing the behaviour, but when it is brought to your conscious attention, you can usually temporarily stop the behaviour. With time, the original reward that integrated the good habit during formation can separate from the current behaviour. Hence you can be in possession of habits that are no longer useful. If it conflicts with current needs, the good habit has become a bad habit.Compulsions are repetitive behaviours driven by anxiety and are often defined within obsessive compulsive disorder. There is hope of a reward, but once the compulsion is performed, there is no relief from the underlying anxiety connected to it.Whilst there is pressure to act with both habits and compulsions, the pressure to perform the compulsion is usually more intense than with habits, and will continue even if consciously noticed. The “good habit” of washing your hands before eating has a definite sense of completion. With compulsive hand washing however, the ritual can have a specific sequence, is time-consuming and anxiety continues even after completion of the hand washing routine.Addictions involve biological connections with substances that are consumed or used, such as drugs, alcohol and nicotine. There are many compulsions that are considered to be addictions, where no substances are consumed or used e.g. when gambling or shopping as a “shopaholic”. Addictive behaviour is characterised by intense cravings, loss of control and behavioural persistence often to the neglect on one’s health, relationships and work. An addiction can be referred to as a disease with many triggers because of the brain’s involvement in the development of the condition.Addictions start as habits but the behaviour can remain as habits e.g. when habitually drinking alcohol every evening. As the habitual patterns intensify however, they can become compulsive and addictive. What defines it can depend on the individual and your motivation, your negative emotions connected to the behaviour (e.g. to manage anxiety) and its affect that these patterns are having on your neurology. All behavioural patterns can be difficult to stop.Generally, an OCD compulsion has does not have any pleasurable attachments; it originates from a need to relieve an obsessive urge. Addictive behaviour starts with the desire for pleasure, but there is usually a point where enjoyment is lost and you are just seeking relief from the urge to continue the behaviour.  This is intensified during withdrawal and can look like an OCD compulsion at this stage because the pleasure has ceased.Another major distinction is related to the awareness of reality. Those with an OCD compulsion are aware that the obsession is not real and you are distressed by the need to carry out the irrational compulsion. People with addictions however are in a state of denial and are disconnected from the long term consequences of your actions. Instead you are in pursuit of short term gratification, ignoring how your behaviour might be linked to an underlying problem.
Exercise habit
Exercising everyday: A good habit?
Why is this distinction between habits, compulsions and addictions important? From the above discussion, it is evident that these types of repetitive behaviour can overlap in one person, yet can remain distinct in another person. Consider an example like exercising every day. Is this someone who is passionate about their hobby, health and fitness, and wants to maintain a good exercise habit? Or has the exercise routine become more of a bad habit or a compulsion, masking an underlying health anxiety or insecurity about their physique? If the individual is spending hours each evening at the gym and neglecting family relationships, does this mean that it has become an addiction? It would need a closer analysis to define it accurately.When you want to break a bad habit, understanding the category of your automated behaviour (habit, compulsion or addiction) can help you appreciate what may be necessary in your treatment plan. Treatment to quit smoking for example can involve treatment for the addiction and habit to convert the smoker into a non-smoker.Has your repetitive behaviour been diagnosed? Many clients arrive with deeply entrenched bad habits that have become compulsions. It’s often necessary to treat the connecting beliefs and emotions to release the subconscious mind’s need to maintain the bad habit.  

Break a bad habit: Most common bad habits

Bad habits come in all shapes and sizes and varying degrees of severity. Placing them into “categories” inevitably involves a degree of overlap depending on how you view the habit e.g. is watching too much television a bad health habit, or a procrastination habit, or both? Certain bad habits can also vary in the specific situation e.g. procrastination can be determined by what distractions are available at the time such as access to television, your phone, snacks etc. and whether you are at home or at work.And not all bad habits are behavioural; some bad habits can be identified as cognitive and emotional e.g. when dwelling on lost opportunities or worrying about the future.Bad habits that increase your weightIt’s not just identifying where the calories exist; it’s important to make the connection with how you approach your eating and drinking patterns. Bad habits that increase your weight can include: Bad habits that can harm your health Ignore some of these bad habits and they can apparently take years off your life. Bad habits that can harm your health include:
  • Many of the habits that increase your weight (see above)
  • Drinking too much caffeine
  • Being inactive (lack of exercise)
  • Slouching, crossing your legs
  • Not having enough or quality sleep
  • Smoking/vaping
  • Habitual drinking and binge drinking (alcohol)
  • Using phones and other devices late at night
  • Taking drugs
  • Overmedicating (pain killers, sedatives etc.)
  • Sunbathing
  • Ignoring how stress is affecting you
  • Skipping medical appointments
  • Not drinking enough fluids
  • Not flossing
  • Wearing high heels
  • Skipping meals
  • Ignoring the value of your health
  • Living beyond your financial means
Bad habits that damage your productivityBeing productive can involve a number of issues including effective time management skills and balancing obligations with work and home life. Activities that can be defined as “time out” or escapism to some can be a time-wasting activity (procrastination) to others. In the balance of managing stress however, it is important to have some relaxation time; too much “chill” time and it can add to your stress. Bad habits that can damage your productivity include:
  • Procrastinating
  • Watching too much television
  • Overusing your phone
    Break a bad habit over-using social media
    Over-using social media can damage your productivity
  • Playing video games
  • Over-using social media
  • Multitasking
  • Saying yes to everything
  • Perfectionism
  • Lack of delegation
  • Being indecisive
  • Over-scheduling
  • Not having breaks
  • Poor punctuality
  • Hoarding
  • Watching too much porn
  • Sleeping in
  • Leaving keys/wallet/purse in random places
  • Leaving things until last minute
Bad habits that hurt your financesSome people say that money isn’t everything, but it’s important to achieve a level of financial comfort where you don’t have a daily financial struggle just to survive. Ignore poor financial management habits and it can lead to health problems. Bad habits that can hurt your finances include:
  • Emotional impulsive shopping
  • Overspending
  • Gambling
  • Ignoring credit card limits
  • Not economising/budgeting
  • Stealing (kleptomania)
  • Not saving money
  • Neglecting your bills/expenses
  • Not saving towards a pension
  • Spending to compete with others
  • Hoping to get lucky
Personal bad habitsPersonal grooming patterns can become destructive habits, even though they start with the intention of comforting the individual. Some of these behaviours can annoy, offend and disgust others when done in public. Personal bad habits can include:
  • Nail biting or biting/chewing on other objects
  • Thumb sucking
  • Twiddling hair
  • Hair pulling (Trichotillomania)
  • Biting your lips, biting the inside of your cheeks
  • Picking your skin, scabs or spots
  • Spitting
  • Clearing your throat excessively
  • Grinding your teeth (bruxism), clenching your jaw
  • Not washing your hands
  • Picking you nose
  • Cracking knuckles
  • Excessive scratching
  • Over grooming
  • Using your phone when driving
Bad habits that harm your relationships Communication, trust and respect are just some of the common relationship goals. Certain bad habits can hinder those goals from flourishing. Bad habits that can harm your relationship include:
  • Trying to change your partner
  • Provoking jealous reactions from your partner
  • Being too critical
  • Staying in toxic relationships
    Bad relationship habits cause arguments
    Bad relationship habits can be a source of amorous tension
  • Being abusive
  • Not standing up to abuse
  • Being aggressive
  • Not acknowledging your partner
  • Not actively listening
  • Competing with your partner
  • Keeping score
  • Failing to respect each other’s space
  • Engaging in passive-aggression
  • Over-compromising
  • Avoiding conflict
Bad habits that harm your emotional wellbeingIt can be a slow process, but giving daily attention to some of the behavioural patterns that are contributing to your low mood can gradually pull you out of your unhappiness. Bad habits that can harm you emotional well-being include:
  • Over-committing
  • Being self critical
  • Associating with negative people
  • Being unassertiveness
  • Fearing failure
  • Struggling to take criticism or praise
  • Failing to take responsibility
  • Isolating yourself from others
  • Lying
  • Comparing yourself to others
  • Catastrophising
  • Worrying excessively
  • Not making time for yourself
  • Self hatred
  • Not practising meditation/mindfulness/self hypnosis
  • Obsessing about things out of your control
  • Undervaluing self awareness
  • Not using correct breathing techniques
  • Failing to use affirmations
  • Dwelling on your negative past
  • Not wanting to break a bad habit
 The impact of ignoring bad habits in a certain category can obviously have a direct impact on that part of your life e.g. obesity can be the result of ignoring bad habits that contribute to weight gain.Other negative effects include anxiety, depression, stress, sleep problems, panic attacks, fatigue etc. Long terms bad habits can also contribute to family problems, dental problems, social problems and unemployment.  

How are bad habits justified?

Bad habits start as “good” habits. At the time of their formation, you make the connection with a perceived benefit (or reward) regardless of how negative it may seem to others. What you connect with can be based on the resources that are conveniently available at that time.Young children can develop habits such as twiddling hair, nail biting, thumb sucking and skin picking to manage stress, to comfort insecurity and loneliness, and calm anxiety. When there is a lack of activity for children, the bad habit can combine with the management of these negative emotions to become a new daydreaming “activity” to feel comforted and ease boredom.Depending on your family situation and your interaction with adult authority figures, the developing bad habits can be reinforced to balance emotions from negative conditioning e.g. where there is control, manipulation, abuse or neglect from adults (or other school children). By employing the habit, the child will seek to gain attention or regain a level of emotional control. Some habits can be used as self-punishment (self-harm) to divert feelings of guilt, shame or worthlessness.Whilst the bad habit of comfort eating can develop from young childhood, teenage curiosity can be a period where bad habits are connected to other substances. Alcohol, tobacco and recreational drugs are common ways that young people self-medicate to escape problems and manage stress and social anxiety.Beyond the use of substances, emotional and behavioural bad habits can also become ritualised at this young age to manage anxiety, a fear of failure, guilt and shame. Negative self-talk, obsessive compulsive behaviour (e.g. gaming or gambling) and procrastination (e.g. watching television, using social media) are common bad habits that leak into adulthood, often damaging efficiency, self confidence and self esteem.The needs that justify bad habits can be complex. They start as a functional good habit. With repetition, changing needs and new situations, they evolve and attach new rewards that can make the original need for performing the habit redundant. When you are struggling to break a bad habit, you are attempting to confront theses conflicts in your emotional history.  

How can hypnotherapy help you to break a bad habit?

Stubborn bad habits leave a deep imprint in how you manage your life. Bad habits can persist despite them being detrimental to your health, harmful to your relationships and a contributor to your stress. A desire to change isn’t always enough to break a bad habit cycle.When you are battling to break a bad habit and you have reached a dead end, hypnotherapy can give you the tools that you need to eliminate it. That’s why many people seek professional help from a hypnotherapist. How can hypnotherapy help you break a bad habit?Hypnotherapy can identify and remove the cause of your bad habit
Break a bad habit with hypnotherapy
Hypnotherapy can remove the cause of your habit
Many habits were installed within a particular belief system or state of mind that met your needs at that time. You have now moved on from these needs but the cause of the habit is still influencing you to continue the behaviour. Regression techniques can be used to take you back to when you set up the behaviour and reframe the needs-habit (causal) pathway. The emotional roots can then be disconnected freeing to access new habitual patterns that suit your current lifestyle.Hypnotherapy can break the triggers that surround your bad habitBad habits start as a conscious process and with repetition they become unconscious. You may not even notice that you are performing your bad habit in certain situations until a negative trigger prompts you e.g. your bitten nail is sore, or there are no more biscuits in the pack, or the bottle of wine is now empty, or your skin is bleeding, or you have just “lost” another 2 hours to procrastination etc.Throughout your treatment, you will become more mindful of your bad habit, helping you to identify “where” and “when” the triggers are intense. Suggestions can then be used to remove the negative patterns that are associated with these triggers.Hypnotherapy can reprogram your negative thought patternsYour bad habit is paired with negative thoughts, beliefs and emotions that justify its continuity in a part of the mind called the ‘critical factor’. Negative thoughts like...
  • “I can’t do that assignment” (so you procrastinate with a few more round of Candy Crush).
  • “I’ve lapsed so many times now; I may as well keep smoking” (so you light up another cigarette!)
  • “I can’t win with this diet” (so you grab a few biscuits in frustration).
...help maintain the bad habit.In hypnosis, the critical factor is overridden enabling you to absorb positive suggestions or affirmations that have a more profound effect on your old bad habits. It’s as if your mind is given accelerated conditioning experiences to optimise and embed new positive thoughts, beliefs, emotions and behaviour that are aligned to your treatment goals.Hypnotherapy can replace your bad habit with new positive habitHow many times have you heard people tell you to “just stop” doing your bad habit? How many times have you said that to yourself in vain? Ingrained bad habits rarely respond to suggestions “to stop” when they ignore deeper unmet needs. This is because your mind’s system becomes unbalanced, registers that something is “missing” and demands that the need is met (usually with what it expects to have, based on past behaviour).The main therapeutic aim when you want to break a bad habit is to give your mind a brand new habit that is functionally more acceptable than the bad habit, and then install the new habit with repetition. If the underlying needs (e.g. stress and anxiety) are stable during the transitional period, the connection with the good habit can be achieved relatively easily. This approach is effective with “simple” bad habits.Intense repetition is important for conditioned learning; to create the switch from the old bad habit to the new good habit. When the repetition is too slow and it lacks emotional intensity however, your mind can revert back to using the old bad habit. This is where hypnotherapy can step in and be so beneficial with visualisation techniques.Visualisation in hypnosis can give your mind the positive experiences with emotion intensity, as if you have actually had those experiences in reality. This treatment approach accelerates the conditioning process. Visualisation can serve useful when it’s difficult to continuously simulate the emotions and behaviour in a particular situation e.g. when installing a performance skill in open field sports situations.Hypnotherapy can treat the underlying needs of the bad habitWhen you want to break a bad habit, the above process (i.e. habit replacement) is the most common and direct treatment aim with simple bad habits. The conversion can be relatively quick, particularly with highly suggestible clients. Try this hypnosis test to assess your level of suggestibility.Some bad habits are more complex and might be defined as compulsive behaviour. This is because there are numerous underlying needs (emotions and beliefs) that have connected to the bad habit over a long period of time. This causes the structure between your needs and the bad habit to become very rigid.Your goal in therapy remains: to break a bad habit. In this situation however, the underlying needs (or core issues) are very strong and demand treatment in the context of your bad habit. If the bad habit is eliminated without dealing with the underlying needs, the exposed needs will draw you back into the bad habit. Regression techniques may be used to identify and treat the cause, and reappraise any issues that were impacting on the habit during its formation.
Break a bad habit smoking
Hypnotherapy can treat the underlying needs of your habit
Let’s take for example someone who wants to quit the habit of smoking cigarettes. You have tried and failed several times using “willpower”. Direct suggestions in hypnotherapy are only having a partial effect and you relapse in certain situations. The background to the habit of smoking is identified and reappraised using regression hypnotherapy. As a teenager, the origin of the habit of smoking was connected to control and manipulation from an abusive father. Smoking was used as defiance, to “take back control” from your abuser (i.e. your reward). Smoking was something that your father despised and was unable to control in your absence. As the adult, you now live independently from your abusive father, but he criticises you each time that you have a telephone conversation with him. After the conversation you feel tense and worthless and this is a recurring trigger for you to smoke. Your “abuse-tension-worthlessness-smoking” connection (or your underlying need) is treated and this helps you to quit smoking completely. Your treatment helps you install new, more functional habits and deal with the stress of your father’s criticism of you in a positive and constructive way.Hypnotherapy can teach you self hypnosis for future habit maintenance Habit formation is an ongoing process; as your needs change habits need adjustment to be effective. Developing good habits that can be adapted to your changing needs and situations in the future is a skill that can help you manage your lifestyle independently. Having achieved your goal in my hypnotherapy treatment, you will take with you some of the skills of breathing techniques and self hypnosis to maintain the independent “mind-work” that can be so useful for future habit management.  

For more information on hypnotherapy treatment to break a bad habit contact Richard J D’Souza Hypnotherapy Cardiff

By Hypnosis, Hypnotherapy, Insights, Issues that hypnotherapy can help treat, Therapy0 Comments
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28Sep

Agoraphobia Treatment

Agoraphobia Treatment in Cardiff

Agoraphobia treatment: Agoraphobia is an anxiety disorder and complex phobia in which the sufferer fears being in various situations that are considered difficult to leave. Having a panic attack in a situation and feeling trapped, embarrassed or isolated from help starts a sequence of fearful reactions that exacerbates the condition.
Agoraphobia treatment panic attack underground tube
Agoraphobics can feel anxious, trapped, embarrassed & isolated
Agoraphobia can also develop when you have experienced a trauma usually away from your home. You now live in fear of experiencing another trauma when you leave your home.With mild agoraphobia, you may be able to travel short distances to deal with “essential” matters. In the extreme progression of agoraphobia, you will struggle to leave your home.  

Agoraphobia treatment: What situation does an agoraphobic fear?

Someone suffering with agoraphobia will fear returning to any situations where you have previously experienced a panic attack or a trauma, typically open spaces and public places. This can include:
  • Being in open spaces where help may not be readily available such as in open fields and countryside, around and at the top of hilly and mountainous landscapes.
  • Being away from home in extreme weather conditions.
  • Travelling in vehicles or on public transport where you are unable to control the journey e.g. when travelling on a train, bus, coach, ship, underground tube, airplane and even a taxi. Or travelling in a car with unfamiliar people whom you fear would be unsupportive if you had a panic attack.
  • Social situations or crowded locations where you cannot see your “exit” or where your help may not be able to find you easily.
  • Being in confined spaces that are difficult to escape or where the location has limited access points such as in forests, on bridges, in tunnels, walking amongst tall buildings and being stuck in traffic jams. It can also include inaccessible situations at a relative height or altitude e.g. being in a lift at the top of a multi-storey building, parking at the top of a multi-storey car park or using a cable car to travel between locations.
  • Visiting a large shop or supermarket that has: narrow aisles, is very crowded, has queues at the service tills, has electronically operated doors or where the shop is so enormous that you may not be able to vacate it easily.
  • Being left alone and feeling isolated (either at home or away from home), particularly from those whom you trust or whom you believe can help you.
  • Travelling over or being close to other potential areas of danger such as bridges, heights, deep water etc.
    Agoraphobia treatment home safe place
    Agoraphobics consider home to be a safe place
  • Progressively being further away from your safe place, (this is usually your home) and being away from people who are important to you.
  • Having driving anxiety (or fear of losing control and having a panic attack whilst driving) and endangering yourself, your passengers, other drivers, pedestrians and damaging the vehicle. This can be experienced in numerous situations detailed in this section. For example when driving over bridges (heights) and deep water. The feeling of anxiety is also intensified with certain road types such as motorways with increased speed, motion, shorter reaction time, relative open/closed spaces, exposure to sudden gusts of wind, distance away from home, being stranded if the vehicle broke down etc.
  • Having experienced a previous trauma or near-trauma, you believe that you may experience an actual trauma or another trauma when you leave your home. Traumas can include being attacked, doing something that may cause extreme humiliation such as having a severe attack of IBS or being (re) infected by a serious illness. Fear of contracting a serious illness is also known as health anxiety.
You can appreciate from the above information that when you fear more situations, it increases the complexity of your agoraphobia with the likelihood that you could encounter any one of these “panic stricken” situations when you leave home.Some locations will include several of these feared situations in one area and are likely to cause high anxiety if obligated to confront it without help e.g. when using the motorway to drive over a national boundary bridge (like the Severn bridge that spans the River Severn between England and Wales).  

Agoraphobia treatment: What causes agoraphobia?

Agoraphobia is caused by a number of biological and psychological factors, more notably as a complication of panic disorder. Panic disorder is an anxiety disorder characterised by panic attacks that are assumed to be spontaneous and a possible symptom of a more serious condition e.g. a heart attack.During the early development of panic attacks, you are in a state of high alert trying to look for causes of and solutions to your distress. You ignore the importance of your internal beliefs and the physiological meaning of these panic symptoms i.e. you are in a fearful state, but at this time, you just don’t know how you can end up feeling this way are why you feel this way.You (mistakenly) focus externally on your situation, location or activity and (incorrectly) give excessive importance to when these symptoms are alleviated (i.e. when you escape the situation and arrive home). The situation you were in when you felt anxious becomes the “cause” of your distress and your rapid escape home becomes the solution.Then, in order to control the frequency of panic attacks, you will avoid these situations in the future. The combination of your rapid retreat and avoidance convinces you that you are dealing with the situation in an effective way to minimise your immediate discomfort. However, these avoidant solutions are quick-fixes that make the long term situation worse as there are a diminishing number of situations in which you can feel safe from panic attacks.In addition to this, your hasty escape becomes automated and a “necessary” method of coping even when you anticipate feeling anxious. Progressively, as the condition grips you, you feel high anxiety when you are at home just imagining confronting the outside situations.Experiencing panic attacks in your “safe place” causes confusion as your remedial escape plan is now meaningless. Effectively, you are running away from your “own mind” and have exhausted your options to comfort it. At this advanced stage of the agoraphobia, you are probably housebound and experiencing a higher frequency of panic attacks.Other causes of agoraphobia can include:
  • Experiencing trauma (e.g. violence) whilst away from your home. You live in fear of experiencing another similar trauma if you were to leave your home.
  • Suffering major lifestyle traumas like bereavement, divorce and unemployment. These external events can cause a significant loss of confidence, feelings of guilt, worthlessness, embarrassment and shame. Some people feel vulnerable and exposed to judgement from others when you go through a major lifestyle event and are exposed to social situations.
  • Having other anxiety disorders and phobias such as depression, generalised anxiety disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), social phobia and claustrophobia.
  • Suffering a history of abuse and control.
  • Conditioned responses from a family background of agoraphobia. In some cases the background can include a “dependency culture” that stifles self-confidence.
  • Problems with substance abuse.
    Vertigo and fear of vertigo illyngophobia cause agoraphobia
    Vertigo and a fear of vertigo (illyngophobia) can cause agoraphobia
  • You have certain medical conditions such as suffering problems with balance (vertigo) and spatial awareness distortion issues. This affects how you perceive the proximity of people and objects. You feel disoriented and vertiginous when environmental features “look busy”, are too close, too far away or have a “descending” perspective when viewed from a height.
Click this link for more information on the general causes of a phobia.  

Agoraphobia treatment: What are the symptoms of agoraphobia?

Physical symptoms: Since avoidance is the common strategy to minimise discomfort, the agoraphobic will rarely confront those situations that cause distress. When it is necessary to confront those situations however, the anxiety symptoms experienced are common to those when having a panic attack. Symptoms will include hyperventilation, rapid heartbeat, nausea, excessive sweating etc.Cognitive symptoms: The cognitive symptoms reflect the underlying belief system. For example, the agoraphobic with health anxiety will be convinced that your physical symptoms are connected to a serious illness. Whereas the agoraphobic with social anxiety will be believe that appearing out of control with a panic attack will draw attention and will feel humiliating. In addition to this, the agoraphobic with claustrophobia will judge that you will not be able to escape the situation particularly when experiencing a panic attack.Behavioural symptoms: The behavioural symptoms have been detailed in the section above entitled “Agoraphobia treatment: What situation does an agoraphobic fear?” and includes being in open spaces where help may not be readily available.  

How is agoraphobia diagnosed?

Agoraphobia is usually diagnosed by your doctor who will ask questions about your signs and symptoms, and your medical and family history. It is common to do some blood tests to dismiss any physical causes for your condition e.g. hyperthyroidism.  

How is agoraphobia treated?

Agoraphobia treatment can involve a specific or a combination of different interventions including:
  • Self help techniques that help you understand agoraphobia and panic attacks. When you learn about these conditions, it may help you have more control over your symptoms. Lifestyle changes such as taking up regular exercise (initially performed in your home) can help you reduce symptoms of everyday-anxiety.
  • Prescribed medication from your doctor such as SSRI’s (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors), antidepressants or anti-anxiety medications can relieve some of your agoraphobia or panic attack symptoms.
  • Therapy such as psychotherapy, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), and Exposure therapy can be used to discuss your fears, change your thoughts and progressively challenge your behavioural symptoms.
  

How can hypnotherapy treat your agoraphobia?

Agoraphobia is considered to be a complex phobia since it can integrate various anxiety disorders e.g. panic disorder, and a number of advanced individual fears and phobias that now dominate the sufferer’s self-limiting experience. Unless the symptoms are being caused by a specific issue, agoraphobia treatment is rarely a quick-fix since many of the symptoms have developed over an extended period of time. But when the agoraphobia treatment allows for a structured approach, it can be invaluable in returning the sufferer to emotional wellbeing and lifestyle confidence.Is hypnotherapy a viable treatment for agoraphobia then? There is some case study research to demonstrate hypnotherapy’s effectiveness. For example, hypnotherapy has been used when treating IBS-induced agoraphobia and in another case study where the application of hypnotherapy was psychodynamic in its approach. Hypnotherapy has the advantage over other treatment modes since it can utilise the subconscious mind with some impressive outcomes.Furthermore, studies from Stanford University state that phobia sufferers “tend to score high on hypnotic susceptibility scales and... respond favourably to hypnotic intervention.” You can assess your level of suggestibility using this hypnosis test.To be successful in agoraphobia treatment however, hypnotherapy still needs to incorporate other tried and tested methods. My agoraphobia treatment approach includes various treatment strategies using these tried and tested methods.This is how you can benefit from hypnotherapy:Your core issues will be identified and treated
Agoraphobia treatment identify core issues
Identifying your core issues is an essential part of your agoraphobia treatment
When you live inside your agoraphobia symptoms, you will be responding to a negative programme that is now established and automated. Your behavioural reactions are not the problem, but act as a further symptom of your condition. In the early stages of your treatment your agoraphobia “map” will be traced to identify core issues that may have been forgotten and repressed. In many cases an issue like a height phobia is not being confronted, yet is still playing an active part in the avoidance programme. When these issues have been identified, either through discussion or using hypnotic techniques, your treatment goal will become clearer and can be broken down into progressive stages.Hypnotherapy will help reduce your anxietyAdvanced anxiety states benefit from an interruption from the pathways that maintain it. By introducing relaxation into these pathways, it allows you to see out of the habitual patterns of avoidance and prepare to accept new patterns. My hypnotherapy incorporates anxiety reduction as part of the induction, a process that may not be included in other therapies. This is helpful in your goal to overcome your agoraphobia, but it is not the complete treatment. The post-hypnotic suggestions that are targeting aspects of your agoraphobia are the main part of the treatment and will accelerate you towards therapeutic change.Hypnotherapy can help you control your panic attacksThe ability to use breathing techniques to control your anxiety is an essential part of feeling in control of your internal state. You may have previously tried breathing techniques, struggled to benefit from them and then dismissed them as being helpful following another panic attack. Your treatment will revise these techniques and anchor them in hypnosis so that they become a natural effective intervention in your anxiety management.Hypnotherapy suggestions can target your agoraphobia symptomsIn a hypnotic state, you are more receptive to positive suggestions. Hypnotic suggestions can target your physical, cognitive and behavioural symptoms interrupting the current pathways that are overwhelming you. When you have intense positive visualisations without conscious interference, it can transform your current negative state into your desired state. The suggested visualisations act as positive rehearsals for your practises enabling you to confront the situations that you are avoiding. As you embrace these new patterns of behaviour, essential feature that maintains your agoraphobia like your automated “escape” reaction will be modified.Hypnotherapy can reframe your past emotional traumasRegression techniques often get a slating from solution focused hypnotherapists and other therapies that consider “revisiting the past” as a waste of time. Painstakingly combing through every part of your life is the common misconception with age regression techniques, but this is not necessary unless treating deeper issues like extensive abuse. With agoraphobia, reframing the negative emotional learning from past events can be completed in a relatively short period of time. By examining the (i) origin (also known as the “cause” of your condition), (ii) the most emotionally significant past event, and/or (iii) the most recent event is, in many cases, sufficient for emotional release. Regression hypnotherapy adopts the view that it’s your state of mind when you learned your agoraphobia that is continuing to cause you problems, not the reactions that have ensued.Hypnotherapy can assist your desensitisation programmeDoing the “in vivo” exposure or “mind work” to treat the emotional blocks connected to your agoraphobia in the clinic is an important part of the treatment process. It will prepare you for the “in vitro” or behavioural exposure to confront the “outside of clinic” situations that you are currently avoiding. As you systematically achieve the objectives in stages, it completes the circle of belief that you are building confidence and can overcome your condition.Can hypnotherapy be combined with desensitisation (or graduated exposure) techniques effectively? Hypnotherapy can be mistakenly identified as a “one trick pony” in which you are “made” to change in one session or the treatment has failed. Would you seek this same expectation from a cognitive behavioural therapy programme? Probably not; you would expect a course of therapy particularly if it includes systematic desensitisation. In the treatment of phobias, research has shown that hypnotherapy can be effective in the application of desensitisation therapy where the treatment is tailor-made to the individual. Hypnotherapy can offer a “rapid and cost-effective form of treatment for these conditions” (p. 107).Follow this link for more information on general phobia hypnotherapy treatment.  

Hypnotherapy: how can you access your agoraphobia treatment?

Agoraphobia treatment hypnotherapy
Hypnotherapy can treat your agoraphobia in numerous ways
Agoraphobia treatment at the clinic: If your agoraphobia severity is low to moderate and you can travel short distances or travel accompanied to the practice, then your hypnotherapy treatment can take place at the clinic.If your agoraphobia is moderate to high then consider:Agoraphobia treatment at home: Initially, you can be treated in the safety of your own home with hypnotherapy home visit treatments to get your therapy moving. (N.B. an additional travel fee applies.) Or...Agoraphobia treatment online: You can access your agoraphobia treatment using online hypnotherapy without the need for travel or additional travel fees.  

For more information on agoraphobia treatment & hypnotherapy in Cardiff, contact Richard J D’Souza Hypnotherapy Cardiff

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20Aug

Health Anxiety Treatment

(for example globus sensation in the throat) and them Health Anxiety Treatment Cardiff

Health anxiety treatment: Health anxiety is the irrational and excessive preoccupation with having (or developing) a serious mental or physical medical condition. The condition is also known as illness anxiety disorder, (psycho) somatic symptom disorder and illness phobia (nosophobia). Health anxiety can be considered a category of OCD due to the obsessive nature of your health fears and ritualised compulsions to alleviate those fears.

Health anxiety treatment
Health anxiety is the excessive preoccupation with illness

In psychiatry, the terms hypochondria and hypochondriasis are also used to identify health anxiety. Unfortunately these terms have developed negative connotations. Being labelled a “hypochondriac” can be wrongly misconceived as being someone who is always ill or who has a tendency to “moan about everything that is wrong with them”.

In reality, health anxiety is a serious mental health disorder in which you can feel like a prisoner inside your own body. In a UK study, nearly 20% of those in hospital clinics met the criteria for having health anxiety. Accepting health anxiety can involve many challenges in your health anxiety treatment.

 

Health anxiety treatment: Types of health anxiety

There are two main categories of health anxiety. Each one tries to manage the discomfort of their symptoms. Some sufferers have traits in both categories however.

Health anxiety with avoidance behaviour: This type avoids attention, new information, diagnoses, and anything else that you have (mistakenly) connected as triggers for your symptoms e.g. exercise, drinking caffeine, television dramas, media articles etc. By playing silent or suppressing your thoughts, you believe that “not knowing” is a better way of coping with bad news. You don’t want to have your fears confirmed and go through the agony of major treatment. Instead, you deceive yourself that “it’s probably nothing”, hope that the symptoms will go away and potentially neglect your health for extensive periods. Some avoidant sufferers believe that your condition is (or that you are) not important enough to warrant treatment. You may be convinced that you are beyond help.

Health anxiety with reassurance behaviour: The category of health anxiety seeks attention, new information and diagnoses in order to be reassured, but the depth of reassurance is superficial. You hope that endless searching on the internet will give you the information that you want, but it rarely satisfies your need. Craving a certain kind of reassurance, this health anxiety sufferer is more vocal about signs and symptoms and this can be frustrating for your family members and friends to keep hearing about your ailments. Depending on your level of insecurity, you might complain to people close to you hoping that they can make an emotional connection or even open up to complete strangers in search of that novel reassuring response. They may have little or no medical knowledge, but their lack of medical authority is irrelevant. Those who have medical expertise could give you the release from your health anxiety but only if meets your specific emotional need in that moment. Frequent visits to the doctor complete the circle of help that is available to you. Yet the medical opinion you are offered is not convincing enough to give you long term reassurance, despite the tests showing negative results.

Is Munchausen Syndrome the same as health anxiety?

Munchausen syndrome (also called Factitious disorder) is a rare psychological condition in which the sufferer feigns or causes their illness in order to gain special attention or sympathy. You might impose it on yourself or somebody that you are caring for (also called Munchausen syndrome by proxy). Munchausen syndrome is characterised by manipulation of test results, lying about symptoms, harming yourself to create symptoms and seeing different medical staff who might believe that your symptoms are genuine. Health anxiety is different to Munchausen Syndrome because with health anxiety, you believe that you are ill but you do not manipulate your test results.

What is Malingering?

Malingering is similar to Munchausen syndrome in the way that the symptoms of illness are manipulated. Whereas Munchausen syndrome has no clear cause, malingering is motivated by personal gain. It might be financial gain from insurance claims, time off work, a reduction in work obligations, prescriptions for controlled medication or avoiding military duty and prison time.

 

 

Health anxiety treatment: What causes health anxiety?

There is no single cause of health anxiety. A combination of background factors, traumas and coping mechanisms are likely to contribute to developing this condition.

There are some factors that can make you more vulnerable to experience health anxiety. These include:

Genetic factors – Your genes may predispose you to develop generalised anxiety. This can influence the development of certain mental health conditions. This does not mean that you are destined to develop health anxiety however.

Personality factors – You may be a “born worrier” or develop traits to worry from parental conditioning. The tendency to worry or struggle with uncertainty will increase your potential to develop health anxiety.

Life experiences – Many beliefs, attitudes and behaviours are learned from your parents and other significant authority figures. You will learn their values from what they say, how they say it, what they do and how they react to situations, particularly with reference to medical situations. This may then influence how you react to your own (or their) medical experiences.

Health anxiety treatment child illness
Extensive childhood illness can increase your vulnerability to health anxiety

As a child, these experiences can include:

  • Personally being ill or other family members being ill.
  • People close to you dying suddenly from an illness. Being made aware of your family member’s illness-signs and symptoms (that was the cause of their death).
  • Being overly protected from illness as a child which can then influence you to be more fearful and insecure if you then suffer illness as an adult.
  • Developing negative definitions of your personal health and the general wellbeing of your body. This can be formed by the amount of illness you have previously suffered and comparisons that you make to other people’s health.
  • The timing of when you have sought medical attention after being concerned about possible signs and symptoms and the outcome of that medical diagnosis. For example, health anxiety can be formed when you have initially suppressed your health concerns, believing your condition to be benign. Then some time after, you are diagnosed with a serious illness and attribute your delay to seek medical help as the cause of your serious illness. As a reaction to this situation, you may then consider the trauma as “proof” that a premonition or physical sensation in the future must be more serious than it actually is.

Adulthood vulnerability factors

As you move into adulthood, your life experiences may involve having a career in which the performance of your body is essential to your success. Musicians, singers, dancers, sportspeople, surgeons etc. are all involved in perfecting skills with the precise functioning of body organs and muscle groups to the level of professional peak performance. Your peak performance state of awareness can be instinctive. But the effect of injury, illness, stress, periods of under-performance and performance anxiety can cause you to become hypervigilant to bodily changes when performances aren’t perfect.

As you work on the solutions to your performance, you can be convinced that psychosomatic sensations or tightness in the body are more serious health conditions and problematic causes of your under-performance. The bodily sensations become the new focus of your attention during your performances. This distracts you even more from the demands of the immediate task and becomes another issue that takes you further away from your peak performance level.

Triggering events

In addition to vulnerability factors listed above, certain triggering events can also reinforce the development of your health anxiety.  Again, experiencing further personal illnesses and grieving illness-related deaths to someone close to you are important reinforcing events.

Other triggering events can include external stressful and anxious traumas like a relationship breakup that coincide with periods of illness. During this period of hypervigilance, both of these events can become subconsciously connected so that when there is say a future illness, it generates subconscious anxiety or stress symptoms. Or when you have future period of stress or anxiety, you feel emotionally “unwell” without being able to formally diagnose your illness.

Studying medicine triggering hypochondriasis
Medical students can be susceptible to health anxiety during their studies

Learning experiences can also act as triggering events in the development of health anxiety. Sensationalised or dramatised portrayal of illness in the media can influence certain viewers to believe that these traumas are factual. Without filtering your understanding of the content, you may be traumatised by the media viewing.

Traumatic learning experiences can also triggered during medical training. When studying medicine, you may not have anticipated the near-fatal consequences of certain signs and symptoms that you have personally experienced (and possibly ignored) before your medical studies.

 

 

Health anxiety treatment: What causes health anxiety to persist?

The health anxiety causes already discussed can lay the foundations of a negative belief system that is highly sensitive and receptive to bodily sensations. You are likely to (mis) interpret and (over) react to these bodily signs and symptoms thereby maintaining your health anxiety beliefs.

Some of the negative beliefs that become established and maintain your health anxiety include:

You overreact to your body sensations. This is a continuous cycle in which your hyper attention to your symptoms is amplifying your experience of the symptom. As you keep noticing it and give it more importance, the sensation is intensified.

You obsess over exaggerated health issues. Your health anxiety is now distorting your perception of your signs and symptoms. Your thoughts are illogical and your irrational handling of medical issues extends the uncertainty of a serious illness.

You have developed suppressive coping mechanisms. It’s normal to dismiss some issues that cause feelings of discomfort. Thought suppression is generally ineffective and can backfire with long term issues however. “Burying” important thoughts by trying to forget them can have the opposite effect and make them persist because the emotion pushes the issue back into your awareness. This ends up making the issue more pronounced in your mind when you aren’t busy focusing on anything particular.

You are compulsive in your checking and reassurance seeking. Objectively checking your body for potential problems and health changes can be a useful self help health tool. When you have health anxiety you are desperate to know that what you have is benign however. You will check your body because this method is easily available to you. But this can cause “false positives” with your feedback because you are already convinced that the situation is malevolent. The act of checking can also irritate the area creating sensations that you now believe must be serious. Stuck in this cycle of doubt and insecurity, you then seek external reassurance with a medical opinion, but this tends to only reassure you at the surface level. Checking your body and seeking medical opinion thus acts as a temporary release from your anxiety until the next issue surfaces. The reassurance-seeking process can be more harmful to your health anxiety if you become dependent on the reassurance to function.

You overuse avoidance and safety behaviours, and are convinced that they help you. Avoiding discomfort and finding a suitable “safety” distraction is a common defence mechanism to get you through your day. But these behavioural patterns are a short-term fix to overcoming health anxiety. Some behaviour can be superstitious without ever connecting with your return to good health.

Overusing these avoidance and safety behaviour can reduce your confidence to deal with the “real” anxiety issue in the long term. For example, drinking a moderate amount of coffee is not considered harmful. If you have health anxiety and are convinced that caffeine is the cause of your palpitations, you may avoid caffeine altogether yet still find that the palpitations persist. In this situation, avoiding caffeine is a type of “safety behaviour” because it gives you a feeling of control that you are acting on the issue. The actual issue of confronting the anxiety related to your symptoms still remains however.

 

 

Health anxiety treatment: Signs and symptoms of health anxiety

When you have health anxiety you may not have any physical symptoms yet you still worry about becoming seriously ill. Alternatively, you may be convinced that normal bodily sensations or minor physical symptoms (like a “gurgling” stomach, dull aches, a minor rash or feelings of weakness etc.) are signs of a serious medical condition. With or without a formal diagnosis your hyper-attention to these symptoms can persist.

Sometimes the stress and anxiety caused by your excessive worry can create additional sensations in your body e.g. twitching sensations or feelings of fatigue. These sensations can then become the new health anxiety focus as something more serious.

Signs and symptoms of health anxiety can include:

  • Worrying that you have or will develop a serious illness.
  • Feeling anxious about developing the same medical condition that a member of your family has previously had.
  • Being preoccupied with bodily sensations or minor symptoms (for example globus sensation in the throat) and them developing into an acute medical condition.
  • Overreacting to anyone’s analysis of your health.
  • Struggling to function in your day e.g. to concentrate, relax or sleep because of your health worries. This can then impact negatively on your work, family and social life.
  • Being immersed in self-examination for signs of a serious illness.
  • Being overly cautious and avoiding certain people, activities or situations due to your fear of illness.
  • Seeking reassurance from family and friends by frequently talking about health issues and your fear of developing an illness.
  • Frequently consulting with medical professionals for reassurance about a potential illness, or...
  • (Ironically), neglecting your own health and avoiding medical consultations and tests in case it confirms your worst fears of having a serious medical illness. You may even avoid medical television dramas since you struggle to separate fact from fiction.
    Health anxiety treatment cyberchondria
    Doctor Google will reinforce what you already believe when you have health anxiety
  • Giving minimal confidence to a medical diagnosis or being unconvinced about a negative test result in case something was missed. Worrying that a new symptom has developed since the test was taken and that it will need retesting.
  • Constantly consulting with Dr Google by researching online for a medical diagnosis and confirming your fearful beliefs that what you have is a serious illness. This condition is known as cyberchondria and compuchondria.

 

 

Health anxiety treatment: How is Health anxiety treated?

Following a diagnosis from your doctor, treatment for health anxiety usually involves Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) to explore how your thoughts, beliefs and emotions are affecting your behaviour. In addition to therapy, anti depressant medication may also be prescribed to stabilise your condition.

 

 

How can hypnotherapy treat health anxiety?

Hypnotherapy is a viable and effective health anxiety treatment. This is how hypnotherapy can help:

Hypnotherapy can treat the anxiety behind your condition

When your physical sensations seem so real, it can be challenging to accept that this is being caused not from a serious “physical” medical illness, but from how you are worrying about your health. This shift in your perspective is fundamental to your treatment success. “Parts” hypnotherapy is an effective tool that can assist this change of perspective and deal with the subconscious emotional blocks hindering your progression.

Hypnotherapy can help you to confront your avoidance behaviour

Your avoidance behaviour is a temporary fix for your health anxiety. When you avoid something that reminds you of your illness like hospitals or medical television dramas, you feel better in the short-term. Avoidance has the long-term effect of prolonging your health anxiety however. An important part of your treatment is to build the confidence to face these situations. By confronting them, you will appreciate what coping skills are needed in those situations and acknowledge the accuracy of your imagined danger. Hypnotherapy can help you challenge your avoidance behaviour by visualising your confidence in those situations. Hypnotic techniques will enable you to break down the emotional structures that are keeping you in fear.

Health anxiety treatment psychosomatic symptoms
Hypnotherapy can help you reframe your psychosomatic symptoms

Hypnotherapy can reduce your reaction to bodily sensations

Your health anxiety is causing you to overreact to psychosomatic sensations. The attention that you are giving these sensations is a source of more distress. These sensations are benign, but the smallest change in feeling causes you to become more anxious about what this could be. Hypnotherapy can help you concentrate your attention into these sensations, changing how you perceive them. During hypnosis, you will appreciate that you have control over these bodily sensations. Visualisation work can be done to calm the alertness from these sensations and fade into the background of your mind.

Hypnotherapy can help you reframe the emotion from past traumas

Using regression techniques selectively, hypnotherapy can help you release the fear learned from the past traumas that are still influencing your negative emotions and behaviour. You will not be constantly dwelling on these past traumas but they act as stored “causes” in your subconscious mind. Contrary to other critiques of this approach, it is not necessary to trudge through every year of your life. Only the most relevant traumas are reframed for you to feel the emotional benefit from this approach.

Hypnotherapy can help you challenge your cognitive distortions

One of the many benefits of using hypnotherapy to treat your health anxiety is that it can be used in conjunction with other therapeutic approaches. Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) aims to help the client recognise and challenge the cognitive distortions that make health anxiety so distressing. They can include catastrophising events, struggling with uncertainty, being inflexible with beliefs and being convinced that your thoughts will cause future actions and situations. CBT hypnotherapy focuses on these cognitive distortions, retraining your mind to appreciate how these unhelpful styles of thinking are perpetuating your condition. Your mind can then embrace calmer and more rational ways of thinking about your health.

Hypnotherapy can help you reframe your beliefs about uncertainty

A major feature of health anxiety is your inability to cope with the uncertainty of your future health. When you believe that you are unable to control it, you adopt checking rituals and seek reassurance from others to alleviate your anxiety. These compulsions only give short-term relief however and rarely help you to tolerate uncertainty. When you can tolerate it, the compulsions can be abandoned. Hypnotherapy can help you increase your tolerance of uncertainty by helping you rehearse resisting your compulsive urges. You can learn to be comfortable “in uncertainty” without trying to excessively control it.

Hypnotherapy can help you to reduce your safety behaviour

Like avoidance behaviour, safety behaviours are (overt or covert) diversions that are carried out in order to prevent feared outcomes. They are useful when connected to an actual danger, but with a perceived danger, safety behaviours tend to prolong the anxiety; you do something else that helps you to feel better in the short term. An example can be casually asking non-medical friends (instead of speaking to a doctor) for their medical diagnosis, knowing that their opinion holds no authority and can be easily dismissed if their opinion causes you anxiety. Hypnotherapy can help you to identify and reduce your safety behaviours so that you can confront the fear behind your health anxiety.

Hypnotherapy can assist your graded exposure to health anxiety

Overcoming your health anxiety ultimately means confronting the fear that you have or will develop a serious health condition. Graded exposure is an approach that involves structured and repeated exposure to your fear. By getting acquainted with your fear you get used to the situations, bodily sensations or worries that are keeping you anxious. In the short term, it’s not unusual for your anxiety to elevate when taking a change in direction and confronting your fear. With persistence, your confidence will grow and you will be more in control of your health anxiety in the long term.  Hypnotherapy is an excellent method for using your imagination to confront your worries and alter how you perceive your bodily sensations. Exposure to the situations that you are currently avoiding can be discussed and built into your treatment programme.

 

 

For more information on health anxiety treatment contact Richard J D’Souza Hypnotherapy Cardiff

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29Jul

Accepting Health Anxiety

Accepting Health Anxiety

Accepting health anxiety: You often hear that you should “trust your gut instincts”. It’s probably true for most of the time. But what if those instincts are rooted in fear? Does it then mean that those fearful instincts are distorted and will cause havoc if you follow those gut instincts?
Accepting health anxiety fear
How fear is affecting your reactions?
You can appreciate that sending for the emergency fire services each time that someone lights a match because of what might happen to that small isolated fire would be a blatant over-reaction. But when suffer you have excessive fear, your reality is dominated by your emotion; the situation will be catastrophic. With excessive fear, this reaction feels right and the fearful person is unable to “normalise” how less fearful people might dismiss it.Health anxiety (also known as hypochondriasis) is a condition in which you are preoccupied with the fearful belief that you have or will contract a serious illness. You struggle to enjoy life because you are convinced that all of those bodily “noises” (sensations, feelings and discomforts etc.) that normal healthy people learn to live with is something far more serious. With health anxiety, you are convinced that this small match fire is attached to something highly flammable and needs the fire service to extinguish it. In addition to this, when it has been extinguished, you’re convinced that it will keep relighting and cause another major fire. 

Accepting health anxiety: Feared illness or actual illness

The internal systems of the body are constantly making normal “noises” that can affect heart rate, breathing patterns, changes muscle tone etc. Many of those sensations that you feel can alter according to your emotional state. Heart rate slows when relaxed, but increases when you are anxious. Your digestion rate can change with emotions and create many noises along the way! Some of the bodily sensation changes can be uncomfortable, startling and even undesirable, but they are not dangerous.  When you are convinced that they are symptoms of a serious illness, your anxiety can exaggerate those sensations, and trigger more of them. When you feel these changes, they are not fabricated. The sensations you feel are real but the fearful beliefs and emotions that underpin them are false. The sensations deceive you because you or people close to you usually have suffered a retrospective medical trauma.Confronting this internal deception is an important part of your return to health. It means acknowledging that the medical illness you fear is not the medical illness that you have; instead, the fear is the illness.  

Accepting health anxiety: From denial to acceptance

Accepting that you have a mental health disorder can be a difficult path. Denial, embarrassment, guilt, shame, frustration, anger and self blame are likely to be just some of your emotional obstacles en route. As you continue your journey, you can then understand what your health anxiety means for you and the options available to cope with it.Your survival mechanisms can include rituals of exercise, dieting, self care programmes all of which are generally good for your long term health. Some of those rituals can become compulsive and indicate that you are avoiding or struggling to deal with the core issue. This is not your fault as you are driven by your emotions, trying your best to minimise that moment of discomfort.Your journey of change may initially involve looking back on how it originated. Did you make the retrospective link to childhood values that “taught” you to be fearful of your health? This is not about blaming others, more about understanding your foundation layers of belief. Understanding how you “did it” can relieve some of your mind’s confusion. Some of those learning situations were traumatic and in the same way certain phobias are formed, you were hyper-reactive to the “object” of your fear. Typically, with health anxiety, it involves a close member of your family suddenly falling ill. A massive heart attack can give no warning for you to prepare your grief.
Accepting health anxiety palpitations
You are convinced that your symptoms are a serious illness
When you are a young child it’s difficult to understand what has happened and how your emotions are affecting you. The mark it leaves on your emotional development won’t show itself for some years to come. It’s likely that authority figures who were coping with their own grief may have shielded you from this trauma without involving you in discussions of your grief. What they may not have realised is that you had already made your own (misplaced and often illogical) associations of health anxiety-learning and this is now taking its hold on you.So the heart attack trauma and all that you then learn about heart functioning becomes a focus of your attention. Before you understand what stress and anxiety is, you are already convinced that this rapid heartbeat (caused by a panic attack) is a major cause for alarm. Will you also have a heart attack like your close relation? If something does happen to you, will it be your fault if your family go through yet more suffering?What about other types of family traumas that can exacerbate health anxiety? It is well known that when parents go through acrimonious separations, this creates deep insecurity in children who may struggle with anxiety in the future. This can reinforce the health anxiety “seeds” from a family bereavement or be the start a deep feeling of helplessness when symptoms of anxiety (like a racing heart beat) present themselves. If the excessive attention given to a sick child diverts the family rows, the “emotion gain” can be a trigger for health-related attention-seeking behaviour when the child feels unwell in the future (Munchausen Syndrome).When you bring health anxiety symptoms into teenage hood, the shift towards a socially-oriented value system brings additional pressure to appear “normal” to one’s peers. Feelings of embarrassment when you get attention are likely to heighten your struggle with excessive anxiety symptoms. You want to remain invisible but the tightness in your chest will surely be noticed and be judged by your peers. You fear looking as if you are having a heart attack and the irreversible damage this will have on your frail social esteem. So you avoid presentations, you suffer panic attacks with exams and your school attendance may suffer as a consequence of your anxiety.You are still convinced that your palpitations are more than just anxiety. Then there’s the dilemma about admitting these issues to your peers. Will they mock you? Will it make the symptoms worse if they know about it? Afraid to speak out about it, you go through a period of silence, stifling your social confidence and avoiding situations that might trigger your anxiety.When you are tired of running away from it, you finally speak to your family and they offer their reassurance that it will probably just disappear with time. But how do they know? They aren’t doctors so maybe they’re just trying to distract you. You pluck up the courage to see your doctor who wants to refer you to a cardiologist just to make sure that there is no underlying medical issue. This is helpful that someone has heard you but the appointment is months away. During that period of anticipation, it seems like an eternity. You are convinced that it must be serious to have to see a consultant. Your imagination creates any number of catastrophic scenarios of needing major heart surgery, or that you are untreatable or even worse.
Hypochondria health anxiety
Is it a betrayal when the diagnosis is not what you expected?
When you finally have your medical consultation, you are told by the consultant that all is clear and it’s probably anxiety. Momentarily, you feel reassured; then you feel betrayed. What if they have missed something? The symptoms are still there and you are not ready to fully accept the diagnosis. “What I am feeling can’t just be anxiety!” The symptoms are too real.Determined to prove the reality of your chest sensations, you research your symptoms with Dr Google. This is a bit risky because during your research, you are likely to only accept what you already believe. You feel tense during your research and it causes your symptoms to become active just reading about the traumas of heart conditions.Feeling desperate, you let down your guard and go back to your GP who prescribes some medication for your anxiety. You are not elated about taking medication; you have never had to take medication before. Is it safe to introduce something unnatural into your body? Will it have any side effects? When you research the possible side effects, you read that it could actually cause palpitations. Why was this medication prescribed if it can cause the very problem that you want to resolve?Feeling betrayed by your doctor, you take matters back into your own hands. The next line of attack is trying untested natural remedies by people who seem to be going through the same situation as you. If it works for them, it could help you too! And when you read the reviews, they are fantastic! You haven’t considered the placebo effect just yet.Sometimes by coincidence, those natural health remedies help, but the racing heart beat still has its moments. Then, a friend opens up and tells you about their anxiety symptoms. They mention that they have had a similar traumatic background with a relation dying suddenly of a medical condition. You are ready to confide in them and the conversation moves to the topic of health anxiety. In that moment, everything adds up. It takes a while to sink in but when you research “accepting health anxiety”, more of it makes sense.Now you can get the help that you need. You are not seeking treatment for a medically-based condition; you are seeking treatment for a mental health condition.Click here for more information on health anxiety treatment.  

Accepting health anxiety: For more information on treatment for health anxiety contact Richard J D’Souza Hypnotherapy Cardiff

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