Beyond The Swinging Watch - Hypnosis and Psychology in Everyday Life

  What Is Meant By The Term Psychological Resilience? There are many definitions of reliance, but we could settle for the ability to be able to cope, adapt, recover and learn from life’s challenges. Coping usually refers to being able to ‘sit with’ unpleasantness/distress with the knowledge that you can weather that storm and things will improve. This particular interpretation and response to difficult circumstances makes us less likely to become overwhelmed. Adapting to stresses is a helpful aspect of resilience. It refers to altering your behaviour (and interpretation of events) about the demands of the circumstances. A lack of resilience leads us to respond in the same way: “Because that’s what I always do”. Linked to this is the ability to learn from events which of course informs how you adapt to future stressful experiences. That knowledge will also strengthen your ability to cope with further unpleasantness. Once all these elements are in play, your ability to recover from signi

  Your heart is beating alarmingly quickly, and you become aware that you are breathing more rapidly. It’s like you are struggling for air. You can feel a tightness in the chest with hot or cold flushes; feeling rooted to the spot.  Sound familiar? These symptoms are what we commonly call an anxiety attack. Anxiety can appear in many different forms and situations, and in most cases, it is very difficult for the sufferer to explain. What's The Difference Between Stress and Anxiety Stress and anxiety are different. Stress is a response to external pressures. We feel agitated and unhappy and can attribute it to external things: work, relationships and financial issues. We know they cause stress (rather than anxiety) because when our external circumstances change, stress symptoms change also.  Anxiety creates the same symptoms, but the stress comes from within a person’s mind. They feel the same nervousness, anger and agitation, but it remains even when external circumstances change.

  A problem shared is a problem halved, isn’t that how the saying goes?  When something is on your mind and you're struggling to figure out which direction to take, talking it through with someone often helps you find a way out of the dilemma. What appeared to be an obstacle shrinks when you have put it into words. Why? When we talk about something, we adapt our understanding of it. Talking about something out loud means we have to slow down and think about it differently rather than having thoughts racing around our mind. Speaking about something forces us to think things through so we understand things differently; we have processed them. Processing means understanding. We understand something about the circumstances and ourselves. Something happens, and we have to understand what happened and the effect it did or did not have on us. When a person has experienced a significant event, particularly a life change, they will have to process what happened or is still happening and

The demands of the situation are greater than our perceived ability to cope   What does this tell us? Stress is not simply about the demands of the circumstances it's about whether we believe we can cope with those demands. This helps to explain why one person may find it difficult to deal with stressful events while another copes with the same circumstances comparatively easy. They perceive their ability to cope differently. How we think about stressful events influences how we cope. The way we think about stress is influenced by several factors: 1: Our previous experience dealing with stress - If you are used to dealing with stress and have found it easy to manage the psychological and physical effects in the past, you are more likely to have a positive expectation of your ability to cope with current stress. 2: The stressful situation is predictable - If you expected that stressful events were imminent, you are more able to prepare both psychologically and practically to d

To stop smoking is the easiest thing you can do in the world - as soon as you are in the right frame of mind.  That's why Hypnotherapy can make it so easy to stop smoking. Whenever someone consults me about wanting to stop smoking I always ask myself two questions:  Why Hypnotherapy? Why now?  These are the two most important questions to ask yourself because stopping smoking comes down to belief. Your belief in being a natural non-smoker for good! Most people have tried lots of different ways to stop smoking, from nicotine patches and gum to willpower alone. Each time most people find it difficult to succeed because with each of these methods you have to keep thinking about the very thing they don’t want to do in order to not do it! Why Willpower Alone is likely to fail... Take the example of using willpower alone. In order for it to work, you keep thinking: “I won’t smoke. I’m not smoking.” You are thinking about cigarettes, they seem to always be on your mind. The reason hypnot

  What’s the difference between feeling stressed and feeling anxious? It can be easy to confuse the two, especially when they become muddled together. Think of stress as a normal response to the pressures of the circumstances. It usually occurs when we perceive the demands of the situation are more significant than we are able to cope with. The important thing is stress is logical (while unpleasant) given the situation.  Ask yourself: is it logical that I should feel the pressure given these particular circumstances? Stress is usually short-term if we have the correct coping experience to know how to deal with the demand placed upon us. We adapt and reassess the situation and the stress response reduces because we have changed our perception of our ability to cope. Where our experience of coping is limited or our natural resilience has waned, the stress response can continue. If this is left unchecked, it can lead to burnout. Anxiety is a very similar physical and psychological respons