The importance of mental relaxation

Happy New Year 2019

In a world where so much attention is placed on achieving goals, we are constantly busy doing and trying to accomplish a whole multitude of different tasks every day. As a result, we can often neglect the very basic needs of our highly worked, but incredible solution focused and more positive aspects of our brain.

For many of us we will see a good night’s sleep as the holy grail for a balanced life. New research carried out by the National Council for Social Research discovered that the most rested people scored 15pts higher on a happiness scale than those that struggled to get the sleep they felt they needed. It is estimated that as adults we need between 7-9 hours of quality sleep a night. However all too often we don’t achieve that perfect night’s sleep and this can have a knock-on effect on our relationships and work productivity, as we end up feeling sluggish throughout our day.

So how can we help ourselves to overcome the problems that lead to a lack of sleep?

As a clinical Hypnotherapist and Psychotherapist, I am often asked ‘How can I relax?’ There are many ways to relax and unwind, relaxation is different for everyone. For some it’s finding a way to rest an over-worked body, but for others and more commonly among those people I encounter, is a need to rest an over-worked mind.

This may sound like a simple activity, but for those who are used to worrying about, well just about everything, it can be difficult to change habits that have formed in the brain over time.

This is where Hypnotherapy comes in as a useful and powerful tool to help ease and relieve our troubled minds. Hypnotherapy can restore balance to a potentially over-worked mind, allowing it to process the worries of the day, bring stillness and calm to the body and free up time to allow an individual to enter a deeper more restorative quality sleep during the night.

Today neuroscientists have identified four main types of brain activity that can be measured by an EEG device. These are outlined below.

Of these key brain wave states, the one that is identified as being associated with creativity is the awake and resting thought process. This is associated with activity in the pre-frontal cortex, and this is the area when logic and reasoning can present us with solutions to problems.

Meditation states have also shown that during periods of physical and mental rest, we allow the mind to quieten down, and during this period of deep mental and physical rest our minds can recover and process our feelings and issues. The more we are able to find ways to do this, the less stress we carry with us during our waking day. This in turn frees the mind to have a more effective, deeper and restorative sleep.

Here is a list of different ways in which we can allow our mind that vital time to relax from our worried state.

  • Read a book or a magazine, even if it’s only for a few minutes. This can allow your mind to escape your worries for a short time.
  • Run yourself a bath, watch a film, play with a pet or try out a new recipe. All great and enjoyable methods to focus on something other than your worries.
  • Mindfulness and Meditation

Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. Try to keep your shoulders down and relaxed and place your hand on your stomach – it should rise as you breathe in and fall as you breathe out. Count as you breathe. Start by counting ‘one, two, three, four’ as you breathe in and ‘one, two, three, four’ as you breathe out. Try to work out what’s comfortable for you.

Breathing in this way gives our mind a focus and allows us to begin to take control of our own mind. One of the methods that we can learn that teaches us to calm and relax our mind is Mindfulness. You can find a qualified teacher. This has been proven to improve anxiety or depression.

  • Take a walk in the countryside or through a local park, taking time to notice trees, flowers, plants and animals you see on the way.
  • Spend some time taking part in conservation, whether that’s digging in your own garden or taking part in a local green project. You can find projects and outdoor activities to suit whatever level of mobility you have.
  • Look for a local Hypnotherapist that offers mental relaxation classes or sessions.
  • Look for a class you’d like to try, such as yoga, Pilates or gentle stretching. These activities help focus the mind and body allow us to restore a balance to our thinking.
  • Try painting, drawing, making crafts, playing a musical instrument, dancing, baking or sewing.
  • Listen to your favourite songs. Turn up the volume and dance or sing along or put your headphones on and close your eyes, really listen to the music. Can you pick out different instruments? Can you hear a drum beat or a certain rhythm? Focus on the music, and let other thoughts fade away.
  • Think of somewhere relaxing and peaceful. You might choose a memory of somewhere you’ve been, or a place you have imagined.

If we consider that we are more productive as people when we are relaxed and in a calm and creative mindset. It should therefore naturally follow that if we allow ourselves the freedom to ensure we make the time and effort to relax and invest in our own long-term wellbeing, then this is a priceless gift to ourselves.

How Stress can affect us and how we can fight back.

What is stress ?

To answer this, we first need to step back in time to meet our primitive ancestors, the cavemen. In those long forgotten days, our ancestors would as a matter of daily live find themselves walking along on the open plains of the African savanna and would have the potential to bump into a hungry pride of lions. In order to survive they would’ve needed a rapid response system, that bypassed the controlled conscious mind and allowed them to either stand and fight with their weapons, or run as fast as they could. This system we know today as the fight, flight or freeze response. As soon as they were aware of the lion, a signal would be sent to a part of their brain called the Amygdala, which acts as the warning siren when we are under attack or threatened. With the help of the Hypothalamus, which regulates all the chemical responses in our body and mind, we would release two hormones these are the stress chemical messengers of cortisol and adrenaline (epinephrine). These hormones give our body the lightening fast response it needs to take immediate life saving action.

In modern times however the ‘Lions on the planes of Africa’ has become a traffic jam, or a critical meeting at work, or a parent suffering with a life changing illness, or arguments with partners. The accumulation of a multitude of stressors, if prolonged, can have a major impact on the quality of our lives. It can if left unchecked these start to affect our health, which can manifest itself in numerous ways. It could start as a tension headache, or stomach problem at first, the effects of the hormones in the blood can restrict the blood flow forcing our blood vessels to constrict, restricting the oxygen flow to our heart or brain. This in turn, over time, can increase our risk of developing heart problems or even stroke.

The main hormone that triggers many of these health problems is cortisol. This is released by the adrenal gland and sits above the kidney. This hormone feeds our anxiety, which in turn causes our adrenal glands to produce more cortisol, so we can end up living in a vicious circle. The net result of long term cortisol production, can be weakened bone or muscle tissue. It also slows down healing, impairs digestion, affects metabolism and weakens our immune function. Listed below are some of the signs to look out for when we experience stress.

Symptoms of Stress on the body are

  • Change in sex drive
  • Chest pain
  • Fatigue
  • Headache
  • Muscle tension or pain
  • Sleep problems
  • Stomach upset

Effects of stress on your mood

  • Anxiety
  • Feeling overwhelmed
  • Irritability or anger
  • Lack of motivation or focus
  • Restlessness
  • Sadness or depression

Effects of stress on your behaviour

  • Angry outbursts
  • Drug or alcohol abuse
  • Exercising less often
  • Overeating or under eating
  • Social withdrawal
  • Tobacco use

How can we combat Stress ?

So how can we turn the tide of the impact that stress can have on our bodies and mental health ?

In my clinic we tell our clients about stress, and how it builds up into what we call a ‘Stress Bucket’. When stress builds up, it can sometimes overflow, and this is when we can start feeling out of balance and a sense of losing control of our lives.

One of the best tools we use to empty the stress bucket is Trance. The reason we use Trance is that it simulates REM sleep (Rapid Eye Movement). When we go into REM during our sleep we re-run stressful emotional events, and we replay them and change them from being an emotional memory to being a narrative memory (a memory we have control over). This is why when someone upsets us during the day, and we still think about it later on, it’s not until we have slept on the issue, that we awaken in the morning and wonder what all the fuss was about. We have removed the emotional content from the memory. This is natures way of helping us reset and move on with our daily lives. The same is true when we go into trance.

Hypnotherapy facilitates a sense of calm and relaxation and provides the process with which the mind can reduce its cortisol levels allowing us to release our worries, so that when it’s time to go to bed, we can have a more restful night’s sleep and regain the balance and sense of well being we ultimately seek.

Welcome to Illuminating Minds

What is Solution Focused Hypnotherapy ?

This form of Psychotherapy is designed to reduce anxiety and Stress related symptoms. It is called Solution Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) and as the name may imply during our sessions we focus on the solutions for future, rather than dwelling on and analysing the past. It is structured to empower people to change the way they think, and as long as a person is committed to this change and follows the process it can be highly effective in relieving symptoms of stress and anxiety.

By focusing on the solutions and not dwelling on the past problems we instead ;

  • See where you are currently.
  • Highlight and illuminate where you want to be going forward.
  • Empower you with the tools to make the changes required.

When it comes to the mind we say ‘Use it or lose it’. We are looking to lose the ruminating on painful memories part and rewire and fire the brain with positive actions that can only move us forward.

Famous quote

“You can’t effect the cards you are dealt, but you can determine how you play them “ Milton Erikson

Solution Focused Hypnotherapy uses practical, modern, well-researched strategies to help people make significant and beneficial changes in their lives.

It is an extremely effective treatment for Fears, Phobias, Giving up Smoking, Anxiety, Weight Loss, Depression, IBS, Sports Performance and many more.