Work Related Stress
Stress and Anxiety are very common
Forces and events from the outside world impinge on every individual, causing stress and anxiety – literally meaning a physical, mental or emotional factor which causes a reaction of tension. It is often thought that stress and anxiety is necessarily a bad thing but this is not always the case – we learn from new experiences and they can help us to develop, even where those new experiences are a challenge. However, events in our personal lives and at work can sometimes make us feel overwhelmed, and when this happens, then we “suffer from stress”. Everyone’s response to stress at work and in other areas of their life is different; some people find that the adrenalin produced by the body during stressful episodes gives them energy and makes them feel driven to achieve more; others find that stress causes unpleasant physical sensations and negative thought patterns. What is important is not stress itself but stress management: the steps you can take to bring about stress relief. Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy will teach you to learn to react positively and to feel in control. Hypnosis enables you to switch on powerful feelings of relaxation in order to facilitate stress management and to focus away from the causes of anxiety.
Learning, through hypnotherapy, to use relaxation for stress relief is beneficial in itself. Hypnotherapy and relaxation techniques are clinically proven to lower blood pressure and heart rate: EEGs show that individuals in hypnosis have a lesser reaction to usually threatening stimuli. In addition, suggestions made in hypnotherapy, are used to help you deal with specific instances of stress at work.
Physical effects of stress
The short term effects of anxiety include upset stomach, constantly feeling exhausted, headaches/migraines, difficulty sleeping, loss of appetite, increased consumption of alcohol, cigarettes and proscribed drugs, aching neck and shoulders, palpitations, dry mouth, sweating and feeling physically sick. It is believed that longer term problems include an increased propensity to heart problems, cancers and strokes due to suppression of the immune system.
To add to this unhappy list, stress at work is worsened because your lack of ability to concentrate, or your feelings of disinterest, make you unable to do your job to your full ability and hence more fearful of errors, and the fear of making mistakes at work adds to the feelings of stress, anxiety and worry. When you suffer stress at work, this can have a knock-on effect on those working with you, causing others to experience stress.
Learning techniques for stress management, whilst in hypnosis, significantly lessens both short and long term risks associated with stress and anxiety.
How can hypnosis help?
Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy uses a number of techniques to combat stress in the workplace. These include visualisation of potentially stressful situations whilst you are in a very relaxed state. Your mind then becomes conditioned to associate the formerly stressful situation with a calm mind and a feeling of being able to cope. Breathing and relaxation techniques can also be taught, together with forms of “thought stopping’ – a method of training yourself to STOP negative thoughts (“I’ve got far too much to do”; ‘I’m going to miss the deadline”; “I can’t cope”; “I’m going to lose my job” ) as soon as they begin. You will also be taught to recognise the early symptoms of stress and anxiety, and given ways of learning to react more positively to those events which are affecting you. Self hypnosis can be taught to enable you to reinforce your new thinking patterns.
“Speaking from Experience”
Unlike many other therapists, I have extensive experience working in a very stressful and competitive environment, having worked for 17 years as a commercial property lawyer, in the City and for a number of major regional law firms and multinational corporations. I fully understand the pressures and problems of working in fast paced, highly pressurized surroundings and am familiar with the temptation to feel that it is overwhelming, that there are too many impossible deadlines, that a small error could have huge repercussions, financial or otherwise, that it will never all get done – etc etc. However, having had hypnotherapy whilst a newly qualified solicitor, just to see what it was like, I was able to avoid stress at work; that horrible feeling of rising panic and anxiety and not knowing which way to turn. When I eventually chose to leave the profession it was entirely because I wanted to help people cope with difficult events and stress at work, in the way that I was taught to, using hypnotherapy and relaxation!
