With this Fear and Uncertainty Comes Coronaphobia

We have all been affected by corona virus in one form or another. It is dominating our lives. There is little or any other news on the television, little else to read in the newspapers and it is the first thing we talk about when we meet friends and family. One day there will be a vaccine for CV19 which will make the chances of getting the virus slim to zero and we can go back to talking about the weather.

What we are not talking about so much is how this makes us feel. Many of us have become anxious or even phobic. If you are one of those torturing yourself with “what if” thoughts, please, do the bravest thing and ask for help. Friends and family are there to support us but there are also professional therapists who can help to make positive life changes. Relieving tension by sharing has immeasurable value. We know that fear which isn’t used appropriately for “fight or flight”has the effect of weakening our immune system, making us more susceptible to the virus and weakens our ability to fight it off if we succumb. Anxiety also prolongs post-viral fatigue. No one enjoys being fearful.

One of the most common questions asked about phobias or anxiety online is “can either be cured?“ The answer is an emphatic, categorical YES.

The most powerful computer system created by man has only 0.02% of the capacity of the human brain, which is also flexible and adaptable. This means you can cure any phobia be it arachnophobia, claustrophobia or even coronaphobia with a little effort. You may need a bit of help from a good therapist. Anxiety is a condition that we do not consciously prepare for. We do it without thinking, like breathing. Nobody wakes up in the morning and says to themselves, “I think I will choose to be anxious today”. A good therapist will have techniques which can gently change unwanted unconscious patterns of behaviour.

If you, or anyone you know suffers from anxiety, there are ways of thinking yourself out of the box.

A good place to start is to think about your current unpleasant situation and ask yourself “what is this preventing me from doing that I really want to do?” This can create a form of FOMO (fear of missing out). On its own this can make you feel regretful so it is important to focus on positive outcomes. Concentrate on the joy and relief you will have when anxiety has gone and you can do everything that fear prevents you from accomplishing. Be a kid again and play “pretend” like you did with dollies, teddies, sticks as swords etc because by pretending good things are possible and happening now, it very soon becomes real in your mind as it did when you were little.

The opposites of fear and anxiety are happiness and love. It is difficult to feel either of these things while in the grip of anxiety. So find things which are fun to do, or which make you laugh. As for love, simply think about any of your loved ones, and allow yourself to feel cradled by the warmth.

If you need help with anxieties or phobias of any kind go to my website jamesjbrittain.com and click on the contact page. Book a free strategy call to discuss the benefits of letting go of unnecessary fear and find out how quickly this can be achieved.

Dental phobia

How to make a dental phobia

I remember my first visit to the dentist. I recall the comedy picture on the wall, a child in the dentist chair with one end of a string attached to his tooth, the other to the door knob. The child looked terrified. At that age I didn’t see the funny side. Fortunately the kindly dentist reassured me that they didn’t remove teeth in that way anymore. My parents continued to take me to see him regularly (I suffered no pain) until his retirement when I was taken to another dentist. 

The next one discovered seven cavities Which seemed to suggest the previous practitioner had been rather short sighted. But again I was blessed with a kind and gentle man as temporary curator of my teeth. I experienced no fear or pain associated with the treatment and left with a good story to tell. I am so grateful that I do not suffer from dental anxiety but the story could have had a totally different ending had it not been for those two gentlemen who knew how to allay a young child’s fears.

A very common phobia

If you are terrified of going to the dentist, or you know someone who is, you are not alone. Some estimates suggest that nearly 75% of adults experience some element of fear visiting the dentist. Around 5 to 10% of these have a phobia.

What are Phobias?

Phobias are much more extreme than fears. Fear releases adrenaline which enables us to deal with  threat by either running away more quickly, or fighting  more effectively. A phobia on the other hand involves feeling terrified of something that poses little or no threat. Facing a phobia, is a bit like I feel about going up to a hungry lioness and giving her a cuddle. If you have a dental phobia, then actually plucking up the courage to open your mouth to the tooth professional, is brave indeed.

Sadly, it is common for those who suffer from any phobia to feel some attendant degree of shame or unworthiness. There is no need. Phobias are created to instinctively keep us safe. If my experiences as a child had been accompanied by pain and unkindness, my memory of the visit to the dentist would’ve been unpleasant, and the sensible thing for me to do would have been to avoid ever setting eyes on a dentist again, it would have installed a fear so great  that I would have been prepared to run away from or fight the aggressor or dentist. This is how a phobia is created. We do it without even thinking in order to keep safe and secure.

I feel desperately sorry for those who suffer from dental phobia. I have experienced searing pain from a mouth abscess and I cannot imagine what I would have done if I had been too afraid to seek help from the professionals. Visiting the dentist gives me confidence. I know my teeth are healthy and there is no need to worry about halitosis from decaying molars or rotting gums.

What are the choices?

Dentists are trained to look after the teeth rather than the mind, so it is rare to find one who has the time or training to resolve your dental anxiety. Usually the only solution they have is to refer you for sedation if you need treatment. The problem here is that waiting times are usually long and sedation does not cure the underlying anxiety. Most prefer not to go down this road.

In my experience the most effective forms of treatment are Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) and hypnotherapy. These are both gentle and reassuring and help retrain your brain not to be afraid. There is a myth that one has to confront one’s fears in order to be rid of them. At no time during treatment will you be subjected to your phobia. That’s just cruel. Some therapists charge by the hour. I prefer to charge a one off fee to eliminate your phobia, or reduce it to a manageable level, in between one and three sessions. To find out more visit www.thephobiasurgery.com, call (07789) 181244 or email info@thephobiasurgery.com

Hypnotherapy for smoking

The burden of smoking

Smoking is still causing almost 80,000 deaths and bringing in 484,700 hospital admissions each year according to the Office of National Statistics. It may become socially less acceptable and the numbers of smokers may have dropped by 1.6 million in the last six years but there are still 9 million smokers in the UK.

The sad thing is that, 6 out of 10 want to give up.  Many try, some succeed, most fail. Smoke Free Norfolk say you are four times more likely to be successful if you seek help (look them up at www.smokefreenorfolk.nhs.uk). They have a smart calculator which shows how much money you can save each year by giving up. They report a success rate of around 50%, with a cost  of between £500 and £600 per quitter, however as smoking costs the NHS around £2 billion per year, This is a small price to pay.

Where to go?

A first port of call might be your GP. You might be given nicotine replacement therapy, or a drug like Champix which does the job of blocking the nicotine receptors in the brain, so that when you smoke the pleasure of smoking is eliminated. Or you might choose to vape instead, this is supposed to be 95% less dangerous than smoking, though research into the harmful effects of E cigarettes is ongoing?

Hypnotherapy has been shown to be an effective, safe, cheap treatment with permanent results however dependent on you having motivation to give up, rather than letting yourself be forced into it by someone else.

Hypnotherapists are not magicians. They can’t make you do anything that you don’t want to. Your brain is too powerful for that and has the ability to reject suggestions just as much as it can accept them. Hypnosis is a do with, not a do to process. There is no known negative side effect to hypnosis. This is because all hypnosis is self hypnosis. It doesn’t happen without your permission. Yet there remains a mystery surrounding hypnosis, though in essence it is a strange name for something we do naturally every day. It happens when we focus intently on something and go into a deep daydream, as when we become totally absorbed by a TV programme or a piece of music.

Hypnosis works as an effective treatment for quitting smoking because when we smoke we are already employing a hypnotic suggestion that it’s time for a cigarette, cigar, pipe or something less legal. Hypnotherapy can Work on replacing these signals so that we don’t light up, but do something  which would be far more beneficial and ultimately rewarding.

Most hypnotherapists charge in the region of £200 to help you to kick the habit (I charge £150) which is roughly the cost of 15 to 25 packets of cigarettes. Work it out on the Smoke Free Norfolk calculator, if you smoke 20 a day, you probably spend between £3000 and £4000 a year on cigarettes. A hypnotherapist would be able to Help you get yourself free of the habit with two sessions.

The success of the treatment is permanent if you choose to be a lasting non smoker (you can always change your mind) because it teaches you to be a non smoker without thinking about it. The behaviour becomes unconscious.

When you quit smoking, your energy and health will improve. After as little as 48 hours the harmful carbon monoxide leaves your body and the blood circulation improves over 2 to 12 weeks. In one year your chance of having a heart attack is halved, in 15 years it is the same as a non smoker and in 10 years the chance of developing lung cancer is halved. For most of us the biggest motivator is the improved quality and length of time you can spend with your friends, family, children and grandchildren.

If you want to find out more about hypnosis come along to the Wensum Sports Centre on the 19th September at 6pm for a free demonstration of hypnosis. email info@thephobiasurgery.com or call 07789181244.

Phobia Treatment

Phobias are defined as irrational fears. Maybe so, but, the feelings of terror, helplessness, isolation, embarrassment, and loss of control are very real. And to the sufferer can be unbearable.

If you have the misfortune of suffering with a phobia, you are not alone. Phobias are the most common type of anxiety disorder. It’s estimated that around 10 million people in the UK have a phobia.

The good news is that everyone who has a phobia, can get rid of it, for ever.

A bold statement you are probably thinking! If this is the case why do people still have phobias?

In my personal experience, I believe there are four answers to this question:

-People are unaware that there is help.

-People are embarrassed to ask for help.

-People are sceptical that they can be helped.

-People don’t actually want to be helped.

What are Phobias?

Phobias are normally a one off learning traced back to one event. Maybe we met a scary dog when we were a child, or an older sibling forced us to watch “Arachnophobia” when we were at a highly impressionable age. So now, when we encounter the thing we are frightened of, we feel the same fear, and can even amplify it. On top of that,we don’t need to physically meet our fear, we can start a phobic reaction by just thinking. 

When we feel fear, we produce adrenaline which prepares us to run away, or fight.

The adrenaline causes us to:

-  Breathe faster to increase oxygen supply to your muscles.

-  Increase heart rate to pump blood quickly round the body.

• Slowdown our digestive system.

• Increase sweating in order to cool down.

• Get butterflies in the stomach.

• Become tense.

When we were growing up, we learned our fears with the sole purpose of keeping safe. Say for example a lion walked into your room right now, unless you are a lion tamer, I hope that you would be frightened. The adrenaline reaction enables you to get out quickly! Should you choose to, and I wouldn’t advise it, the adrenaline would also help you to fight the lion, or make friends with it! Fear and anxiety when in the right time and place are very useful, and can indeed save your life 

How do we get rid of phobias?

Richard Bandler one of the cofounders of NLP (neurolinguistic programming) described phobias as a Visual kinaesthetic response. By this he meant, as soon as you see what you are frightened of, you immediately get the  phobic feeling, The senses of seeing and feeling are linked. Both NLP and hypnotherapy offer powerful techniques to disassociate the visual kinaesthetic response, so that when in future you see what you were once frightened off, you have a totally different and useful feeling.

Some people still have the belief that hypnosis is mumbo jumbo! Hypnosis is in fact a natural state which we all go into every day of our lives, and is merely a different state from the one that you are in right now. Have you ever driven in your car, and reached your destination, and can’t remember the places you have been on the journey? Or attempted to talk to somebody whilst they are fully engrossed watching TV? This is hypnosis. Whilst in this state, our unconscious minds are more susceptible to accept or reject suggestions. This is how advertising works! It is also have a phobia cure would work whilst using hypnotherapy.

NLP is similar to hypnotherapy, however this is done in the waking state, and the client is requested to use the power of visualisation in order to scramble the visual kinaesthetic response associated with their phobia.

Phobias can be cured quickly, often in one session, and in no more than three sessions.

There really is no need to suffer any longer with a debilitating phobia. Give someone you know a gift by sharing this blog.

Contact me at:

www.jamesjbrittain.com

Or 07789181244

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