Anxiety will most probably be the most common mental illness that people have to deal with nowadays. Whether anxiety is expressed as worry, panic, embarrassment in public, or insomnia, anxiety can be emotionally and physically draining. As much as conventional treatments such as medication and cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) continue to hold true, more and more people are resorting to hypnotherapy for anxiety as a non-invasive yet powerful way for controlling the mind and reconditioning the thought pattern.
Much closer to the science fiction imaginations typically displayed on the big screen, hypnotherapy is in reality a soothing but therapeutic approach. In the care of a skilled practitioner, hypnotherapy for anxiety allows one to access the subconscious mind in which the cause of the fear, and not merely the symptom, can be addressed. What does your mind do under hypnotherapy, and how is it that it has the potential to create lasting change?
Let us learn how hypnotherapy for anxiety will change your mind and lead to support for long-term emotional well-being.
Learning About the Brain and Anxiety
It is helpful to have some understanding of what anxiety does to your brain prior to learning about how hypnotherapy works.
The brain’s limbic system, the amygdala, controls fear and anxiety and the processing of fear. When it receives the signal of danger, real or threatened, the amygdala triggers the signal to the body to carry out the fight-or-flight response. The outcome is stress hormones in the form of cortisol and adrenaline release, which make the heart pound, muscles tense up, and the body tense itself up in preparation to hit.
The amygdala of chronically anxious individuals is overactive. Common life situations are highly threatening and elicit anxiety, worry, hyperarousal, and panic. These are automatic in the brain’s neural pathways with time so that anxiety is an automatic feeling.
What is Hypnotherapy for Anxiety?
Hypnotherapy for anxiety employs intense relaxation methods to put a subject into a very intense and receptive condition—usually known as a trance. While the conscious mind is in a relaxed state, access is provided to the subconscious, where accumulated beliefs, conditioned habits, and emotional responses accumulated over some period of time come into awareness.
A professional hypnotherapist seizes this moment to plant soothing things, rephrase negative thought patterns, and teach the individual not to think about bad ideas. These are not make-believe habits—these habits result in quantifiable shifts in brain activity.
How Hypnotherapy Rewires the Brain
Reduces Amygdala Reactivity
Brain scans have found that hypnosis reduces activity within the amygdala. Reducing the fear response reduces anxiety, increases relaxation, and reduces sensitivity to stimuli that originally caused anxiety. Because sessions are done multiple times over time, the brain learns to respond more calmly in stressful situations.
Strengthening the Prefrontal Cortex
The prefrontal cortex is the one for decision making, self control, and logical thinking. Hypnosis involves the prefrontal cortex of the brain, and that makes people think more consciously and perceive things more objectively and not emotionally. It assists with emotion regulation and worrying and catastrophizing cycle breaking.
Encourages Neuroplasticity
Its strongest point as an anxiety treatment is that it helps create neuroplasticity—brain activity that allows the development of new associations and connections. Suggestion and concentration imagination employed in hypnotherapy create new connections among ideas, feelings, and actions. What is first a stressful situation, e.g., can be reprogrammed in one’s mind as safe or manageable.
Releases Deep-Seated Triggers
Hypnotherapy will allow emotional blocks accumulated through experiences and stored in the subconscious mind to be released. Hypnotherapy will release them without having to go through painful traumatic experiences. There is tremendous relief and clarity that follows.
Advantages of Hypnotherapy for Anxiety
Relaxation: Hypnotherapy sessions bestow an instant relaxation and physical release of tension.
Empowerment: Hypnotherapy teaches patients self-hypnosis and visualization to practice alone between sessions.
Drug-free alternative: It is a drug-free option for people who do not want to take medication.
Long-term change: Since it reaches the subconscious, hypnotherapy has a tendency to bring about long-term changes in mood and behavior.
What to Expect in a Session
A session would usually start with a talk to find out your anxiety pattern, triggers, and what you would like to work on. You are led into relaxation by your hypnotherapist using either breathing, imagination, or a body scan. Relaxation does not imply that you are under control and asleep, but your mind is highly receptive to positive suggestions.
These are repetitions such as “I am calm and secure” and visualization of you successfully overcoming a past frightening experience. You can also uncover and erase unconscious memories causing your fear.
Most subjects after the session feel lighter, clearer, and more confident.
Is Hypnotherapy For You?
Anxiety hypnotherapy is most effective when you or a loved one experiences:
- Generalized anxiety
- Social anxiety
- Panic attacks
- Performance anxiety
- Phobias
- Sleep disturbance due to stress
It works best as a component of an overall mental health strategy that can include therapy, life change, and being mindful.
Make sure your hypnotherapist has the proper license, experience, and training to address anxiety disorders.
Final thoughts
Anxiety doesn’t have to control your life. With anxiety hypnotherapy in Los Angeles, you can change your mind, break the pattern of fear, and learn to react to problems in life in new, healthier patterns. Working quietly in the background with your unconscious mind, hypnotherapy enables you to develop a sense of inner peace and control that will last much longer than the treatment itself.
If you are ready to break free from the grip of anxiety, hypnotherapy could be the key to unlocking a calmer, more confident you.