Today's tip is about catching things early before anxiety (which is initially a natural stress response) starts to have a negative impact on your life.

The first thing to know is that when stress levels go up our survival brain starts to play its programming and we can start to experience all sorts of signs of the primitive brain at work. Some obvious signs are if you find yourself being negative, worrying excessively, worst case scenario-ing, running the past in your mind over and over or negatively forecasting about the future. These are clear signs that you have probably moved out of your wise solution-focused prefrontal cortex of your brain down into your programmed-for-survial primitive brain. Similarly, if you notice your sleep effected, your mood being off, loosing your temper quicker or you're starting to lose that sense of your confident, capable self and avoiding things, these are all signs that stress is starting to tip the balance from your wise brain (that's supposed to be running things for you) to the survival (fight-flight) part which is useful for saving your life in an emergency, but not that useful in running your life successfully. If this part is left in control, it will often generate unwanted anxiety or a depressed mood or anger or a combination of all three and may sometimes even lead to unwanted physical effects as well.

So, if you're seeing some of these patterns, the wisest thing to do would be not to wait for it to spiral down before acting. By catching it early you will find it much easier to stop its momentum. There are many things you can do to catch it and you could come up with all of those ideas yourself. However, what tends to happen is that it is difficult for people to figure out what to do to shift back to the wise brain when they're sitting in the primitive brain. They often find it difficult to stick to the changes they know they wish to make and become easily derailed from their best intentions, which can feel disheartening and slow things down further...

The right kind of solution orientated support, such as Solution Focused Hypnotherapy, could help you turn it around quickly to getting the real you back and enjoying life as you want to. Solution focused Hypnotherapy is a modern, neurosciences based therapy, that incorporates the best evidence-based methods from talking therapies, with the power of hypnosis, to help people get the best out of themselves. Not only is it a therapy, but an education which you take with you into the rest of your life, having leant how to keep yourself well.

If you don't know where or how to start, just book yourself in for a Initial Consultation, it's free if you click through this link. You will be able to book yourself directly into the therapist's diary and have a good 30-40 minutes to discuss how Solution Focused Hypnotherapy can help you effectively in making the changes you want to make relatively quickly and comfortably.


Take care of yourself (you deserve it).


Maral Kojayan MA HPD
Clinical Hypnotherapist

www.clarityflowhypnotherapy.com

Credit: Photo by Artem Beliaikin 

Why does it seem harder to stay happy than to stay suffering?

This is a question that comes up very often for people in all sorts of situations in life.

To really understand why many of us experience happiness and suffering in this way, a neuroscientific understanding of how the brain works is very useful.

Extremely simply put we could say we have three brains (neocortex, limbic system & reptilian brain). Two of these are relevant for the purposes of this discussion, one is a part of the neocortex, the left prefrontal cortex and the other a part of the limbic system which we sometimes refer to as the primitive brain. The left prefrontal cortex is where you could say happiness lives. That is where our solutions are, where we are creative and inventive and positive. Then there is the limbic system, within which is the amygdala, our fight-flight centre. When any insecurity/threat/stress is perceived this primitive brain takes over and stays in control until it perceives the external world to be a safe place again. Although this is effective, there are two problems with this for us modern humans in our overloaded lives.

1. By nature, this part of the brain is negative and not an intellect. This means your actions that come from here are not designed to feel good or make you happy. They are designed to stop you dying. That is it. Suffering (your own or those of others around you) is not an issue for this part of the brain so it will easily allow you to go into suffering for as long as it deems necessary.
2. Given our stressful lives, most people are living mostly with their primitive brain in the driver's seat.

The end result is that people experience suffering and they can remain suffering for what seems almost permanent, except for little glimpses of happiness. What's more, it seems difficult to come out of it, whilst it seems very easy to fall out of happiness into suffering.

The good news is, it does not have to be this way. Like most things in life, maintaining happiness can also be learnt. Happiness, interestingly, has a great deal to do with awareness and a degree of self-discipline as shown by a number of studies of Buddhist monks, which found that Buddhist monks had significantly larger left-prefrontal cortexes compared to the average population. (Look up Matthieu Ricard/Dr Richard Davidson for more info).

Now you could feel disheartened, and say, 'well, I am not a Buddhist monk, so what use is it to me'. But if you look at it from another perspective, you see that this is very good news indeed, because it means that the physical brain can actually changed based on your behaviour, your activities, your choices... Another words, the plasticity of the brain means you can change your physical brain, patterns habits and personality tendencies.

So, in the end, thankfully, the supposition in the question may not be true. Happiness can be very robust if you know how to work on yourself to develop your happiness 'muscle'. And that's exactly what I facilitate at Clarity Flow Hypnotherapy.

Why? because we all deserve to be well!

And thankfully, we can always find small ways to be better than where we are at right now, right?


TO BOOK A FREE CONSULTATION FOR CLINICAL HYPNOTHERAPY CLICK HERE

Maral Kojayan MA HPD
Clinical Hypnotherapist
www.clarityflowhypnotherapy.com

Very interesting and important talk about how stress (even from childhood) can impact health and even evoke diseases like cancer and multiple sclerosis.

Yet more evidence as to why it's so important to empty the stress bucket; a subject we focus on a great deal in Clinical Hypnotherapy sessions.

Talk by: Dr. Gabor Maté
Subject: Dr. Gabor Maté: How stress can cause disease.
Video by: tvoparents
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qf92l7FPyKo


Maral Kojayan BA, MA, DHP, DSFH, HPD
Clinical Hypnotherapy
t: 07855883967
e: clarityflowhypnotherapy@gmail.com

Short but informative explainer video about depression.

Notice the reference to the important relationship between worrying, dreaming and depression. 
At CFH, our understanding of the neuroscience behind this is key to our helping people make positive changes.

In fact, we have discovered that when you learn more about how the brain works and what's going on in your brain, you may well find it easier to get on top of depression simptoms and stay feeling better for longer.  This is why Solution Focused Hypnotherapy sessions can also be seen as an education, because once you know something you are more empowered and this helps towards getting you back in control.

Video by: Uncommon Knowledge
Subject: Depression Explained
Source: https://youtu.be/6i-F8O24uas

Are you affected by stress in the office? Do you find yourself working long hours? Perhaps you feel stressed by too many deadlines? If so, Solution Focused Hypnotherapy(SFH) may well be able to help you feel calmer, brighter, and happier about life.

And if you're thinking "I'm so busy, can I afford the time for this?" the answer is our Skype sessions, perfect for the on-the-go busy client.  And you know, workplace stress can manifest itself in a variety of different ways – not just in the office but also at home and socially.  So the real question is, can you afford not to take care of this issue now, before it gets the better of you?

One of the most common reasons people come to see us is about areas of life connected to stress.

At Clarity Flow Hypnotherapy we provide a free initial consultation for clients, to explain why we sometimes respond negatively to stress and how we can help.

There are parts of our brains that are very adept at dealing with the perception of threats and our negative reactions to stress are an evolutionary coping mechanism, which might not be helpful in our day to day lives.

People who struggle with stress in the office may find they have anger issues or that they struggle with sleep.

Every negative thought a person experiences goes into, what we call the ‘stress bucket’. As the levels increase, so the person struggles to cope.

At Clarity Flow Hypnotherapy, we help empty the stress bucket by encouraging the client to be able to look towards positive solutions, which can help to propel them towards a brighter future.

Some clients have also found that it helps to improve their thinking ability, productivity, and confidence – both in and out of the workplace.  
 
By emptying the stress bucket, we allow the brain a greater degree for flexibility in being able to think positively, act positively, and interact in a productive fashion.