For millions of people in the United States — including about one in five adults (19%) and one in three adolescents (32%) — anxiety isn’t just a brief “fight-or-flight” reaction: It’s an ongoing state of distress that interferes with everyday life.
Dr. Ran D. Anbar and our team at Center Point Medicine know just how damaging anxiety can be: It can rob you of your sense of control, erode your confidence, and undermine your physical vitality. But there’s good news. With the right treatment approach, you can gain the upper hand over anxiety and reclaim your life.
In recognition of Mental Health Awareness Month this May, let’s take a closer look at how hypnotherapy can help you manage your anxiety more effectively.
Anxiety, worry, and fear are basic human emotions that everyone experiences at times. Even those who usually remain calm, cool, and collected in the face of stress know what it’s like to feel nervous, flustered, or even panicked in unpredictable situations that push them out of their comfort zone.
But anxiety becomes a disorder when it goes far beyond the occasional worry or fear. Some of the most common anxiety disorders include:
For people affected by these disorders, the anxiety response is intense, uncontrollable, out of proportion to the circumstances that triggered it, and disruptive to everyday life. It’s felt in many or most situations, rarely subsides, and tends to worsen without treatment.
No matter how challenging anxiety becomes, it’s also a highly treatable condition that responds well to a combination of evidence-based treatments and therapies. Most people find substantial symptom control through the following strategies:
You can’t wish or will your anxiety away, but talking about it with an experienced mental health expert can help you better understand its origins and give you the insight and tools you need to work through your emotional response to it.
The goal of counseling is to help you identify and find ways to control the thought and behavioral patterns that contribute to your anxiety.
CBT is a collaborative form of talk therapy that helps you pinpoint specific anxiety issues quickly and offers concrete strategies to help you cope with those challenges. CBT aims to stop the negative thought patterns and behaviors that help perpetuate your anxiety response.
If your symptoms are particularly intense or disruptive, your treatment plan may include anti-anxiety medication. By alleviating your most debilitating symptoms, drug therapy can enhance and support your progress in talk therapy, CBT, and everyday life.
Daily self-care habits can also help you control your symptoms and reduce the number of “bad” days. De-stressing, getting daily exercise, improving your sleep, limiting your caffeine intake, making time for yourself, and spending time in nature are all potent anti-anxiety actions.
Hypnotherapy is a beneficial complementary treatment tool for easing anxiety symptoms, both in the moment and long-term. By helping you “zone in” — or become hyper-focused while you’re in a state of deep relaxation — hypnosis allows you to access resources within yourself that you might not be able to reach while fully conscious.
This therapeutic technique can help manage anxiety by easing you into a calm state, both mentally and physically, and helping you reframe how you perceive stressful situations.
The process begins as Dr. Anbar guides you into a relaxed state using techniques like focused breathing, visualization, or guided imagery.
Once you’re fully relaxed, Dr. Anbar makes specific suggestions — essentially implanting new perspectives in your focused mind — to help you ease anxiety when it arises.
We give you positive, centering replacement thoughts, self-talk, or images to halt negative fear or worry ruminations before they take hold. To ease a fear of air travel, for example, Dr. Anbar might suggest that you’ll feel calm and confident the next time you board a plane.
Practicing visualizing positive outcomes or scenarios can help you cope with anxiety, too. For example, Dr. Anbar might prompt you to visualize a peaceful setting whenever you experience a wave of anxiety.
You can also learn how to perform self-hypnosis, using guided imagery and positive affirmations to manage your anxiety in the moment, whenever you need it.
Hypnosis can be a valuable anxiety management tool for many people, particularly when used in combination with other treatments like CBT and counseling. It can help you reframe your negative thoughts, develop better coping strategies, and control your anxiety symptoms more effectively.
Ready to benefit from hypnosis? We’re here to help. Schedule a visit at Center Point Medicine in La Jolla, California, or Syracuse, New York, today.
