There are two types of anxiety:

*Situational
*Existential.

Most of us experience both kinds.

Situational Anxiety

Common examples of Situational Anxiety that provoke an inner trembling are:

>Writing an exam,
>Asking someone for a date,
>The boss calling us into her office,
>Entering hospital for a serious operation.

This kind of anxiety is easily relieved with hypnotherapy. Situational Anxiety is a response to stress. Since you define what is stressful you can change your definition, and your response, with hypnosis.

That's because your response to situations is under your control. The control increases the more you use your hypnotic capacities to create confidence and reduce anxiety.

Existential Anxiety

Existential Anxiety is universal. It is the frightened wondering we feel about:

>Why we are here,
>Why our time is short,
>What happens after death.

We deal with existential anxiety in two almost opposite, ways: by denial or by developing meaning.

Meaning lies mainly in the realms of philosophy and religion. Hypnosis can help you to find the meanings. It does this by helping you relax and use your imagination in creative ways so you can face your questions about the meaning of life.

Anxiety is nourished by negative thoughts and starved by positive thoughts.

Your imagination constantly sends messages to your internal organs. These chemical/electrical messages (hormones, for instance) influence your endocrine, nervous and immune systems. When the messages are calming you feel fine; when they are alarming, you feel anxious.

Hypnosis is your gateway to change those messages. Hypnosis enables you to deal with the symptoms of anxiety, or to get to the root cause.

That is, you can use hypnosis to better control your worrisome thoughts, stomach upset or clammy hands. Or, with hypnosis, you can uncover the root of your particular anxiety.

Karl became convinced he was going to die of a heart attack. He frequently suffered with chest pains and the feeling he was about to pass out.

Karl became anxious about his anxiety. Numerous doctors examined him and declared him physically healthy. Finally, one of the physicians referred Karl to a hypnotherapist.

Relaxed in hypnosis, Karl rapidly became aware of the origin of his anxiety: his father had died the year before from cancer and Karl felt not only that he had behaved irresponsibly toward his sick father, but guilty that he had wished his mother had died, instead of his father.

With Karl in hypnosis, several sessions of psychotherapy on these issues calmed his responses and enabled Karl to come to terms with his feelings.

Feelings of anxiety can arise from organic and physical causes. These possibilities must be explored before you concentrate on psychological causes.

Organic reasons for anxiety can be any disease or organ malfunction that sends alarm chemicals rushing through your body.

Physical causes range from smoking cigarettes to drinking colas.

Rose wanted to be less nervous when she entered public places such as restaurants.

Her hypnotherapist taught her how to relax into hypnosis. Then he used one of his favourite techniques for the control of anxiety: the Comfort Measure.

He asked the hypnotized Rose to picture a measuring device such as a thermometer. She chose to imagine a ruler. The hypnotherapist suggested she see the ruler marked off from 0 to 10. Ten represented the most discomfort and 0 the least discomfort, or the most comfortable, that is, no anxiety.

The hypnotherapist asked Rose to read off the comfort level she was experiencing at the moment. She said "Six."

Then the therapist asked Rose to see how far down she could push the line marking off her comfort level. When she reported the marker was down to 3, the therapist congratulated Rose and asked her how she was feeling.

To Rose's astonishment, she felt quite relaxed. From then on Rose could, and did, use this method to feel comfortable in public places.

Your feelings are under your control, providing you use your imagination, and not solely your willpower. Like Rose, you can learn various techniques (such as slow deep breathing) to lower anxiety levels both in and out of hypnosis.

Hypnotherapy will also help you to change the anxiety-arousing messages that float automatically into your head.

At the door of a restaurant Rose used to be flooded with the certainty that everyone would watch her enter; she would blush deep red and people would notice how much she was perspiring.

These self-fulfilling prophecies were replaced during hypnotherapy with positive affirmations.

When Rose enjoyed the results of these post-hypnotic suggestions she further enjoyed the increased self-control they gave her. A virtuous circle had replaced the vicious.

Copyright (c) 2005 Bryan M. Knight