Blog 5 Minute Mindset Education resources Sleep resources
Stress Sleep and insomnia Performance Mental health Other conditions
1-2-1 sessions Adults, 13-18, parents Schools Business
About Barry Contact me What is hypnotherapy with CBT? FAQs Testimonials
MENTAL HEALTH SUPPORT FOR STRESS, ANXIETY, WORK AND SCHOOL PERFORMANCE, LOW MOOD, CONFIDENCE, HABIT REVERSAL, PHOBIAS AND MUCH MORE

Please note that this page is currently under reconstruction and will be updated shortly! (apologies!)

Sleep

Whether you find it difficult to get to sleep or stay asleep occasionally or every day, poor sleep quality can be very debilitating and affects both the quality of your life, and your everyday performance. Poor sleep (insomnia) may well be associated with anxiety or worry that will improve once either the cause of the anxiety/worry is addressed, or suitable coping strategies are devised.

We will use simple techniques that can help make sleeping easier including relaxation, hypnosis and mindfulness techniques.

Relaxation

Relaxation is in itself immensely enjoyable and also fundamental to dealing with many issues. If you can calm the body you can calm the mind; in fact you cannot worry or be anxious if you are relaxed - it's physiologically impossible!

Yet most people have never experienced truly deep relaxation; when you do, it can be truly transformative and inform all aspects of your life. Being able to bring about the relaxation response quickly and at will so that you can control thoughts, feelings and behaviours is an incredible life skill.

We will use applied relaxation techniques such as Progressive Muscle Relaxation, Tension Release Breathing, hypnosis and other techniques to help you build up your own practice and feel the benefits across your life.

Breathwork

I breathe every day - so what is there to learn?

Much. Breathwork is not just about simply ‘breathing’.

It is about learning how to use your body to breathe properly (not as strange as it sounds!). It is about understanding how it can help you manage stress and anxiety quickly and effectively. It is about understanding the physical benefits of directing and utilising your breath intentionally. It is about understanding how to use it to activate your parasympathetic nervous system to help calm your mind and keep it calm.

And it is about using it to create positive, long-lasting change to your well-being.

Pain control

Pain - for example from sports' injury, muscle and back pain, post-operative pain - is a subjective experience and so it is not surprising that there is strong empirical evidence for the use of cognitive behavioural hypnotherapeutic techniques for managing chronic and even acute pain. 

In fact so much so that NICE (who provide institutions such as the NHS with guidance and advice of health care) recently recommended psychological techniques such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and cognitive behavioural therapy (both utilised within my practice and combined with hypnosis) to treat it.

We all know someone who is seemingly able to tolerate a great deal of pain, and others who are not.  We interpret pain in similar ways to the way we experience other events, through our beliefs and assumptions built up over time. Our thoughts, feelings and behaviour that accompany the experience of pain influence our ability to cope with it and the significance we afford it.  Muscle tension, for example, exacerbates the experience of pain - typically when we are in pain we tense our muscles, but this in turn enhances anxious thoughts and fears about what the pain means.  

The cause of pain should always be checked out first by a doctor but some pain cannot be adequately controlled with pain killers, or residual pain may remain. Mindfulness, relaxation and self-hypnosis can help you gain control and manage chronic residual pain, reducing the importance it assumes in your life.