Hypnosis for “shy” or frequent urination problems

If you suffer from any medical issues it is important to first see your medical practitioner

Have you noticed that often the sound a tap running water makes will trigger something in your body that suddenly gives you an urge urinate? Do you find that you can’t actually urinate when other people are around you? (especially for gents in public toilets) Hypnosis for shy

Often we may have “tried everything” but what can else could we do if we have frequent or “shy” urination problems? Hypnosis can help.

These experiences can often be driven by the power of unconscious suggestion. You have probably heard of Pavlov’s dogs who were trained to salivate at the sound of a bell. We all have unconscious programmes running in the back of our minds. They can be programmes we have inherited from our ancient ancestors (the sounds of streams and waterfalls ), programmes from our childhood or issues that have affected us at different times of our lives.

Whether a medical issue, a mental issue or both, this worry and embarrassment can become overwhelming, changing and affecting many parts of our life and self esteem. In these circumstances hypnotherapy really helps calm and quieten body and mind bringing more confidence plus a healthier state of relaxation in these and many other circumstances.

As we learn how to relax this helps our autonomic nervous system and the mind adjust old unconscious programmes releasing past distress and constant worry around the issue. Installing new healthier thoughts and programmes into your life will help your autonomic (automatic) nervous system support you rather than govern your everyday life.

Even if you have a physical problem, lowering the stress around this issue can help you make powerful and worthwhile changes bringing more confidence and freedom into your everyday life.

For more information on this subject or anything connected with the work I do please email rogerfoxwell.therapy@gmail.com or go to www.rogerfoxwell.co.uk and I will be happy to help you.

Is Dyslexia just fear and stress?

No, dyslexia is not just fear and stress however fear and stress are a large part of the issue. If fear and stress and past trauma are left unresolved the stress and psychological damage of dyslexia will be left lodged deeply in the mind and the body. This will then be consistently blocking attempts to help resolve the issue. Dyslexia

There are different levels of dyslexia as well as different forms. Fortunately there are many ways to help people with dyslexia improve their reading and writing skills with many well qualified clinicians with the appropriate skills to help.

Now a hypnotherapist is not necessarily versed in the various forms of dyslexia and available scientific treatments but one thing hypnotherapy can do is help clear past trauma and stress. The skills of a good professional hypnotherapist can significantly help clients relax and control their stress issues. Clients come to see me with many different issues and along with dyslexic clients regularly make more progress in two or three sessions than they have in their lifetime. How? By learning how to control their own autonomic (automatic) nervous system when in states of stress.

This helps dyslexic clients gain so much more control over their mental processes, confidence and clarity of thinking. I have seen quite remarkable changes in clients in their 50’s, who have just about managed to negotiate their lives with this almost crippling issue to university students whose whole process and speed of learning was significantly uprated in just two sessions within a fortnight.

How is this the case? In my experience as a therapist virtually all the issues I help clients with start with unresolved stress and trauma. Our logical prefrontal cortex will be overpowered every time by our mammal brain which is continually looking out for danger.

This part of our brain is literally 4 times stronger than our logical thinking brain (the prefrontal cortex). It’s primary purpose was to keep us safe when our ancestors were living in the jungle. And once it kicks in we will either revert to Fight or Flight, or Freeze mode.

In fight or flight we are literally thrown into a full defensive state of cortisol and adrenaline. This is required to prevent us from getting killed. Although that state will help us flee from a tiger it is definitely not going to help our brain access fine motor skills and clarity of thinking. On top of that the whole system might go into in freeze (where we are in effect feigning dead) in the hope that the predator will exit the chase and leave us alone. At this point we have no access to any higher thinking process whatsoever.

Yes, these are the basic responses we needed in the jungle and they are extremely powerful. But unless we can begin to take some control over our own autonomic nervous system we will forever be bounced around with no degree of control over the outcome.

This is why I help clients with Dyslexia and many other issues take back control over their own thoughts and feelings in what were very uncomfortable situations. This is the first step in moving forward and once more accessing our logical and organised thinking processes.

For more information please contact me at rogerfoxwell.therapy@gmail.com or visit

www.rogerfoxwell.co.uk

“Look Up” and change your life

If you are a Snoopy fan, and I doubt there are many of us that aren’t, one of my favorites is a picture of Snoopy, head raised towards the sky with the words “keep looking up…that’s the secret of life”. Look Up

This is so true on all levels. When we look up we are opening our panoramic vision and when we open our panoramic vision we are engaging our parasympathetic nervous system. This switches our nervous system over from a closed, guarded body and mind state to an open and relaxed state of safety.

One thing we never have to worry about is whether or not our fight and flight will kick in whenever we need it. That part of us is hardwired into the system and is always ready to protect us if, and when we need it. The problem comes when we want to move easily between our relaxation state, into fight and flight, and then back again. Our primal brain will easily override our logical thinking cortex which explains why it is very hard to THINK our way out of these negative thinking and experiences.

However the simple change from physically looking down to actually looking up will trigger a whole chain of neurons and brain chemicals that will instantly take us closer to the state of relaxed awareness we would like to be in most of the day.

By consciously triggering this “looking up” and engaging your panoramic vision you will literally be tuning into a lighter, brighter more engaged part of yourself. You will be changing billions of neurons and connections with one simple adjustment.

According to Peter Grunwald’s excellent book EYEBODY 60% of the brain is involved in visual processing. This means our eye movements are continually connecting with virtually every part of our body and mind.

So, to make subtle and powerful changes in your daily life just –

“LOOK UP”

For more information on my therapy work using Hypnosis, Emotional Freedom Technique, Eye Movement Reprocessing with remarkably simple but empowering techniques to help reprogramme your life please visit my website

www.rogerfoxwell.co.uk

Focus your attention and stop those Negative Thoughts in their Tracks

Negative Thinking Negative thinking is a primal programme hard wired for us to look out for danger in the jungle. If we were in the jungle and not looking out for danger 24 hrs a day we wouldn’t be there for very long would we!

However we’re not in the jungle now BUT we are in a different jungle. A jungle that is often throwing stress and anxiety at us all day long.

This everyday barrage of worry and panic is extremely bad for us both physically and mentally.

So how can we change this without having to spend five years on the psychotherapist’s couch?

…………………………

When it’s safe and convenient to do try this

Just begin walking around your room in a circle looking at the floor, head down and letting your mind wander with the usual nonsense and rubbish that seems to be washing around in our heads most days.

As you do this notice what sort of thoughts and feelings are bouncing around in your head. Ask yourself are they of any real any value? Notice your body posture.

Now, stop where you are for a few seconds and lift your head up a little. Set your eyes looking ahead with a little more focus than you might normally have while noticing your eyebrows slightly lifting at same time.

Continue to do another couple of circuits and become aware of the changes in your body, feelings and thoughts.

Where are the negative thoughts??

Most likely virtually gone!!

You have focused your attention in a different place and with a different energy.

This is very subtle but very powerful and all you have to do is just “check in” and put this into practise every now then during the day.

It will soon become automatic and you will find the old pattern of constant negative thoughts becoming much quieter. This will leave you free to experience an easy natural everyday relaxation and a much more positive focus in your life.

Isn’t that what we are all looking for?

If you would like to find out more about how I offer clients, online & one to one, remarkably simple but powerfully effective ways to help positively change their lives for ever please visit:

www.rogerfoxwell.co.uk Hypnotherapy, EFT, Eye Movement Change work, NLP, Holistic counselling

SMILE

What happens to the brain and body when we smile?

What happens to anxiety and stress when we smile?

When we smile we instantly generate a happy flood of “feel good” brain chemicals. Neuropeptides that relieve stress and anxiety, neurotransmitters such as serotonin (an antidepressant) and endorphins that are pain relievers are all instantly activated, giving the whole body and mind a quick, smiley happy workout!  Smile Lady

And these are just a few of the positive changes the body makes for us.

As we grow older we are less likely to smile as much as we used to. However each time we smile we will appear more friendly and reliable and people will find us more attractive. They are also more likely to mirror our smile back to us which makes everyone feel good.

Now we don’t even have to generate a huge grin to get these benefits. Just an almost microscopic lifting of the edges of the lips will set off this natural cascade of “happy” chemicals.

And the people around us will very likely be unconsciously joining in with their own smiles.

To feel the benefits all you need to do is to engage your facial muscles with a little outward stretching of the mouth and a little pulling up of the cheek muscles.

Well you don’t need me to tell you how to do that do you!?” 😃

This is so simple and is something vitally important to our physical and mental well being. A tiny magical move that brightens up our own lives and also everyone around us.

Just “check in” with it every now and then throughout the day and enjoy the difference.

For more information on Hypnotherapy, EFT and EMDR and how I help clients achieve their goals and improve their lives please email or call and I will be very happy to discuss how I could help you .

HELP! Racing Heart? Panic? Anxiety? Stress? Tinnitus? Etc…..

Learn to breathe much more efficiently to help control and relieve these and other mind/body issues

Disclaimer: Always seek professional medical advice to check your state of health

The way we breathe plays a massive part in our physical and mental health and it will be very difficult to solve the above and many other issues effectively if we are not breathing correctly. The majority of clients who come to see me with stress, anxiety or panic attacks are (obviously) still breathing but not correctly! Anxiety Stress

If you watch a baby breathing you will see how easy and natural it looks. However, as we grow up, life gets in the way with a disappointment here and a knock there, and over time that continues to build up leaving us in the fight and flight state, looking for danger at every corner.

This is a heavy drain on our resources and over time wears us out, exacerbating the tension in the body and leaving us physically and mentally exhausted.

Breathing correctly is paramount to our health so here is a simple way to learn how to do it much more efficiently.

I would suggest to at first practise this lying down, soles of your feet flat on the floor, knees pointing upwards and a cushion under your head.

If we first try this sitting or standing we can become confused because the connection between brain and body has been slowly getting lost over time. Lying on the floor means we can’t move our shoulders and the brain /body can relearn the natural breathing pathways and muscular connections.

THE SEQUENCE

So, lying on the floor or bed, when you feel comfortable in this position place one hand on your abdomen and the other on your chest just below the collarbones.

Now we get to the part that seems so simple but can take a few days to get used to especially if we have been upper chest breathing and not using the lungs efficiently.

Take a slow breath in and notice what moves.

If correct you will start the breath from your belly and your lower hand will move up. If not you will be lifting the shoulders and breathing only into the upper part of the chest and only the hand on your chest will rise.

Now focus on your belly and push in and out a few times with your abdomen muscles.

Now using those muscles breathe deeply in as if all the air is going into your belly. It’s not air but the diaphragm pushing down and making more space for the lungs to fill with air.

Do this a few times to get that new sequence working.

With a little practise you won’t need to think about your abdomen muscles, they will strengthen and work simply as the diaphragm moves down and the organs move out of the way to give more space.

The next part brings the ribcage into play.

From the same position “breath half the air into the belly” and then continue to breathe in the rest of the air into the chest without raising the shoulders. Notice what is happening as the air physically fills the lungs. As the lungs expand so will the ribcage expand at which point you will feel the hand on your chest moving up with each breath.

The more you get a feel for this the more you will feel the ribcage expanding not just at the front but also through the sides and back.

Keeping your hand on your belly, experiment by moving the top hand and touch the side of your ribcage. Now as you breath in and out you will feel the ribs expand at the side of your chest.

Practise this in bed on the floor only for a minute or two each day until you get used to it but you will soon find that this sequence will become natural and you will be doing it without thinking.

I hope you find this useful and if you would like more tips on improving your lifestyle please follow me on YouTube.

www.rogerfoxwell.co.uk

Hypnotherapy.EFT. Holistic Counselling. NLP. Eye Movement Reprocessing and much more

 

Why might we have “burgers for brains!” ?

Eating burgers for your brain is no better than eating burgers for your body.

Burgers for brains? What on earth am I talking about? Well probably most of us are guilty of doing exactly that with our choice of words. And whoops, I’ve just done exactly that in the previous sentence by using the word guilty. Oh dear, there I go again! Burgers for brain

Yes the word is GUILTY ! Everything we say about ourselves and others is being monitored by our brain and nervous system.

The title of the excellent book “Your body believes every word you say” by Barbara Levine describes it perfectly. Our bodies and brains are constantly exchanging messages to alert and signal to our body chemistry to take the appropriate action for a positive message or a negative message.

This is a primal response that is hard wired into the system to keep us safe when we’re in the jungle. If there is even a subtle scent of danger in the air my body will need to respond immediately to escape.

So what is going on that triggers the body into this negative state?

One thing is that the three vertebrae at the top of your spine, C1 C2 C3, are sitting one on top of the other. In a dangerous situation, and also with negative thoughts these 3 vertebrae will instantly respond by shifting slightly to close off some of the blood flow to the brain. Well it makes sense because if I’m confronted by a tiger I don’t want to think, I want to run! The “Fight or Flight” response is immediately activated and the muscles get more blood and my body gets more adrenaline and cortisol.

Unfortunately fed constant negativity, whether from outside sources or from our own internal thinking begins will over time lock us into a negative state. Then the vertebrae will find it difficult to move back to their parasympathetic relaxation resting place because we are continually triggering them into “fight and flight”. This is extremely wearing for our whole body and mind system.

The other point is that we can get dopamine hits from negativity as well as positivity. Imagine if we are constantly “liking” comments on Facebook because we agree with someone’s negative point of view. Then we become addicted to “unearned dopamine”. This negative dopamine makes us feel “one up” but like any drug we will always want another hit.

Dopamine is great when we earn it by achieving something worthwhile and working towards a goal. But just like being addicted to drugs, cigarettes and anything else, we can soon become that “rat in the lab” pressing the lever to get the next hit.

Gossip, arguing, negative self talk, negative words are all keeping us locked in that lab as our own actions try to get our next hit.

Physically feeding our bodies with burgers all day doesn’t keep us fit and mentally feeding our mind and body with negative thoughts has the same effect on our whole system.

Here are a couple of simple strategies we can put in place to help “clean up our act”
One I regularly give clients is the phrase “That thought is not available”. Any negative thought and you just say that back to yourself as many times as you need.

This works because the conscious mind doesn’t understand what it means but the creative mind does. Soon the conscious mind will get tired of trying to work it out and then your creative mind can do what it does best, create positive alternatives. Even saying to yourself “the weather is crazy out there” is much better than “it’s really miserable outside”

You could also use the elastic band on wrist favourite, and give yourself a quick reminder by flicking it against your skin any time you think something negatively.

Even better swap the band to the opposite wrist each time you have a negative thought. I can tell you from experience this becomes pretty tedious and it’s easier to just drop the negative words! We won’t clear them all out but your brain will soon begin to get what this is all about and you will literally start thinking, saying and using more new positive patterns in your everyday language.

Have Fun cleaning up your selftalk vocabulary.
For information about my online and one to one work
www.rogerfoxwell.co.uk rogerfoxwell.therapy@gmail.com

Hypnosis for Anger

Hypnosis for anger

Can hypnotherapy help someone with anger issues?

Hypnosis is an ideal tool for helping clients with anger issues. Although anger is a natural human emotion if it gets out of control it can have severe and devastating effects on our health, relationships, self esteem and even our employment prospects.

Once the rush of brain chemicals takes over and the “red mist” descends it can be impossible to step back and take stock of a situation in any reasonable manner.

However if we can find strategies and techniques to help guide our body and mind back to more balanced feelings then it is possible to dissipate these negative feelings. This will then help lead us away from situations that at best could be very uncomfortable and at worst cause us a lot more trouble than we could imagine.

Using hypnosis to learn how to interrupt those old patterns will really help you control those negative emotions and save you from spinning out of control.

The PROBLEM with Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy

Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy

The problem with Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy

Is there a problem with hypnosis and hypnotherapy? Not at all, as long as it is done ethically.

The problem in our mind comes when we muddle hypnotherapy up with what we see on television and with stage hypnosis. A short clip of someone resolving an issue on television or YouTube is just that. It’s short, and it is a only a clip. So we are not privy to the actual work done backstage and the time and the techniques used to elicit trance.

Hypnosis is a remarkable tool that gives a skilled hypnotherapist the opportunity to help clients make rapid and lasting change. However there are many other tools a hypnotherapist must have if they want to work with the wide range of issues that clients bring to their office.

Another factor equally important is the client. The client is not just someone who is going to be told what to do and how to feel. Like anything we learn in life it involves the active participation of both therapist and client. To get the most from a hypnotherapy session we must be willing and ready to engage in the process.

Watching from the comfort of our armchair as a hypnotist taps a line of participants on the shoulder and says “sleep” can be very entertaining as one by one heads nod forward and they are put into trance. But this is stage hypnosis not hypnotherapy and only about 1 in 10 people are able to reach that state as rapidly as we see on stage. Even on stage as a third of the audience run forward to be “hypnotised” most will be sent back to their seats. A skilled hypnotist knows instantly the ones who will naturally and rapidly respond to their commands.

However virtually anyone can go into trance. In fact it would be difficult to operate in our daily life if we couldn’t. We are all experiencing different trances throughout the day. Driving, socialising, watching TV are all forms of trance that help us enter and engage appropriately with each experience we are in at any given moment.

Hypnotherapy is a two lane highway where client and therapist work alongside each other to help achieve the client’s goals. This work is a process of connecting new empowering and positive neural pathways just like learning any skills. We practise any skill not just with our muscles but with our mind.

Your mind, given the right keys to release the changes you are looking for, already has that knowledge and it is available to you now.

Addiction – Is there a hypnotic loop that drives us?

Addction

Addiction and Dopamine

Addiction can be one of the hardest things in our lives to turn round. We may be able to rapidly “switch off” a phobia using hypnosis. And we may be surprised how quickly and effectively it is possible to release ourselves from anxiety and stress once we have the right tools to do so.

So why do addictions often take more time to resolve?

One reason is the complex neural and mental programmes working beneath our awareness and continuing to drive us however hard we try to resist.

We all live with addiction of some sort. Food, TV, Facebook, Video games, Alcohol etc. These are not bad habits as long they are under a certain amount of control. But when they are accompanied by negative changes in our daily life then it really is time to address them.

Do you recognise a warm relaxing feeling of pleasure and reward that your addiction gives you?

That feeling is the brain chemical dopamine and it plays a large part in the reason we get addicted. Addiction will follow the easy way to get dopamine hits. A dopamine hit that we have to earn is not as attractive as a dopamine hit we can get instantly. And soon we are locked into a cycle that takes over the brain and literally starts rewiring it!

Think this dopamine model doesn’t apply to you?

To change an addictive behaviour it is important to recognise what is happening on an unconscious level and bring it to a conscious level. For instance I just walked away from my computer to take some washing out of the machine. Nothing abnormal about that but…I then realised that emptying the machine gave me a little more dopamine reward than writing this post. When I have finished this post I will get a feeling of satisfaction and reward. But I will have to wait for that reward until I have finished.

Emptying the washing machine gives me feeling of satisfaction and reward that I can get NOW! And the point is that it is fractionally more than I get from relentlessly typing on the computer keyboard!

Just start to notice these subtle triggers in your daily life

Now is the time to start controlling any destructive habits. Hypnosis, NLP, EFT and EMDR are powerful tools to help you kick the old habits.  As you start to recognise these subtle triggers you may be very surprised at what is happening.

Knowledge is the first key to achieving change. The second is having the tools to make the change. A good professional therapist will have the tools and knowledge to help guide and support you all the way.

Roger Foxwell MBSCH Dhyp DHP

Hypnotherapy, Emotional Freedom Technique, NLP, EMDR