Do you think you might have an alcohol addiction?

Alcohol Addiction

Check this out – it will surprise you!

Did you know that even one or two glasses of wine on a daily basis, or 5 or 6 beers every Saturday could be having a profound negative impact on your health and well being?

If you are not sure whether to believe this just click on the link below for an excellent scientific explanation of what exactly happens.

(https://www.google.com/search?q=huberman+lab+podcast+alcohol&oq) (3.19 min and 24.23min.)

When clients call me for help stopping or curtailing their bad habits or addictions I always say that a few sessions will be required to help resolve this. We all hope that by using hypnotherapy a quick flick of the hand and the words “SLEEP” will “cure” us in just one session. Well this does happen but for the majority of clients I suggest 3 or 4 sessions will give them the tools and strategies to help them make and keep the changes they are looking for.

Many of us are using some addictive habits to help us feel safe and comfortable in our world. This is only natural but becoming addicted to habits such as smoking, drinking, drugs and gambling can only support us for so long without having major detrimental effects on our mental and physical health.

I use Hypnosis, Emotional Freedom Technique and Eye Movement sequencing. These simple but powerful strategies coupled with remarkably easy changes you can use on a daily basis really help clients achieve rapid and major turnarounds in their daily lives.

This can all be done very effectively online and also in my office. To book an appointment or for more information please call me on +44 7970218451 or email rogerfoxwell.therapy@gmail.com and I will be happy to help.

www.rogerfoxwell.co.uk

Why do New Year Resolutions often fail?

New Year Resolution

Happy New Year everybody. (January 2022)

Have you made a resolution yet? We are all definitely going to the gym every single day from now on,we are going to  stop eating those chocolate cakes and we are giving up the ciggies! Yes?

Luckily I don’t smoke and I exercise at home but.. chocolate. Hmm. See why I don’t normally make New Year Resolutions? Because like you I know how easy it is to break them and forget them.

So why do New Year Resolutions fail and why is it a smoker finds it so hard to stop doing something that they know is ruining their health and taking their hard earned money? They have probably tried to stop various times but have succumbed to temptation and soon been back to where they left off or worse. And why is it that by the end of January that daily visit to the gym is just a distant memory or those chocolate cakes that we struggled to “not buy” for three weeks seem to have magically appeared back in the cupboard?

One of the biggest reasons is that if we only use our conscious mind to make the change then we are missing out on a very important part of our mind that can help us make these changes easier, quicker and permanently. (And we all want it sorted quicker and easier don’t we?) The part that we are probably not using is our unconscious creative mind.

The unconscious creative sounds a bit scary or strange doesn’t it but in fact you have an unconscious creative mind that you are using all the time. If you want to get a newspaper you will start by creating a picture of the newspaper shop in your mind (think about it, it’s there already isn’t it?). Otherwise you would not be able to get there or even know you wanted a newspaper. Your unconscious mind is in charge of a massive proportion of the information you are experiencing every moment in your daily life which leaves you free to get on with making the everyday decisions that we all make in our lives. For instance which TV programme do I want to watch!

So here are a few answers to questions that you may have been asking yourself about hypnosis, and connecting with the unconscious mind to help you make effective and powerful change.

Question: So how can I engage that part of me and use it to make change?

Answer: There are lots of different ways and going into a trance (if you are in trance you are in hypnosis) is one of the most powerful.

Question: How do I go into a trance?

Answer: Just close your eyes right now and imagine a very relaxing and pleasant picture or feeling. There you are; do that and you have already engaged the alpha waves in your brain which are a sign that you are slipping into a daydream or trance. We are doing it all the time.

Question: Hypnosis? Won’t I be doing something that puts me under someone else’s control?

Answer: No, hypnosis is a natural state and we are all in various states of trance during the day. Hypnosis is just a method of utilising and channeling that experience in a way that works for you. You will create your own particular creative experience to make the change. Some people will use pictures, some sounds, some feelings or a mixture of all three. The therapist is just there to help guide the client into their own modality of creating change.

Question: Is it really that simple?

Answer: Yes. It certainly can be as many of my clients will testify. However it is important when making this change (or any other change you want) to have the firm decision that you really intend it to work and will do whatever is required to achieve your aim. Once that mindset is in place then it really does not matter whether you think you have very little willpower or that you never managed to achieve your goal before. Your unconscious creative mind is your real powerhouse of change.

If you would like more information or to book an appointment then please call or email me and I will be very happy to help.

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 it’s hard to lose weight only using will power and what you can do about it

Weight Loss

Hypnosis – Emotional Freedom Technique – NLP

It takes a lot of energy and continued vigilance to use the conscious mind to help with weight loss, and the chances for long term success are, as we all know, not good. Dieting is notorious for being able to achieve short term results but not necessarily so good for the long term. Counting calories is difficult and it is hard work to keep the momentum going.

Although making any worthwhile change is likely to need some will power finding the most efficient and successful option is especially important for weight control.

Hypnosis is a favourite way to change old habits and replace them with new healthy ones. However we have to know how to engage the brain chemicals we want and disengage the ones we don’t want.

Sounds complicated but with the right information it can be done. Serotonin, Dopamine, Endorphins and Oxytocin are all “feel good chemicals” being constantly triggered in the body. We just aren’t always consciously aware when they are operating and how to make them work to our advantage.

Dopamine gives us a “feel good” hit. But what we don’t always have is a buffer to first check if this is a healthy dopamine fix or just a short term gain? The question we must ask is am I going to enjoy that hit in a healthy way or am I just fuelling an addiction? Our brains are wired to look for dopamine hits but our brains are not always listening to our cognitive thinking process. We need to be able to weigh up whether something is healthy for us or not and be able to act on that information.

By eating that chocolate or doughnut when we feel sad, disappointed or bored we have been getting our shot of dopamine. But that is a fake hit that literally will continually need feeding. And unfortunately it will be followed by regret and an unpleasant shot of cortisol that tells us we have failed again.

The key is knowing how to recognise these “feel good chemicals” (feelings) and be able to respond appropriately by using them to our advantage. If we can do this then we will start to have some control over our unconscious thinking processes and achieve much better results.

Hypnosis, EFT and NLP are great tools to help us engage in this sort of work. They help our mind and body coordinate and connect so we can make powerful unconscious changes. This does not mean that we just close our eyes and it all happens. An important part of exploring these good feelings is our own engagement in the process.

So knowing how to engage your happy chemicals you will be able to engage your will power. This will really help you achieve the results you have been looking for. Knowing how to use these brain chemicals in the best way for your personal health and satisfaction will help you make more of the healthy choices you deserve.

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

Building Confidence and Self Esteem with Hypnosis

Self Esteem

Hypnosis can really help you regain confidence

There are many books and YouTube videos out there showing different ways and strategies to help build your confidence and self esteem with many useful tips to help deal with issues such as these. A book or video can only take us so far since making changes without releasing past experiences and causes that got us into that position are likely to block us from the next step. We will know all about how we want to feel but very likely find that there is a “road block” keeping us from putting all the changes into action.

We have different therapies and modalities available to us to help us make the changes we are looking for but in my point of view we don’t necessarily need to spend five years on the psychotherapist’s couch trying to resolve past experiences and issues.

Now this is not to say that this type of therapy is not valuable and many people find it useful to talk about their past to help clear the present. However even if we do spend that amount of time working on our past we would have no hope of discovering every little issue, disappointment and trauma that occurred along the way in our lives. We may have clear recollection of certain incidents from our past that could have been significant but some of our issues will have been passed down through our parents DNA, their parents DNA and all the experiences we had when young.

Having said that, there is a part of us that knows all about every one of these experiences and that is our unconscious mind. Often called the creative unconscious the creative unconscious is the part of us that knows how to let go of any unconscious material that may be restricting how to create the confident and comfortable self that we know we could be.

Hypnosis, in the form of hypnotherapy is one of the quickest, safest and most effective ways to make empowering and deep change safely and rapidly. (This is not to be confused with stage hypnosis which uses the hypnotic part of the mind but obviously not the therapy work)

The changes we are looking for are in our imagination as are the blocks that have been keeping us disconnected from them. If I want to go to the shop I need to make a picture in my mind of what the shop looks, I need to roughly imagine the route I will take otherwise I would never get past the front door!

With hypnosis you have the opportunity to open up that route and replace the “road blocks” with more of the feelings and experiences that you know you deserve to bring into your life.

And this is why Hypnotherapy and working with a qualified and expert practitioner is a safe, powerful and rapid therapy that helps many, many people achieve so much more in their lives every day.

And if you would like to sample the experience of relaxation and trance you can try my –

Now Simply Relax – Deep Relaxation Video on YouTube

I hope you enjoy it

Life Coaching and Hypnotherapy

Therapist

Is a Therapist a Life Coach and is a Life Coach a Therapist?

Well yes and no.

A Therapist will need therapy credentials to be able to set up their practice and a Life Coach will presumably have been through certain training before setting up their practice.

The more I have developed my Hypnotherapy practice and brought in various other trance based modalities the more I realise how much EVERYTHING COUNTS. For instance if I am working with a business client who feels nervous giving a presentation then one of the many things I need to offer that client are tools to manage their anxiety otherwise all their valuable work could be overwhelmed by their fear of public speaking. On the other hand if I am a Life Coach helping a business client feel comfortable in these situations they also will require to offer, for example voice projection and presentation tools. And so here we begin to see that success for the client is supported by both the coaching aspect and the therapy aspect of their treatment.

When I continued to bring in more techniques and tools that covered more eventualities the results began to speak for themselves.

So I found myself joining tools for life coaching and tools for therapy together. As they say, “you only get one chance to make a good impression” whether it is interviewing for a job or speaking to a few hundred people in a packed auditorium. To grasp that opportunity how much better to have a powerful selection of tools, coaching and therapy, that cover as many eventualities as possible.

Some people are looking for coaching to help them and some are looking for therapy to help them. Yet Hypnosis, Life Coaching and Therapy can begin to easily and fluidly become one and the same thing. Trance is a state of Hypnosis and Life Coaching is a form of therapy. Hypnosis is a state of trance and therapy is a form of Life Coaching.

Everything overlaps and extending one’s skills in overlapping areas will help give clients more information and power to develop the changes they are looking for.

Some people will be looking for a Life Coach and some for a Hypnotherapist but where does one end and the other begin. The titles may be different but the real differences are more likely to be in the personalities and specialties of each practitioner.

So the best advice is first look for recommendations you can trust. Engage your intuition to help you get the best match for you and your issue whether a Therapist, Hypnotherapist or Life Coach.

Or perhaps you would like all three?

So you think you know what Hypnosis is?

 

Or do you?

There are so many different descriptions of the state of hypnosis that even hypnotists and hypnotherapists will have their own definitions of hypnosis. As hypnotherapists we tend to define it more in relation to the particular way we do our work.

I could put someone into a relaxing trance. Or mesmerise them with the positive changes they could make in their lives. Or hypnotise them so they can recall or forget to remember a past memory.

Although the typical picture of someone in hypnosis will be eyes closed and seemingly fast asleep on a reclining chair I tend to favour the word trance since we are all experiencing different states of trance on a daily basis. The American term “Highway Hypnosis” sums up how we can be wide awake but in a trance at the same time, even when safely driving.

In fact reading the heading at the top of this post will put you in a light trance as your mind diverts itself from the first question and just for a fleeting moment responds to the second question with “or do I?”

Did you go into a state of hypnosis, trance, focused awareness or heightened imagination? Or perhaps you were expecting to be told to forget something or repeat an action or remember something from the past.

“And” (a hypnotist’s favourite word because it simply and easily joins each point with a natural flow) as you were reading the previous sentence your mind was probably taking you very rapidly through all sorts of mental pictures, thoughts and conundrums.

So does it matter whether it is hypnosis, hypnotherapy, mesmerism, sleep, autosuggestion, trance or focused awareness? The interesting thing is that in reality we will automatically find ourselves using our natural favoured way of dreaming, or daydreaming. Everyone has their preferred way of going into trance and will be unconsciously using it throughout the day.

That’s the way the brain works.

We just go there and that is a place that knows a lot about you.

It does, doesn’t it?

Hypnosis, Trance, and the Vagus Nerve

The Vagus nerve

Vagus in Latin means “wandering” and most of us will have heard of the Sympathetic and Parasympathetic divisions of the nervous system but perhaps not the Vagus nerve.

This nerve, which has only scientifically been researched in more depth over the last 20 years, is critical to our physical and emotional feelings of well being as beneath our awareness it efficiently and smoothly sends messages to the brain, gut, heart and other organs of the body. So the fact that it is “in touch” with so many of our vital organs tells us how vitally important it is.

The relatively recent research of Stephen Porges has brought to our attention the pivotal role this superhighway has on every area of our body and therefore our life.

So what does it do for us?

When the vagus nerve is operating at it’s best it is connecting the messages from our organs, our thoughts, our conscious and our unconscious into one smooth multi level pathway of health, calm and ease on a daily basis.

And isn’t that what we have been looking for?

A few of the issues toning the Vagus Nerve can help with

Anxiety

Digestion

Blood pressure

Memory

Reducing inflammation

Panic attacks

Stress

Voice issues

Sound too good to be true?

Well my research and work on myself and clients has really helped take what I do up another level. Resolving past issues, helping the body operate physically with more balance and connection, quicker healing, less anxiety and more pleasure and satisfaction in life are major goals that most of us would like to aim for.

What can I do to tone my Vagus Nerve?

  1. Humming, Singing

  2. Heart Rate Variability breathing – High Coherence Breathing. (Heart Math)

  3. Simple crossing the Mid line Exercises eg BrainGym

  4. Gargling – anything that stimulates your vocal cords is good.

  5. Meditation – Loving kindness meditation

  6. Washing your face with icy water–cold water on your face stimulates the vagus nerve–remember this next time you’re feeling really stressed out.

  7. Emotional Freedom Technique and Hypnosis

My work building a raft of trance based techniques including Hypnosis, NLP and Emotional Freedom Technique has been dedicated to helping clients move forward in their lives. The addition of working with and toning the Vagus Nerve has been another major addition to helping clients access even more meaningful and simple yet empowering tools that they can use on a daily basis to help turn their lives around.

If you would like to know more just email or call me and I will be very happy to help.