How to get rid of yips and performance nerves?

Sports Challenge

What do you need to know about the YIPS and PERFORMANCE NERVES plus how to get rid of them

FIGHT or FLIGHT or FREEZE is designed to keep us alive. It is a primitive part of our autonomic nervous system and this means that whenever there is a sense of danger or even just worry, this system will in fact respond as if we are in a LIFE or DEATH situation.

Immediately your brain’s only job is to keep you alive and all it’s resources will be focused on that one outcome. This means that your body’s healing mode is switched off and your “modern” thinking brain is no longer able to operate rationally. You have now lost access to your fine motor functions and clear cognitive thinking

Also, in “shutdown” your body and brain are preserving oxygen. So there is not enough dopamine to turn the “freeze” state off and your focus and clarity back on.

This is why it becomes virtually impossible to instantly switch back to your clear thinking relaxed state.

So, to help gain more control of our autonomic (automatic) nervous system the most important place to start is with BREATHING.

Using the best diaphragm breathing techniques will lay a foundation whereby you can, as rapidly as possible re-engage your dopamine and other body chemicals. Now you can help reconnect the higher communication centres which have the blueprint of all the tens of thousands of hours of practise you have put into your skills.

Te next step in my work with Golfers, Tennis players, Darts, Snooker players, Musicians etc. is opening and expanding our vision pathways and learning to control our autonomic nervous system on an everyday basis.

Using simple acupressure points and mental programmes we will be able to find and relax the physical and mental, body and mind stress points in a way you can begin to take with you into every competition, friendly game or performance you have.

An extra bonus is that no one will know you are using these techniques. But they will be very unlikely not to notice that everything about your performance is improving!

For more information on how I can help you play and perform to your highest standards just call or email and I will be happy to help.

These techniques and strategies will work equally effectively with

great results – online, face to face, professional or amateur.

www.rogerfoxwell.co.uk +44 7970218451 rogerfoxwell.therapy@gmail.com

Why do people who whistle or hum all day always seem to be happy?

Here’s a question. Why do people who whistle or hum all day always seem to be happy?

Well, people who whistle or hum all day may seem irritating but they are actually toning their vagus nerve and putting their body into a relaxed parasympathetic state. And that’s exactly why they always seem to be happy!

I always encourage clients to do some singing, humming, because this not only exercises the voice but sends these vibrations through the body, toning the vagus nerve and helping us feel physically and emotionally relaxed.

One of the exercises I use is to hum along to a favorite song or a “warm up for singers” such as the one I’ve put at the end of this post. Just a couple of minutes singing or humming while doing other things about the home can make a significant difference to how you feel for the rest of the day. Happy Woman

Recently I have added another dimension to this simple exercise by connecting one’s awareness to the multitude of vibrations singing or humming brings to the body. The idea is that by adding an extra dimension to this valuable vocal exercise will help bring very real and positive change to how we feel physically and emotionally for the rest of the day.

 And all with a minimal amount of effort.

So to experience this begin by humming or singing with your fingers gently cupped around your ears. You will notice how the head is vibrating with the resonance of the voice.

Now place your fingers gently over your scalp and also become aware of the skull and the brain vibrating.

Try the jaw, the collarbone, the chest, the throat. In fact have a bit of fun experimenting with different parts of the body as you discover how relaxing and effective this is.

Not only will you be improving your mood but the vibrations from the vocal chords will be vibrating the whole physical body. These vibrations will be “massaging” the organs in the body, the muscles round the lips, the brain  and even the bones of the skull. They will be increasing blood flow, relaxing the voice and making a myriad of other significant changes in your body.

We can’t “make these changes happen” but they will happen automatically as all parts of the system share these positive messages and feelings with each other.

Having done that you may well notice how much more resonant your own voice has become and how that resonance gives you an extra boost of relaxation and confidence. You have connected billions of neural connections just by singing or humming!

If we try doing this by thinking about it we will soon discover that it is virtually impossible to MAKE these changes happen. But when the body and mind work naturally together they know exactly what to do.

This way we can get on with our daily lives as we continue to add real value to our daily experiences.

Telling yourself to BE HAPPY doesn’t really work so why not “Sing Yourself” there!

For more information about my online international therapy and one to one work in Glasgow, Scotland please email rogerfoxwell.therapy@gmail.com   or visit www.rogerfoxwell.co.uk

Singers warm up

 

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.

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.

Panic Attacks and Hypnosis

Panic Attacks

Panic Attacks can be one of the most frightening experiences one can have and can appear, as it were, out of nowhere. To suddenly become aware of your heart beating faster, a loss of control and feeling disconnected from your surroundings is a very uncomfortable experience. Plus, once we have had one panic attack our body and brain remembers it and this can set up a loop whereby the brain stem continues to be alert and on the lookout for anything that might trigger a panic attack again. Unfortunately that only compounds the problem and we can become more liable to having them on a regular basis.

This experience is a message from our primal brain saying it does not, for whatever reason feel safe. Once the primal brain is activated like this it is very hard to switch off because it is in effect four times stronger than our frontal “thinking” cortex at getting it’s message across to the body.

Basically the frontal cortex, which can think logically for us, resides in the front of the skull and the primal primitive brain at the back of the skull. So once a panic attack begins generally no amount of logical thinking will turn it off and we just have to go through the experience until the body runs out of adrenaline and we can begin to calm down.

However there is a lot we can do ourselves to bring those feelings into check and manage them until they become fewer and fewer in our lives. Using hypnosis is a perfect tool to help calm the nervous system and regain control of the uncomfortable physical and emotional feelings. Also there are breathing strategies available that will help us to breath in a way that relaxes rather then excites the nervous system. Also subtle trance based ways of thinking can help us turn this around.

The beauty of using trance based techniques such as hypnotherapy is that not only does it make it easier to slip into a comfortable state of relaxation but also the trance state helps us bypass the conscious mind and generate change on a deeper unconscious level.

Stay calm

If you would like to know more about hypnosis, Emotional Freedom Technique, NLP and other ways of engaging your creative mind for relaxation and change do feel free to contact me and I will be very happy to help.

Always seek medical advice when appropriate.

Does anxiety take the pleasure out of your life and how Hypnotherapy can help.

Anxiety

You can make powerful and lasting change with Hypnotherapy, NLP and EFT

Anyone who suffers or has suffered from anxiety knows the feeling that tells you that you are the only person experiencing it. Obviously our logical mind knows that it cannot be true but the problem is that our primal brain will generally respond to a non life threatening experience and a life threatening experience with pretty much the same intensity either way.

So here is the point, although we cognitively know that the situation we are experiencing is not a matter of life and death it is very difficult, if not impossible, to ‘think our way out of it’. We can tell ourselves all we like “not to worry”, “I’ll be fine” etc, but the primal brain easily wins the contest. If we could turn it round with our thinking we would not need hypnotherapy, NLP, psychotherapy, counselling or any other therapy to help change these  embedded thinking patterns. Wouldn’t it be easy if we could just tell ourselves that it wasn’t so and everything would be sorted?

However we know it is not as simple as that. So how would you like to turn your thinking round and clear any intrusive thinking that has been preventing you from enjoying your life as much as you would like?

I am a hypnotherapist, NLP and EFT (Emotional FreedomTechnique) practitioner so obviously these are my chosen modalities to help clients make change. In fact I strongly believe that the royal road to healthy change is first and foremost to engage the creative unconscious mind in helping make the change. Your creative mind only needs to go into a light eyes open trance to help you open up a hidden treasure trove of creative tools and knowledge. This can help you engage more of the feelings and experiences you want and fewer and fewer of the ones you don’t want.

If you would like to achieve real and empowering change in your present and your future, now is the time to help yourself. Discover how an experienced professional can give you the tools to help rapidly and effectively turn this thinking around.

My message to clients “This is serious work, have some fun doing it!”

Emotional Freedom Technique

EFT Tapping

EFT (Tapping) helps former Apprentice star

 

As complimentary therapies become more popular so techniques like EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) become more well known. Although there are still a number of my clients who have not heard about it when they first come they are very soon won over by it’s simplicity and effectiveness. Once they understand how to use it and how useful it is it soon becomes a daily practice in their lives.

Here in this article former Apprentice star Jessica Cunningham explains how EFT played a large part in helping her control her health anxiety.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-5634123/Former-Apprentice-star-Jessica-Cunningham-reveals-suffers-hypochondria.html

EFT, or “tapping” for short, is a technique developed in America by engineer Gary Craig and works by gently tapping on acupressure points around the body. As an acupuncturist would apply needles to these points so, just by gently tapping on them with one’s fingers one can get amazing relief from many issues physical and emotional that can be resistant to other forms of treatment. It also works very well alongside many other treatments such as hypnosis and can even help boost the effectiveness of such treatments. One of the biggest bonuses of EFT is that clients can learn it themselves and continue to safely use it when they are at home.

As you will read in the article Jessica was using it for Health Anxiety issues which is a not at all uncommon and I regularly find it extremely effective helping clients overcome panic attacks, anxiety, stress, depression and performance issues. In fact it really can be of benefit with virtually all of the issues that clients bring to my office.

If you would like help for any of the above problems or other issues in your life and would also like a tool that you can take with you and use yourself, find a good EFT practitioner and they will be able to help you by using it in the therapy room and also showing you how you can take it away and use it yourself to great effect.