Are you looking on the bright side?

Your memories are stored in your eyes and a simple way to let go of negative memories.

Did you know that when you remember an event your eyes are running it through in the same sequence it happened? A study published in the journal Cerebral Cortex discovered that the brain and the eyes used the same sequence of connections and movements just as they happened in the original event. Rapid Eye Movement Therapy

Using the original sequence of eye movements and the brain’s original response all the different parts of that memory are condensed and connected into a replay of what originally happened

The various eye movement therapies such as EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) and Rapid Eye Movement Therapy make use of the eye movements to help clear trauma such as PTSD

When working with clients with PTSD and trauma and those with and stress and anxiety I use various forms of eye movements to help release the memory of the original trauma and discomfort. This can be done with minimum need to cognitively go through the whole event which can often be very uncomfortable for the client. Our unconscious mind knows all about the traumas we remember, the ones we don’t remember and the ones we could never remember. So why not let the unconscious mind do the work?

I often notice how many of the issues we are experiencing are reflected in our language such as “If you keep looking in the same place you’ll get the same result”. So try this for yourself by thinking of a past event (choose something happy for this!) and notice whether you look down and to which side (left or right) you look.

Most of us, but not all will probably look down and to the left for what’s “left in our memory”. So if your preferred side is the left try looking to the right any time you find yourself thinking of something stressful.

When I ask clients to look to the other side and “tell me that story again” it’s amazing how many clients either find it difficult to verbalise their feelings from the side they don’t normally use. And often they can’t even tell me what the issue was!

So next time you find yourself stuck in a negative thinking loop notice where your eyes are and switch over to the other side!

A simple guide to the Vagus Nerve

The word Vagus is Latin for “wandering” and the vagus nerve connects the brain stem to the body. It is in effect wandering from the base of the skull all the way down the body to the gut.

As it makes it’s journey through the body it is constantly monitoring and receiving information about how the body is functioning and it relays this information back to the brain. In turn the brain is also communicating it’s own information to the vagus nerve. Vagus Nerve

The vagus nerve connects with virtually every organ in the body starting with the pharynx (throat) and ending at the small intestine?. It is connecting the neck, the heart, the lungs and gut and continually sending important information back to the brain about how the various organs are operating. When the (ventral) vagus nerve is operating optimally it will help lower the heart rate and blood pressure, encourage deeper breathing, relaxation, and decreases inflammation.

Although the singular term vagus nerve is generally used there is also the dorsal vagus If danger appears the dorsal vagus, which runs alongside the ventral vagus will fire, putting the system either in “fight or flight” or, if the danger appears too much to run from the “freeze state” We all know what a “rabbit in the headlights” looks like.

Ideally we want to optimally tone (or tune) our ventral vagus system so we can healthily connect with events in our everyday life. We do not want to be permanently stuck in stress and “fight or flight” 24 hours a day.

When connected to the ventral vagus response significant and valuable changes occur in our lives. These changes help us control our response to stress and our feelings of confidence and safety in the outside world. This gives us the ability to communicate with ourselves and others in a much more relaxed way changing so many things in life for the better.

It’s amazing that it often takes only a few simple changes to set in motion a process that can powerfully change your future life experiences for ever.

When working with clients, in virtually all cases the first thing I write on their take home notes is “Am I Safe?”. This is the question the primal brain is asking us all the time. “Am I safe in the jungle? But we are not in the jungle now (at least not that one!)

My hypnotherapy work is predicated on addressing the issues that have put the body and mind out of synch and disconnected. This means laying a foundation where lasting change can grow and knowledge about the workings of the vagus nerve helps answer many of the questions that come to the surface during therapy.

So as we begin to let the Dorsal Vagus relax (it will always look after us if needed) and turn our attention to toning and relaxing the Ventral Vagus we give ourselves the opportunity to move ever closer to the feeling “I Am Safe”.

Which is where we all want to be.

 

A Hypnotherapy Session

Hypnotherapy session? – what can I expect?

What defines good therapy? How professional is it? Will it do what I want? And will it need lots of appointments? All good questions and here are some answers.

My work is based on how we can easily and effectively adjust our thoughts, feelings and experiences in a healthy way every day of our lives. Hypnotherapy Session

It’s very hard for us to turn around such feelings as panic, stress and anxiety by thinking our way out of them. Our body chemistry is programmed to look out for danger 24/7 as we would if we were in the jungle and although we are not in that primal jungle now we are still hard wired to react as if we were. So the question is how do I adjust billions of neurons in my brain so that I can change my feelings and experiences in a healthier way every single day?

Here is a guide to demonstrate the path a first session is likely to go and how it could help you answer many of those questions.

1/ Releasing trauma is a must but wouldn’t it be good if we could let the unconscious mind do the work? After all that is the part of you that knows all about your issues. Releasing old issues and traumas this way means you won’t have to trawl through every upsetting moment of the past but let your creative mind make the changes and release them for you.

2/ Next you will discover how to literally “look in the right place” to help those old experiences lose their power and negative energy. Simple? Yes it is and I will show you how.

3/ Then we will use very simple and important breathing techniques to help bring down feelings of anxiety, stress or panic wherever you are, and in whatever situation you are in. You may have been told in the past to just “relax and take a deep breath” but that is rarely going to work. With the right tools you will be able to work “on the spot” with what ever issues come up. And that really is the time when we need help.

4/ Negative thoughts can take up a large part of our thinking patterns but generally only make things worse. Once again I will show you very simply how to start cutting out these damaging thinking patterns on the spot, as and when we are thinking them.

5/ Most of the session up to here is carried out with the eyes open, and as we continue we will already be engaging a state of focused awareness which is just one of the many trances that we drop into at different times throughout the day. At the end of this session I often give a 3 minute relaxation and hypnosis sequence that you can take with you. Used at home (it takes just 3 minutes) this will rapidly bring you to a much more comfortable state of calm and focus in your everyday life.

That will usually be the end of the first session and using these techniques and strategies helps me offer clients significant changes in their lives in just 2 – 4 sessions. These and other valuable and simple techniques and strategies you will take with you and be able to use them for the rest of your life.

I know they work because within a week of the first session the vast majority of clients will have made significant changes with the issues we are working on.

For instance just this month two cases of needle phobia completed successfully in two sessions. Also someone with lifelong everyday anxiety and IBS, noticeable improvements after just two sessions. And a client with panic attacks every day who literally could not swallow whole pieces of food and was living on a diet of smoothies. She was eating a chicken tikka straight after the second session!

It’s not magic but it’s nice when it feels like it is.

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

 

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

Could breathing and looking be among the most important things to improve in our lives?

What have you been doing all day? Looking where you are going I presume.

What have you been doing all day and all night? Breathing I hope.Breathing fresh air

Looking and breathing are fundamental to our lives yet it is very easy to take them for granted. Think about it, if we aren’t “looking in the right place” and not breathing efficiently then we are spending a large part of our lives running our physical and mental systems inefficiently. This can lead to physical and mental issues, less control over our daily experiences and less pleasure and fulfillment in our daily lives.

In my hypnotherapy, EFT and holistic therapy sessions these areas are two of the most important starting points and foundations for helping clients heal on any level.

For instance, using our peripheral vision helps us engage our vagus nerve and the parasympathetic relaxation part of our autonomic nervous system. However, looking down and holding our awareness to a narrow field of vision will send us into the “fight and flight” mode of our nervous system. These two modes of awareness are quite different and each generate massively different body chemicals, neurological connections and feelings. We could read as many scientific articles and studies as we like but the only real way to actually improve our experience of the feelings we would rather have, and experience fewer of the feelings we don’t want is by choosing to connect with the appropriate body and neurological connections at their optimal levels.

When we were borne and into our early childhood our bodies would breath with a perfectly natural balanced physical harmony. But life came along giving us a “knock” here and a “kick” there so to protect ourselves we had to tense up, go into fight and flight, breathe into our upper chest and brace our shoulders to save us from predators and danger. Soon we would unconsciously be locked into this primal pattern to help “keep us safe”.

However by relearning our original breathing patterns we can get our whole body and brain to respond and help regain the original efficient and healthy ways to direct the balance of oxygen and carbon dioxide into our bodies. And without having to know how it all works.

So are we going to continue to “feel a bit down” or wouldn’t we prefer to feel that

“things are looking up”. 

It’s hard wired into our language so why not rewire it back into the body and brain just like

“a breath of fresh air”

To find out more about how I help my clients make the changes in their lives they are looking for, please visit my website www.rogerfoxwell.co.uk

Online or one to one sessions are available

Relax with this Simple, Powerful, Rapid Self Hypnosis Sequence

 Disclaimer. Only use in a safe place, not when driving or operating anything that requires your full attention.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Having an easy and quick way to relax, whether in bed or during the day, is invaluable for our physical and mental health. This sequence is designed to help anyone relax the body and allow the mind to follow.  Self Hypnosis

You can use it to get into a positive creative state and give yourself affirmations, or just enjoy a calm relaxing state for however long you want.

To begin find a comfortable place sitting or lying down and take a few moments to settle yourself.

Close your eyes

Start by quietly paying attention to your breathing for a few moments. Then begin relaxing the body in the order below or in any way that suits you.

I put it together in this order so each group of two has a connection with each other and with the next group.

You may like to run through the order in your head a few times to become familiar with it.

Hands and Feet

Toes and Fingers

Forearms and Lower legs 

Head and Shoulders

Chest and Heart

Abdomen and Hips

Then with each group, saying to yourself simple phrases such as:

My hands and feet “are relaxing”

My hands and feet “are feeling heavy”

My body is “enjoying this sense of relaxation”

My fingers and toes are “warmer and warmer”

My head and shoulders are feeling “heavier and heavier”

I am feeling more “comfortable and relaxed”

My chest “moves comfortably and easily with each breath”

My heart is “relaxing and beating comfortably”

It is safe for me to “let go completely”

OR     you can just use the word “Relax” each time

Continue with your phrases and repeat each sequence as many times as you like with whatever variations feel comfortable for you.  You can use the example phrases or make up your own relaxing phrases as you go along.

When you feel comfortably relaxed you can just continue to enjoy how you feel or use some appropriate positive affirmations for your creative mind to work on.

You can do this in bed to help get to sleep either on your back or on your side. I also like to use it to  practise lying still. Being able to lie quietly if you have trouble sleeping will help a lot and if you feel you want to move it is a good idea to do so slowly. The brain is constantly wanting to be “on the move” but that doesn’t help us when we want to relax.

Then you can either continue into sleep or when you are ready give yourself the signal “My eyes are opening and I return to full conscious waking awareness”.

Open your eyes, wide awake.

I hope you enjoy this and do contact me if you would like to know more about my work.

 

 rogerfoxwell.therapy@gmail.com    www.rogerfoxwell.co.uk

 

How to help cure the yips, the bow shakes, performance stress with hypnotherapy and EFT

This is a post for anyone struggling with the yips in golf, snooker etc, for musicians with bow shakes or lip control issues. Also darts players who can’t let go of the dart and in fact any high performance skills where the messages from the brain to the body seem to have broken down for no apparent reason.

I have worked with pro golfers, world class snooker players, professional footballers and all levels of players and performers in the amateur world from tennis and bowls to darts. I use a range of unique therapeutic and practical techniques To help professionals and amateurs fine tune those subtle but important movements that make all the difference between success and failure. Yips

So some information on my background and how use my own performing experience to help clients in many professions get their very best performance results on a daily basis

I have been working as a therapist for 25 years but my first career was as a professional orchestral violinist and that helped me gather a great deal of first hand experience of the joys and the stresses and strains of performing with top orchestras in concert halls all over the world. As musicians know, once you’ve played that note you can’t go back and, at the same time you’ve still got to keep up!

As with any skill both professionals and amateurs will experience the pressures of performance appearing just when they don’t need it. That final putt on the last green, potting the black, hitting the bulls eye etc. Unfortunately these are times when a seemingly hidden force can suddenly throw all the hours and months of perfecting our skills right out of the window.

So this led me to putting together and developing a programme that would help performers in virtually all areas use their skills and confidence to their highest standards and avoid old doubts and worries getting in the way of their technical abilities.

Over the years I have extended the range of techniques available and here are a few pointers and a short resume of how I help clients untangle what was once a pleasurable experience and smoothly executed movement that now feels almost completely uncontrollable. By putting the performer back in the driving seat emotionally and physically they can get back to enjoying the skills and pleasure they deserve from their chosen profession or hobby

I generally start with clearing old blocks and past experiences that will very likely be contributing to the issues. To do this I use light hypnosis to help the unconscious “do the work” since it tends to know a lot more about what’s going on than our conscious mind does.

Emotional Freedom Technique (tapping on acupressure points whilst verbalising the problems and releasing them) is also a very powerful way to clear issues from the past that are still connected to our nervous system. Tapping on acupressure points, where an acupuncturist would put a needle in, allows the brain and body to unravel intrusive messages from brain to muscle and rebuild a smoother, stronger and healthier connection that relates to the standard of performance we would expect.

Knowing the best way to breathe and how to control the heart rate and oxygen levels in the body is vital for to achieve best results. Being able to breathe, in a controlled and relaxed manner is vitally important and even more so when we are in a high tension situation.

Just taking a “deep breath” won’t hack it. This is likely to be counterproductive especially if we start our breathing into the upper chest and lifting the shoulders. Deeper and controlled diaphragmatic breathing which allows the diaphragm to move down on the in breath and filling the ribcage and chest with air naturally is the way to help the whole body achieve a good performance mode.

Generally in stress situations muscles are literally “fighting each other” for dominance which plays havoc with our putting or a being able to draw a snooker cue smoothly back and forward.

To get the correct muscles to operate fluidly in the right order a relaxed but heightened awareness is used visualised in hypnosis or a light trance. We spend most of our time in some sort of trance but giving the ourselves the option to choose our trance is giving ourselves command of the situation.

I have purposely made my work so that we can make complex changes with simple body and mind changes. That way most of the exercises I offer are available to practise immediately on a daily basis in our everyday life. For instance we are looking through our eyes all day, we are using our sensory perceptions all day, we are breathing all day. If we start practising the controlling of our fine tuning and awareness of our actions and the correct sequencing of our breathing then we are laying a solid base for the results we are looking for.

Covid, Hypnotherapy and Health Anxiety

Since Covid spread around the world Health Anxiety is probably even more prevalent than ever before. However obsessive worrying about one’s health is nothing new and nothing unusual.

But it can easily turn into an obsession that takes over one’s life. Continuously checking Google, worrying, looking for confirmation from friends, if these habits and more are taking over your life then it may be time to take a step back and ask Health Anxiety

yourself if you are not becoming obsessed with your health in an unhealthy way.

Of course it is important that our first step is to get good medical advice and look after ourselves physically and emotionally. Unfortunately continuous worrying about one’s physical health for no apparent reason is not going to help our mental health. This worry will negatively impact both our mental and physical health and it will certainly diminish the pleasure of our own life.

Bringing down the anxiety around this issue will actually enhance the body’s natural resources to keep healthy and to heal. It will also open the door to getting out of the negative loop we have made for ourselves.

How best to do this?

Hypnosis is renowned for it’s ability to help us relax deeply and rapidly. Being able to relax is of prime importance and hypnosis can be learned very quickly and effectively.

Hypnotherapy can give you the tools to help move your mind away from negative circular thinking very rapidly. It is also very effective in helping releasing any past material that may have contributed to this “not so merry go round” of obsessive thinking.

I also use Emotional Freedom Technique and EMDR which are powerful techniques in themselves to help clients release old thoughts and habits, bringing them back into a much more balanced way of thinking and feeling about things.

Don’t get stuck and overwhelmed with worry when you can take this issue back into your control far quicker than you may have imagined.

Find yourself an accredited hypnotherapist to help you turn this around.

For more information about my One to One and Online sessions please email or call and we can discuss how I can help

rogerfoxwell.therapy@gmail.com   07970218451  0141 571 1138

Build Happiness into your Life with Hypnotherapy

Wouldn’t we all like to feel happier?  

Now I’m not saying we should feel happy every moment of the day since that wouldn’t be possible  and wouldn’t be healthy for us. Feel Happy

Feeling sad, bored, distracted etc are feelings that are hardwired into our brains for important  reasons. These are what I call primal feelings and all those uncomfortable feelings have been part of our makeup since our ancestors lived in caves or in the jungle. Circumstances were different in  those days! Let’s say they are feelings that are designed to keep us safe in the jungle and enable us  to act appropriately to the dangers and different life situations that would occur there.

However we are not living in the jungle now, BUT we are in effect living in a different jungle and  these primal instincts are still extremely strong. In fact they are hard wired to kick in unconsciously  at any time the brain senses danger or feels uncomfortable.

They could be feelings of loss and grief, feeling afraid, bored or worried. Obviously just a small  example but the feelings we experience are actually designed to help us protect ourselves and be  able to react immediately to threat.

We also have positive feelings. For instance we might feel supported and safe in the company of  people we trust. But as we all know we just can’t be happy all the time. This is because the happy  feel good chemicals are only designed to be switched on for a certain amount of time and the body  will need to replenish them.

What we can do though is learn how to make those happy feelings last a little longer, how to release past issues that may have been blocking them and how to actually recognise and strengthen them  every day.

So how can we go about making this change to our everyday life? Well, you guessed it.   HYPNOSIS!

No need for five years on the psychotherapist’s couch!

Hypnosis can help you powerfully access deep relaxation.

Hypnotherapy can give you the tools to discover and release the old patterns and experiences that  may have kept you in a fearful state all these years.

Hypnosis can help you let go of destructive habits and addictions, generate confidence and  generally leave you open and ready to make powerful changes in your life.

Hypnosis will help you use the power of your unconscious mind to release you from old negative  patterns and thinking.

Hypnosis is an immensely simple, pleasant and powerful way to rapidly make deep changes in your world and how you feel.

Roger Foxwell.co.uk +447970218451 rogerfoxwelltherapy@gmail.com Hypnosis EFT NLP EMDR