Got the Yips? Clench your left fist!

Got the Yips? Clench your left fist!

An article appeared in The Daily Telegraph today (yips tip) (10/07/13) with a tip that could help competitors in various sports “beat the yips”.

 

I work on a regular basis with both amateur and professional golfers and musicians and other sports people who suffer from the yips in various forms. Almost any sport or activity that relies on fine motor control can be a target for this issue whereby certain muscles refuse to cooperate thus sabotaging the intended movement. Darts players can find their fingers refusing to let go of the dart, a golfers putter hand can be hijacked by an uncontrolled movement at a crucial putt, musicians fingers can suddenly decide not to cooperate and as I noticed at Wimbledon the tennis player’s hand and arm tossing the ball up into the air can seem to go wildly out of control. At Wimbledon and on the golf tour these are all players at the top of their game with every facility available to them to hone their techniques to the finest degree. But the yips can strike right out of the blue seemingly from nowhere.

Now some of these issues can be put down to nerves and to a degree that can be part of the problem. Lack of confidence can easily lead to the body going into fight and flight mode, taking all finely tuned and organised movements out of the part of the brain that has set the sequence into the unconscious and throwing it back into the conscious mind putting us back into what feels like “beginner” mode.

In my opinion when working on this issue an important and vital part of the process back to muscular control has to be a real cleanup of the unconscious baggage that we carry around. Just imagine your brain attempting to carry out a finely tuned muscular sequence. To be able to repeat this sequence correctly we must practise the movement until it has become to all intents and purposes automatic. Now imagine giving that command to the command centre in your brain but suddenly a contradictory command appearing simultaneously! Total disaster ensues with no conscious understanding of why the movement was hijacked. Of course our unconscious knows why and also knows what this old programme is all about but it is a programme we won’t be able to think our way out of. Like a computer with a virus, until that virus has been removed the system will never return to it’s previous smooth operational state.

EFT is a technique that has in my experience and according to a study at Sheffield Hallam University a good track record in helping amateur and professional golfers overcome the yips. When working with my clients on the yips I use EFT, Hypnosis and NLP plus various mental programming techniques that I have designed to help reprogramme the internal emotional thinking and the external physical movements. So that is where the idea of clenching the left hand to activate the right side of the brain, as the article in The Daily Telegraph suggests, makes a lot of sense because the negative messages have found their way into a space in our minds that we don’t want them to be in. By doing this we are making a positive change in our mental programming system.

Below is a review from one of my clients and I know it worked because I went out and played golf with him after just three sessions. I could see no sign of a yip and he beat me!

“I had suffered from the yips for over twenty years … I tried all possible strange grips and combinations … today I am free of the yips and shot a 72 on my par 69 course…”

Roger Foxwell is a qualified Hypnotherapist, EFT and NLP practitioner. If you would like to contact him for more information just call 07970218451 or email roger@rogerfoxwell.co.uk or visit.www.rogerfoxwell.co.uk

Musicians and Golfers do you need 10,000 hours practice

Musician

It has been accapted for a while now through research by best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell that to achieve mastery in a subject or discipline 10,000 hours of study or practise is the magic number that will help bring the requisite rewards. However a recent study as outlined in Time has come up with new research that doubts whether this is the whole picture. Of course even if we take the 10,000 hours as read then there are obviously factors such as physical and practical suitability and genetics that would be taken onto account.

However further research by Zach Hambrick and colleagues at Michigan State University have found that the10,000 hour rule really only applied to between 30% and 34% of musicians and chess masters that they studied. In fact they found that two thirds of the difference was unrelated to practice with massive differences in the time it would take one person to reach an elevated level in their field as against another in the same area of expertise.

So, as most professional musicians, golfers or anyone developing high level skills will know the whole issue is extremely complex as the researchers testified.

As someone who has trained to a high professional level in music (violin) with copious amounts of practise I have always taken a great interest in what is the difference that makes the difference in successfully achieving goals? Since I work helping professional golfers, sports persons and musicians get closer to discovering their own personal formula that will help bring out their best potential it is fascinating to actually be using my insider knowledge to help develop my own skill sets and pass that information on to my clients.

Some of the key strategies include:

• An intense desire to achieve a successful outcome
• A discipline ethic that will carry one through even when things are tough
• An ability to convert that work ethic into a pleasure so that it no longer becomes work but something you just can’t stop doing
• A linking of the creative mind with the analytical that produces a synthesis of artistic and technical skills.

Now there is much more to this but knowing how to take our skills to the next creative level is a skill in itself. However once we can tap into this whole process it can hugely accelerate our progress and maybe we won’t need 10,00 hours after all? Or maybe we will use much more than 10,000 hours because nobody can stop us since we enjoy developing our skill so much.

If you are ready to move to the next level I can help you. Using Hypnosis, EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) and NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) plus a fascinating range of techniques that my own knowledge in this area has helped me develop you really could find yourself in another level of expertise and pleasure in your chosen skillset.

For more information just call me on 07970218451 or email rogerfoxwell.therapy@gmail.com or visit www.rogerfoxwell.co.uk

Suffering from insomnia? Hypnosis can help you sleep and so can these 3 tips

Suffering from insomnia

Suffering from insomnia? Hypnosis can help you sleep and so can these 3 tips.

I work regularly with clients who suffer from poor sleep patterns and as anyone who is in this situation knows it can have a devastating effect on the day when you don’t get at least a reasonable night’s sleep.

Just last week someone came to my office with chronic insomnia and he really could not remember when he last got any sleep at all apart from the occasions when he became so exhausted that his body and mind could just not stay awake any longer. This seemed to cycle in four to five day patterns of no sleep then one night’s sleep due to sheer exhaustion.

If you are struggling getting to sleep or you are waking in the middle of the night try these three tips:

• Avoid checking your clock to see what time it is when you are in bed. If each time you wake up and check the clock this can set up a trigger to awake at the same time every night.

• Lie on your back in bed and try tensing your body for 30 seconds then completely relaxing for 60 seconds. Do this three or four times in a row. It can be pretty effective.

• While lying quietly close your eyes and then visualise yourself relaxing every part of your body very slowly and in order. Start at the toes and go methodically through each toe and each leg focusing on each part and each muscle relaxing individually. You may find yourself falling asleep before you get very far.

My client used these techniques, and along with the work we did in the session was soon sleeping right through. I hope they help you. To find out more just contact me for help.

Roger Foxwell is a Clinical Hypnotherapist, Personal Change Coach and NLP and EFT practitioner. For more information email rogerfoxwell.therapy@gmail.com or visit https://www.rogerfoxwell.co.uk

How these voice tips and hypnosis can help you speak confidently in public.

Public Speaking

Public Speaking with confidence

In my hypnotherapy sessions I work with a lot of business people who are having difficulties with public speaking and giving presentations. Hypnosis and EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) are ideal vehicles to help make powerful and lasting change very effectively and rapidly. However when dealing with these issues an important part of a session will almost always include some simple voice projection exercises. In my opinion these are vital to giving a confident and well projected speech. We may have all the confidence in the world but if no one understands or hears clearly what we are saying then our message will not get across. Now I am not a voice coach and voice coaching could well be something worth following up but I do offer in my sessions as a bonus some very simple voice exercises that will really help get your message across in any situation. I originally began looking for some simple but effective voice development techniques at a time when I felt my voice could be more assertive in certain situations. It is one thing having the ability to produce a smooth and soothing hypnotic voice but trying to order a drink in a crowded bar or give a presentation to a hundred people is another!

To give you a taste of some of these simple exercises try pointing to your nose and saying “this is my nose.” Then do the same thing with your lips, your throat and your chest. Interestingly you will probably notice a change in voice tone that bears a resemblance to where you are pointing especially when you point at your nose. As you become more aware of this you can begin to develop the resonance and timbre in your voice that is required to command attention when it is needed. I soon noticed once I started practising these techniques was that as my own voice developed in resonance and the actual feedback I was getting inside my head from my voice helped add to my speaking and personal confidence.

How rapidly we speak and how much variation in tone and pitch are also important for best results. Remember you know what you are saying but people listening will need extra time to process it. Speaking just a little slower will help this and also give you more time to organise your thoughts. Every positive change you make will add to your confidence whilst diminishing the anxiety and this will help you achieve the results you are looking for. Like a lot of things in life once we know where to start and which techniques to use it really is possible to make positive and lasting changes very quickly. Yes, you really could be getting your message across clearly and confidently in just a few weeks.

If you would like to develop your confidence, your presentation and public speaking skills with the help of hypnosis and the power of your own mind please call me on 07970218451 or you can email to either book an appointment or to find out more.

I haven’t got time!

No Time

How often do you find yourself saying “I haven’t got time”? We all do it don’t we. Life and Success Coach Bob Proctor says “Everybody gets exactly the same amount of time and that’s all there is.” Time won’t change but we can “make time.” If we wait for another year we won’t have a minute more or a minute less.

If you would like to know how my unique and empowering hypnotherapy and EFT techniques can help you reorganise your life and personal confidence just call me on 07970218451 or email and I will be very happy to chat through whatever issues you would like to work on.

How to really lose weight

Weight Loss

I have been seeing more and more clients for weight loss in the past few months and in many cases I get good results in one or two sessions. If one is eating too many calories through old messages such as “clean your plate” or “there are starving people out there” it is usually fairly simple to change these types of patterns in our thinking.

However, as I mention on my website, eating disorders, whether bingeing, overeating, or anorexic behaviours generally have little to do with food and all to do with a desperate need to numb one’s emotions. The frightening emotions that are buried in the psyche may be just too painful to bring to consciousness so there needs to be some way of avoiding having to think about them. A part of you will then look for a behaviour that helps keep these feelings at bay. Clients can often feel worried that hypnosis will “make” them open up with all sorts of information that they are either not aware of or would rather keep to themselves. But our unconscious mind is there to protect us and is programmed to keep this sort of information safely where it is until we are mentally and emotionally ready to deal with it. What is more, an experienced therapist will only move at the rate a client feels safe and comfortable with.

Letting go of these unresolved feelings is so often key to reprogramming our relationship with food but there are many techniques at the therapist’s disposal that will allow this to be done in a safe and comfortable way, allowing the client to move at their own speed and within their own comfort zone.

If you find yourself forever “yoyo” dieting, repeating the same destructive patterns or eating to make yourself “feel better” then finding out how you can really resolve the issues behind the actions will most likely be the key to turning your life around.

Drugs and depression

Drugs and depression

When I first meet a client I always want to know if they are on any medication or seeing a doctor for their presenting issue. This is especially important for more serious mental health issues and for any physical issues that may be related to how they feel. For certain problems long term medication may well be the best answer and as far as I am concerned that is to be left to my client and their doctor. But even then some form of talking therapy is likely to be of benefit in many cases alongside any drugs.

However in a lot of cases taking drugs long term is never going to solve the underlying issues of why a person has feelings or behavior patterns that they would rather be without. I subscribe to regular newsletters from Dr Mercola in America and they always make very interesting and entertaining reading. This article  from Dr Mercola talks about how he feels that there is an over medicating in America of people suffering from depression and also has a lot of questions concerning statistics and information we are given about certain medications. Since we are often never far behind America this article is well worth a read.

Although there seems still to be a prevalent view that depression is something that one perhaps just has to live with or at best may take years to overcome in my experience that is not always the case and I have first hand experience, as have many of my colleagues, of being able to help clients make significant changes in their emotional well being in as little as just a few sessions.

Also as an update to the above this is a recent article on the BBC (health) website  by Dr Joanna Moncrieff where she talks about how putting patients on medication for psychological issues can be just a case of putting them into a “drug induced state” without ever addressing the real issues behind the problem just as Dr Mercola’s article does.

Better Breathing Tips

Better Breathing Tips

Improved breathing technique is something that I incorporate a great deal into sessions especially when dealing with anxiety and stress. There are many different breathing techniques one can use but the first thing to learn is abdominal breathing. Nine out of ten times if I ask a client to take a few deep breaths the shoulders will immediately rise and the abdomen, instead of filling outwards with air and releasing back on the out breath, will remain static. My favourite technique is alternate nostril breathing.

If you want to help bring stress levels down breathing is the perfect place to start.

Alcohol and Hypnosis

Alcohol Addiction

Problems with alcohol, social and physical, are rarely out of the news these days and I find myself seeing more and more clients who are trying to get their lives back on track before it is too late. The success that I have had over the years has proved to me that hypnosis is a very powerful intervention that really helps clients get control back in their lives. A recent article in The Times helps support my experience so if you or someone you know needs help in this area it is well worth a read.