Sleep Well!

On 28th Feb, I was on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire along with my colleague, Jacqui Kemp.  We talked to Antonia Brickell about the physical and mental benefits of good sleep and some tips for achieving better sleep.  We were on the programme between 21:00 and 22:00 and it is available to listen to until 6 March at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00f2wfy .  It is a three hour programme so you need to wind forward 120 minutes. 

The benefits of sleep are more than just resting and gaining energy for the next day. Our normal sleep requirement is 7-9 hours per 24 hours. 

Sleep:

• keeps you heart healthy.  Lack of sleep has been associated with worsening of blood pressure and cholesterol, risk factors for heart disease and stroke;
• may help to prevent cancer. Have been found to have a higher risk of breast and colon cancer;
• reduces stress.  When your body is sleep deficient, it goes into a state of stress and the functions are put on high alert, increasing blood pressure and the production of stress hormones
• reduces inflammation.  The increase in stress hormones raises the level of inflammation in your body
• aids memory.  While your body is resting, your brain is active, processing your day, making connections between events, sensory input, feelings and memories.
• helps to control your weight.  It is thought that lack of sleep impacts the balance of hormones in the body that affect appetite.

In my next post I'll be giving you some top tips for a good night's sleep.

Pat

Emotions and Weight Loss

Gastric bands, both real and virtual, have been back in the media this week.  On Saturday (12^th February) the Times had a feature article about The Shirran programme through which the client is hypnotised to believe that they have had a gastric band installed.  The experience is so realistic that in the case reported the subject had an adverse reaction to the experience of the ‘operation’.

There are a number of hypnotherapists offering virtual gastric band procedures now.  The virtual approach has the advantage of being cheaper than the real thing and avoiding the risks associated with operations and anaesthetic.  What is important if you are thinking about this option is that the package includes some preparation beforehand to change your approach to food and eating.  If the treatment is to be effective in the long term, then you need to change the pattern of behaviour that led to the weight gain and consider the emotions that have been attached to eating and food.  Without this preparation subjects are likely to carry on eating in unhealthy ways – just less of it.

On Wednesday (16^th February) Woman’s Hour ran an item on what happens after weight loss.  “For some people there can be some unexpected outcomes such as divorce. Comfort eating can make way to brand-new addictions to shopping, drinking, even sex. A new study on worldwide obesity published in the Lancet this month has found that Britain now has the fattest women in mainland Europe. No surprise then that weight loss surgery is on the increase – between 2006 to 2010 the number of people having bariatric surgery almost tripled. But how much does its long-term success rely on psychology? Could the underlying emotional problems be harder to shed than the pounds?” (http://www.bbc.co.uk/)   

The discussion underlined the need to plan for the consequences of weight loss, in particular the emotional issues.  Emotional or comfort eating is characterised by coming on quickly and not being satisfied by food.  In fact, if you eat when you have an emotional need you often end up feeling sick and guilty about what you have eaten.  Hypnotherapy and NLP have a number of techniques for dealing effectively with this type of unmet emotional need and that means that you only need to eat when you are physically hungry and you can stop eating when your body is satisfied.

So whatever approach you take to weight loss, make sure that it includes some action to deal with the underlying causes of the weight gain so that the weight you lose is gone forever.

Pat

Good News for Hypnotherapists

I have recently been registered by the Complementary & Natural Healthcare Council (CNHC), the UK regulator for complementary healthcare.

The recognition places me at the forefront of a national drive to provide a benchmark for standards and safety for the public. Practitioners registered with the CNHC meet national occupational standards and abide by a rigorous code of conduct, performance and ethics.

Achieving registration is not only great news for me and my clients, but a vital step for hypnotherapy.  This is the time of year when many people are struggling to keep up their new year resolutions. The most popular uses for hypnotherapy are around stress and anxiety conditions, weight control and addictive behaviours such as smoking and alcohol abuse.

Hypnotherapy is one of 11 disciplines now recognised by the CNHC. Members of the public can search the CNHC register to find practitioners in their local area. More than 40,000 searches were carried out last year.

By providing a verification of standards, the CNHC allows GPs, hospitals, private healthcare providers and insurance companies to refer patients to hypnotherapy practitioners or to make hypnotherapy more readily available in health centres, clinics, doctors’ surgeries and hospitals.

If you would like more information, please contact pat@roystonhypnotherapy.co.uk

Holiday Heaven...or Hell?

Have you started thinking about your summer holiday yet?  Since Christmas, magazines and TV adverts have been full of images of places in the sun showing happy couples and families splashing about on beaches and enjoying exciting activities together.

For most people, their summer holiday is the highlight of the year and generates lots of happy memories to keep you going through the dark winter months.  But for some people it brings to the fore fears and phobias that they don’t have to face at other times.  There’s the obvious phobias like fear of flying and the less obvious like fear of heights, fear of water, fear of insects, fear of spiders and fear of snakes.  Any of these can limit your holiday options or put you off going anywhere at all!

So what can you do about it?  There are some simple techniques you can do to relieve the physical symptoms of phobias.  You can try breathing techniques eg 7/11 breathing where you make each out breath longer than each in breath to stimulate relaxation in your body.  Or you can try visualisation where you imagine yourself in the most relaxing safe place until the feelings of fear pass.

Hypnotherapy may also assist you.  Often just one or two sessions can relieve the uncomfortable physical symptoms.  Many hypnotherapists offer a free initial consultation so that you can discuss whether this type of therapy is suitable for you.

If you think hypnotherapy might be for you make sure that the therapist you choose is qualified and accredited to a recognised organisation (eg NCH or CNHC), is happy to explain the procedures to you and answer your questions and gives you a clear indication of cost.

Bon voyage!

Pat

http://www.roystonhypnotherapy.co.uk/