How to Let go of Fear

Fear is part of our survival instinct; it sets our body and mind in motion in preparation for a perceived threat.  It’s hard wired into the sub conscious and is one of our oldest emotions; sometimes generated without any conscious awareness.  We feel uneasy, yet don't know why.  It makes us jump when something moves on the ground or touches us, makes us blink when something is coming towards our eyes.  We respond due to sensory input driving us into action.

Fear makes you focus.  There’s a moment of awareness, with our unconscious telling us something isn't right, and as we sense "something" we freeze.  This freezing may stop predators from seeing us it also gives us a chance to evaluate the situation and if it is OK we continue - returning to what we were doing.

Fear is all about chemicals, epinephrine and norepinephrine; epinephrine (adrenaline) is secreted by the adrenal glands.  These chemicals are released in moments of fear to prepare us for the fight or flight response; and changes occur to improve chances of survival.  As well as increased strength an increase in oxygen increases sensory acuity whilst non-survival process like digestion are put on hold.

Fears and phobias are extreme anxieties.  As we go through life we learn a great many things by experience, things we are not even aware of.  An unconscious learning, fear is one of these experiences and is a demonstration of how quickly we learn an automatic response.

From one experience the mind can generalize and attach fear.  Then the flight or fight response kicks in.  Your imagination is far more powerful than conscious will and the area of the brain that you use to imagine something is the same area that is used when experiencing things.  Which is why your nervous system can’t tell the difference between a real or vividly imagined experience.

For an event to be coded as traumatic its said that four conditions need to be met.  First it needs to be a emotional event; second, have a meaning for the individual; third, the chemicals need to be in place and fourth the experience is perceived as inescapable.  If these are present it is possible that the brain will categorize the event as traumatic.

And yet there could be 2 people at the same event and one will be traumatized whilst the other will not.  How can this happen?

Life is full of traumatic moments, in order for an event to be traumatizing it must produce an emotional response.  Meaning is attached to the event, and whereby one person may code something as traumatic another may not.  A good example of this is those who are afraid of riding on roller coasters, they produce the four conditions in their mind and they know its scary and dangerous; whereas someone who loves roller coasters will have all the same conditions in place yet they love the thrill of the ride.

Our feelings are created by the way in which we think of something; for example someone scared of spiders may be creating an image in their mind of a larger than life spider which is scaring them.  Our fears may have begun due to specific event in our lives but these tend to evolve to a point whereby it’s the thought of the event/situation that causes the feeling rather than the situation/event itself.

There are a number of ways in which you can change the you feel one of these is; as you notice a feeling of anxiety/panic begin

1.       Breath in gently and slowly through your mouth when your lungs are full hold your breath for 10 seconds then

2.       Breath out slowly through your nose

3.      Breath in slowly through your mouth and hold your breath for 5 seconds

4.      Breath out slowly through your nose

5.      Continue breathing this way for a couple of minutes at which point the anxiety will have subsided.

Tina Taylor’s new CD How to Let go of Fear can teach you ways in which you can change your response’s and take back control of your thought processes.

www.tina-taylor.com

Hypnosis for Pain Control

For centuries hypnosis has been viewed as a magical cure-all, and has had a history of acceptance and rejection by the medical profession for over 200 years.  Countless numbers of people have used hypnosis with great success; and it has been put under the microscope and reviewed many times over.

Just a few years ago it was said that hypnosis was bad and didn’t exist!  Whilst at the same time Dr’s of Psychology were achieving amazing results utilizing hypnosis techniques.

Going back just a couple of hundred years we have documented evidence from Friederich Anton Mesmer; who in the 18^th Century, believed Mesmerism would hinder the development of disease and had success in curing various illnesses as well as helping people with pain control. 

Then in 1834 an English surgeon John Elliotson used hypnosis for pain control and reported back to the British Medical Association at that time on his success in the numerous operations he performed.  He said that these were done painlessly using mesmerism.

And in England around 1846, another surgeon James Braid revisited the phenomenon of Mesmerism and renamed it hypnosis, after the Greek god of sleep, Hypnos.  He was the first person to attribute the phenomenon to psychological rather than physical variables and his findings brought a renewed interest in the subject.  He documented over 345 major operations performed successfully and painlessly using hypnosis as the sole anesthetic. 

Yet more research was completed in 1990, from the various trails undertaken The American Psychology Association came to the conclusion that hypnosis had a similar effect as the placebo effect; that the subjects beliefs that the hypnotic suggestions can reduce pain had the effect of reducing pain.

Here in the UK, as in other countries across the globe, operations have been completed in modern hospitals using hypnosis for pain control.  In July 2008 it was reported in the Daily Telegraph that “Bernadine Coady aged 67 was wide awake for a one-hour operation, which is usually performed under a general anaesthetic.  Mrs Coady hypnotised herself before the "keyhole" surgery, an arthroscopy, in which a surgeon drills into a patients knee and inserts a camera to look for possible causes of pain.  She went home the same day "looking very happy", according to a spokesman for the private Orthopaedics and Spine Specialist Hospital, in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire”.

The management of pain using hypnosis is in a strange position. Although hypnosis has been shown to be effective in many cases, it still tends to be overlooked.  Regardless of the various conclusions made over time, hypnosis has been shown to be a useful tool for pain management in many situations with some articles suggesting that hypnosis is one of the great misunderstood treatments of our time. It has been shown to be an effective, safe, and inexpensive way in which patients can deal with pain; and is the perfect pain control for many procedures ranging from kidney stone fragmentation to minor surgery to childbirth it has proved an effective alternative to conventional sedatives and analgesics.

I have been teaching women how to use hypnosis for painless childbirth now for over a decade; my strategy for this has been well documented in my book Painless Childbirth.  These strategies used to help women have their babies more comfortably can be learnt and used to control pain in any situation.

On 17 & 18 November I will be teaching my strategies for Pain Control for The UK Company check out  https://theukcompany.infusionsoft.com/go/PCBB/t317t/ for details.

www.tina-taylor.com

FERTILITY ISSUES


Today fertility is a huge issue; women come to a stage in their lives where they decide its time to have a child; then find out that the one thing that for so many years they tried to prevent is much more difficult than anticipated. Women from all walks of life from the rich and famous to those who have sacrificed a lot to pay for treatment.

In the pursuit of a baby, some women spend their time living with anxiety, creating so much stress as they wait each month to see if its happened yet. Whilst waiting some turn to alcohol. Many not realising that alcohol can actually lower fertility levels as it’s a hormone disruptor.

Others create a strict regime of diet, exercise, no alcohol and lots of supplements. Creating a different kind of stress, as they regiment their lives. Insisting on having sex on baby days, on the days they are ovulating, some even forgetting about their loved ones. Lost in project baby, peeing on sticks and insisting husbands and partners come home as its time.

You may be consciously saying yes to having a baby and yet fail to get pregnant, this may be due to your mind saying no deep down. Emotions can affect the delicately balanced hormonal system, which in turn controls ovulation, spermatogenesis and pregnancy.

To develop the perspective needed to conceive you need to view yourself as a fertile person. Many have been conditioned to looking outside ourselves for healing rather than how we can help ourselves. Drugs and surgery may be necessary but an over reliance on them has led us to stop trusting the wisdom of our bodies, our instincts. Using all the resources available to you to achieve you goal.

Instead of only having sex on baby days, have sex throughout the month. Regular sex is thought to create fresher sperm with fewer abnormalities. I think that ovulation sticks are a mixed blessing; I’ve seen people’s sex lives radically change as they only have sex a couple of days a month. So forget about peeing on sticks and make love whenever and as often as you desire to.

Positivity makes all the difference, we’re just beginning to understand the power of the mind. The work Bruce Lipton is doing working with how our beliefs can change our DNA will I am sure become more readily known and used in the future. Use positive visualisation, stop worrying about becoming pregnant and focus; visualise your eggs being fertilised and developing inside you into a wonderful healthy baby

Last year one of my clients conceived at age 45. She was refused IVF due to the fact that her FSH levels were too high; and there were other health issues whereby they said she would never conceive naturally. She never gave up believing in herself and the fact that she would be a mum one day. She is today the mum of a very health normal baby girl.

www.tina-taylor.com

Stop Worrying or You'll Make Yourself Ill

Whilst I’ve been posting links regarding PNI (Psychoneuroimmunology) lots of people have been asking about it, mainly asking me what is, whilst some are wondering where it came from.

The name was thought up by Dr. Robert Ader, an experimental psychologist who conducted some of the original experiments in the field he named himself, psychoneuroimmunology.

His research begun in the 1970s and became the foundation for studies that have since mapped out the communications network among immune cells, hormones and neurotransmitters. He introduced a field of study that proved the science behind a notion that was once considered balmy:

 that meditation helps reduce arterial plaque;
 social bonds improve cancer survival;
 people under stress catch more colds; and
 that placebos work not only on the human mind but also human cells.

At the core of Dr. Ader’s research was an insight that was already obvious to any grandmother who had ever said, “Stop worrying or you’ll make yourself ill.” He managed to demonstrate scientifically that stress worsens illness and can trigger it; and that reducing stress is essential to good health.

That idea, now widely accepted among the medical profession, contradicted the previous principle of biochemistry, which said that the immune system was autonomous. In fact in 1985, the idea of a connection between the brain and the immune system was dismissed in an editorial in The New England Journal of Medicine as “folklore.”

And today there is not a physician in the country who does not accept the science Bob Ader set in motion, PNI - the study of how the nervous system affects the endocrine system which in turn affects the body.

PNI Two Day Course at Kingston upon Thames, London
www.aventesi.com for details

Fears and Anxieties

Fear is part of our survival instinct, it sets our body and mind in motion in preparation for a perceived threat. Its hard wired into the sub conscious and is one of our oldest emotions; sometimes generated without any conscious awareness. We feel uneasy, yet don't know why. It makes us jump when something moves on the ground or touches us, makes us blink when something is coming towards our eyes. We respond due to sensory input driving us into action.

Fear makes you focus. There’s a moment of awareness, with our unconscious telling us something isn't right, and as we sense "something" we freeze. This freezing may stop predators from seeing us it also gives us a chance to evaluate the situation and if it is OK we continue - returning to what we were doing.

When in danger, the full flight mode signal is sent from the mind to the body; muscles become stronger and the heart beats faster, pupils dilate so we can see better as we think about our escape.

Then there is the moment of panic, when some people are overwhelmed with feelings with no direction or purpose, scared without knowing what to do or where to go. Heart beating faster, muscles stronger but unable to use our mind to plan a course of action.

Fear is all about chemicals, epinephrine and norepinephrine; epinephrine (adrenaline) is secreted by the adrenal glands. These chemicals are released in moments of fear to prepare us for the fight or flight response; and changes occur to improve chances of survival. As well as increased strength an increase in oxygen increases sensory acuity whilst non-survival process like digestion are put on hold.

Fears and phobias are extreme anxieties. As we go through life we learn a great many things by experience, things we are not even aware of. An unconscious learning, fear is one of these experiences and is a demonstration of how quickly we learn an automatic response.

From one experience the mind can generalise and attach fear. Then the flight or fight response kicks in. Your imagination is far more powerful than conscious will and the area of the brain that you use to imagine something is the same area that is used when experiencing things. Which is why your nervous system can’t tell the difference between a real or vividly imagined experience.

For an event to be coded as traumatic its said that four conditions need to be met. First it needs to be a emotional event; second, have a meaning for the individual; third, the chemicals need to be in place and fourth the experience is perceived as inescapable. If these are present it is possible that the brain will categorise the event as traumatic.

And yet there could be 2 people at the same event and one will be traumatised whilst the other will not. How can this happen?

Life is full of traumatic moments, in order for an event to be traumatising it must produce an emotional response. Meaning is attached to the event, and whereby one person may code something as traumatic another may not. A good example of this is those who are afraid of riding on roller coasters, they produce the four conditions in their mind and they know its scary and dangerous; whereas someone who loves roller coasters will have all the same conditions in place yet they love the thrill of the ride.

When afraid we panic, a panic attack is a sudden attack of terror usually accompanied by a pounding heart, feeling week, faint or dizzy. During these attacks people may also feel flushed or cold possibly becoming short of breath; some people experience chest pain and feel they are going to die.

People have looked for ways in which to help people overcome their fears and phobias for many many years. We have tried many different approaches from flooding (a rather extreme way of feeling the fear and doing it any way), desensitisation, Hypnosis, NLP, CBT, EMDR, TFT (or EFT a version of TFT) to name but a few.

The majority of my clients need help overcoming fears and anxieties, from the OCD who has numerous rituals to help them cope with their fears, to the bulimic who uses food to cope with theirs, to the business man who needs help making a presentation and the people who just want to be able to get on a plane. Fear seems to be present in a lot of peoples lives.

Steve Crabb and I have for many years successfully helped people overcome fears, phobias and anxieties. On February 25 & 26 at Kingston University we will be sharing our strategies with you.

Check out www.aventesi.com or call Sarah on 02085403366 for more details or to book your place.