Anxiety and your well-being: What about it?

Did you know that as many as 4 in 10 Dutch people suffer from anxiety and depression[1]? That's almost half!? And that ultimately not only has a big impact on your own life. It also has an impact on society in general.

In fact, if you look at the total cost, we spend more than half a billion euros a year on anxiety, compulsive and stress disorders[2]. Wouldn't it be super if we didn't have to do that anymore?

In fact, anxiety disorders rank second in the Netherlands as a reason why someone is not fully fit for work! How crazy is that!

Thereby, people with anxiety disorders also require a lot of care (logical, after all, you want to live without anxiety).

If anxiety disorders are reduced by 1%, each percent reduction generates 10 million euros for society[3].

After all, people who were too anxious to work can return to work and there is less demand for care. Win win.

The study showing these figures also included only five anxiety problems, namely:

1. Generalized anxiety disorder
2. Social phobia
3. Agoraphobia
4. Panic Disorder
5. Obsessive-compulsive disorder and related disorders

That's not to mention all the types of fears people can have.

(And believe me, there are a lot of them and they can have an unexpectedly large impact on someone's life)

Amsterdam-based researchers are also concerned because increasingly younger people are suffering from anxiety, which is inconvenient in relation to their social development and well-being in the rest of in their lives.

But even if you are older you would prefer not to suffer from anxiety. Dutch research involving more than 600 people aged between 55 and 85 found that people in this age group who suffered from anxiety felt less well and suffered more from limitations[4]. So it is also good for your vitality to overcome your mental ghosts even at a later age.

This is also in line with other studies in the effect of anxiety on twins. In these, people were compared to their twins who did not suffer from anxiety. In fact, anxiety affects many more parts of your life than just your emotions.

Namely also:

1. Pain in your body.
2. Fatigue.
3. Having a sedentary lifestyle.
4. Diminished social capacity.
5. Reduced participation in group activities[5].

The annoying thing is, that very social support is something that can protect you from the negative effects of anxiety. But if all that is thus diminished, then that doesn't help you much either[6].

So anxiety is incredibly bad for your well-being, at any age.

So reason enough to do something about your fears at any point in your life.

Fortunately, there are also factors to help you guard against anxiety, namely:

1. Your mood (positive then).
2. Resilience.
3. And your sense of accomplishment[7].

And that, in turn, gives a hypnotherapist good tools to help people move forward.

Hypnosis and anxiety

You have all kinds of fears, and for all of them, hypnotherapy can be helpful. The most well-known type where hypnosis helps with anxiety is fear of the dentist.

Dentists who specialize in helping people with this particular anxiety often know hypnosis techniques and suggestions that help people still remain calm during the appointment[8].

Years ago, I even posted a video online about hypnosis for dental anxiety (I looked very different then than I do now 😉 ).

But for those greater fears, for which society pays more than half a billion (!) a year, hypnosis can also be incredibly useful.

Cognitive hypnotherapy, for example, is as effective against many anxiety disorders as behavioral therapy[9]. As early as 2012, researchers indicated that hypnosis may receive additional research in this regard as an alternative to expensive therapies.

Other studies also indicate that people with anxiety disorders in particular often need individualized treatment tailored to them, and hypnotherapy is now ideal for that[10].

Hypnosis instead of medication

A small study also compared the effectiveness of weekly hypnotherapy with a dose of alprazolam for anxiety disorders. This showed that people who followed hypnotherapy properly benefited from it as much as those who received medication for their stress and anxiety[11].

All without the side effects that medication can give. How cool is that!

So how does that treat anxiety with hypnosis?

All those numbers are all well and good, but how does it work in practice? In any case, it's good to know that there are an awful lot of fears and that everyone who suffers from them has their own unique cause for this.

The great thing about hypnotherapy is that a hypnotherapist can help you identify that unique cause. For example, this is often done with regression. Then you go back in your mind to the moment when you were first very afraid.

Depending on this moment, a hypnotherapist can again use a variety of other techniques to help you make sense of this moment in your life, so that you no longer suffer from the anxiety.

Chances are you can even have a little laugh at the moment that was so frightening for you.

Of course, that sounds very crazy when you read it like that now.

But with hypnosis, truly an awful lot is possible.

To introduce you to this, you can join the free Halloween Break Free Challenge.

This challenge begins on Halloween and gives you some beginning steps you can take to overcome your mental ghosts, your fears.

Click here to sign up for the free challenge.

Want to learn more about hypnosis and how to help people with it?

Come to one of our events or register for our training.

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