Stress.

It’s such a small word.

Six little letters, and three of those are the same.

And yet, it’s one of the biggest issues faced by people across the globe.

Too much stress can lead to a whole host of physical, psychological, emotional and behavioral problems. Common symptoms include:

• Depression
• Mood swings
• Low self-esteem
• Problems with concentration
• Difficulty sleeping
• Feeling on edge
• Loss of sex drive
• Aches and pains
• Upset stomach
• Diarrhea
• Loss of energy
• Palpitations

And that’s just a few of them. Stress can also be a killer, leading to more serious conditions such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer.

Stress affects people in different ways. Some thrive on it, while others find it impossible to cope. For the latter, it wreaks havoc on their daily lives.

But the true cost of stress goes way beyond that.

In the UK, stress-related illness and absenteeism costs businesses tens of billions of pounds every year. In the US, it’s in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

Report after report says the same thing. For many people, their job is the number one stressor in their lives. Look at the figures relating to the American workplace:

• 80% of workers feel stress on the job
• 50% admit they need help to cope with stress
• 75% think work is more stressful than a generation ago

More people feel burned out from work than ever. And job stress is responsible for more health complaints than money or family problems.

If left unchecked, this stress won’t simply fade away. It can lead to severe anxiety. To panic. To situations that affect your personal life and your career prospects.

So the question is, what can you do to keep stress under control?

How Hypnotherapy Treats Stress & Anxiety

If stress is such a big deal, then why aren’t there more stress relief solutions in place?

It’s not just the job itself that’s stressful. These days, keeping a job can be hard enough all on its own. And if your job’s under threat, that makes matters even worse.

You’d think that businesses would have come up with a solution by now. After all, if stress drains billions out of the economy every year, you’d think they’d tackle it.

But they don’t. Instead of dealing with the underlying causes of stress, they address the symptoms.

And typically, the solutions fall into one of three categories:

1. Medication
2. Stress management sessions
3. Counseling services

You can see it happening. Someone takes time off work because they just can’t handle the stress. They go to their doctor, and what does the doctor do?

Gives them medication.

Or, perhaps the company offers stress management sessions on its own premises.

Medication will ease the symptoms, but only briefly. Once it wears off, more medication is needed. Keep on taking it and you’re likely to be unable to function without it.

Likewise, stress management courses will certainly help people address some of the issues. But how useful can they be? Can employees be honest about the stress they feel to someone who works for the company?

There may be merits to both approaches, but they won’t be effective in the long-term.

It’s like putting a band aid on a deep gash. You might not be able to see the wound, but it’ll keep on bleeding. It’ll keep on hurting.

And eventually, it’ll become infected.

That’s why hypnotherapy is such a powerful weapon against stress. Unlike medication, it’s entirely natural. There are no side-effects. You won’t get hooked on it.

Instead of covering it up, hypnotherapy gets at the root of the problem. It changes the way you respond to stress. It provides techniques to deal with the physical and emotional stressors in your life.

It puts you back in control.

How?

Hypnotherapy Reprograms Your Brain

Take the PCAT formula as an example.

This simple hypnotherapy device is a ready-made stress-busting technique. Here’s how it works:

P: Talk about the problem. Bring it out into the open. When that happens, the magic can take place.

As soon as you begin discussing a problem, the nerve cells in your brain switch on. They make connections, but they also start doing something else.

They start looking for a solution.

C: Bypass the critical conscious mind. Throw in some relaxation and mind bending language. This interrupts the thinking patterns. That’s important, because as long as you keep thinking in the same way, your situation isn’t going to change.

Doing and thinking the same things, day after day, gets you nowhere. To change that, you need to get to the unconscious mind. You need to bypass the critical conscious mind. And one way to do that is by relaxing and having hypnotic language “spin” your mind in a different direction.

A: Access the resources. Everyone has an abundance of  inner resources to deal with stress at the unconscious level. Find a way to tap into these resources.

A hypnotherapist will give you techniques to access those resources to cope with stress. Perhaps by helping you visualize doing things differently. Or finding new ways to react. Or reliving past experiences when you were better able to cope with stress. They’ll help you reframe, or look at what’s causing the stress in an entirely different way.

There are two things to take note of here:

1. Your brain is already trying to find the answers for you. As soon as the problem is brought into the open, the neurons start firing. They’re looking for solutions. They’re ready to do what they can to help.
2. The techniques used by the hypnotherapist will build or rekindle strong and positive emotions. When you see yourself doing things differently. Or when you remember times when stress was easy to handle.

These new resources will find their way from your unconscious to your conscious mind. And the next time you’re in a stressful situation, you’ll automatically know what to do to manage it more successfully.

T: Transform the problem. Once you’re aware of the possible solutions, you can take action. You can turn things around. You can tap into those positive emotions and make them work in your favor.

What do positive emotions do? They give you hope. They present possibilities. They put a new spin on your situation.

They open your mind, put things into perspective, and enable you to focus on the good points.

They give you the power to not only manage excess stress more efficiently, but to wipe it out of your life for good.

How Long Does It Take?

The thing about medication is that it’s a short-term fix.

It might calm you down. It might give you a crutch to get through tough times. But it won’t last.

Sooner or later, it’s going to wear off. And unfortunately, when it does, the problem will still be there.

Staring you in the face.

Making you edgy.

Tying your gut up in knots.

To make those sensations go away, you need more medication. Another dose. Another top-up. But who knows what the long-term effects of taking medication on a regular basis will be?

Is this kind of half-baked solution really worth the risks? The potential long-term damage to your health?

That’s another benefit of hypnotherapy. In many cases, it starts working after just one session. In an hour or two, you’ll already have systems in place. You’ll already feel better about the situation.

You won’t need to take any pills. You’ll be able to stop stress in its tracks, rather than simply covering it up.

On top of that, it’s completely natural. Your therapist will just talk to you and help instill suggestions into your unconscious.

No needles. No expensive or dangerous drugs.

Instead of a bottle of anti-depressants, you’ll get real support. You’ll learn techniques so you can recognize when stress is building up… and nip it in the bud.

Depending on how much stress you’re coping with, it might take a few sessions.

Even after a single session you’ll feel a tremendous weight lifted off your shoulders.

How is that possible?

Your therapist is trained to deal with your problem and how it affects you. It’s tailor-made to help you find ways to manage stress. Ways that suit you and your lifestyle.

Unlike medication, which is the same for everybody.

You get an objective and professional point of view. You get to talk about what’s bothering you without anyone else knowing. You get the freedom to let it all out.

Sometimes, that’s enough to clear the way for progress.

You’ve probably had the same thing happen. You’ve got something on your mind, something that’s worrying you, and you have to tell someone about it. You confide in a friend or partner, and what’s the result?

Just by listening, they give you the chance to unburden yourself. They might not offer you advice, but that’s not the point. You don’t need advice… you just need to be able to let it out.

Same thing with a hypnotherapist, except that instead of advice you get real techniques. You get practical solutions you can put to use straight away.

And you get back control of your health, your career and your life.