Do you feel overwhelmed and unable to cope with everything coming at you? Stress is an increasingly common feature of 21st century life - but there are solutions...

Ellen was a busy mum with a part-time job who was training for an additional qualification. She had high expectations of herself and took it for granted that she could go to work, ferry the children to activities, shop, cook, organize the house, help with homework, and still manage to complete assignments for her course on time. But after 6 months of this routine she was feeling edgy, resentful and having trouble sleeping, despite being extremely tired. Close to tears, she confided she felt a failure, and was thinking of giving up her course as she “obviously wasn’t up to it”.

It’s a familiar story – perhaps you recognise it? Ellen had taken on more than it was possible to cope with, but instead of asking for help or reducing the burden she pushed herself to do more. Stress can be experienced in many ways - as tension, anxiety or panic, or feeling overwhelmed, exhausted and irritable. Unrecognised it eats away at self-esteem, leads to unhelpful habits such as comfort eating, and can affect your health.

So what can you do? First, you need to see your life from a different perspective, and identify the underlying assumptions that put you under pressure – such as “I’m a failure if I can’t cope with everything.” Second, you need to make time for yourself and learn to relax. Cognitive hypnotherapy uses CBT techniques to help you change distorted thinking, and hypnosis to achieve deep levels of relaxation, accompanied by suggestions to increase feelings of confidence.

Effectiveness of Hypnosis in Reducing Mild Essential Hypertension: A 1-Year Follow-up
Marie-Claire Gay

Abstract: The present study investigates the effectiveness of hypnosis in reducing mild essential hypertension. Thirty participants were randomly assigned to hypnosis (standardized, individual 8-session hypnosis treatment) or to a control group (no treatment). Results show that hypnosis is effective in reducing blood pressure in the short term but also in the middle and long terms. We did not find any relationship between the practice of self-hypnosis and the evolution of blood pressure or between anxiety, personality factors, and therapeutic results. The implications of the results of the psychological treatment of hypertension are discussed.