• Do you want to quit smoking?
• Would you like help losing weight?
• Would you like to be able to relax more quickly and easily?
• Would you like to have more self-confidence?
• Do you have low self-esteem?
• Would you like to improve your ability to study and pass exams?
• Do you have a fear or phobia you would like to overcome?
• Do you want help managing your symptoms of IBS?

"There is no pleasure in life equal to that of the conquest of a vicious habit." Anonymous

Stop smoking with hypnosis – the fast and effective way to quit!

About a quarter of the population in the UK smoke and it is therefore one of the biggest causes of death and illness - figures show that approximately 114,000 people in the UK die from smoking related diseases every year. Smoking not only affects the health of the individual who smokes, but the health of anyone else who breaths in the smoke around them (known as passive smoking).

About 70% of smokers say they want to quit but don’t believe they are able to. However, around 50% of all smokers do eventually manage to stop once they actually give it a go.

There are many reasons why people smoke and some of the most common ones are peer pressure, boredom, self expression, stress and other emotional issues. Whatever the reason for starting, there are many more reasons to quit! These include the obvious physical reasons for health however there are also many social, emotional and financial reasons.

Download my quit smoking factsheet to help get you started on your journey to becoming a non-smoker for good.

With the wide publicity smoking has, the good news is there is a lot of help available out there to help you stop for good. Some people may find different techniques work differently for them so it’s simply a case of finding the best one for you. If you would like to find out how hypnotherapy could help YOU quit, please pick up the phone or email me and take the first step to becoming a non-smoker for good.

"The moment you commit yourself is the moment your goal is assured."

Everyone knows that a healthy diet and plenty of exercise is recommended for a healthy lifestyle. However if you’ve tried every diet available and have found they simply don’t work for you, it may be because diets do not address the root cause of why individuals overeat. Research shows that over half of us have dieted at some time in our lives and at any one time, as many as a third of us are on a diet. The truth is, however, for many people dieting on its own doesn’t seem to work.

Signs of overeating:

• Eating so fast you do not really taste the flavours in the food or notice your body signalling that it is full.
• Always eating everything on your plate even if you are full
• Eating when you are bored or lonely
• Eating when you are upset or miserable
• Eating to reward yourself
• Eating to protect yourself or to create a barrier
• Comfort eating to fulfil an emotional need

How can hypnotherapy help with weight loss?

Hypnotherapy can help you identify if there was an emotional event(s) that caused your attitude to food to develop. Accessing the subconscious mind can lead to the underlying root cause, and once this has been recognised it can often be dealt with. Hypnotherapy can help to create different attitudes towards food and allow new eating habits to be developed. You can gain back control of how much you eat.

Hypnotherapy can help YOU to:

• Learn to be more relaxed about how to manage your weight
• Develop a new self-image
• Begin to think positively about weight and diets

Call or email me to find out how hypnotherapy can help you on your weight loss journey.

"There is nothing as remarkable as learning how to think better." Anonymous

The word ‘stress’ usually brings with it negative connotations, however some stress can be a good thing. It keeps us alert and warns us of impending danger. Stress enables us to perform at our peak, because all our senses are totally engaged. This starts to become a problem if we find that we are constantly on red alert. An indication that this is happening is when we go for a massage and are told that we have 'bricks' in our shoulders – we often react to stress by automatically tensing our body. Think about some of the expressions we use to describe how we are feeling in stressful situations… 'pain in the neck', 'doing my head in' etc. Said often enough and with enough intensity our bodies internalise those reactions and feelings.

Over time stress builds up and can affect the way we function. Humour, temper, moods, irritability, libido, concentration can all become affected by an excess of stress. This in turn interferes with the quality of our sleep, home life, health and well-being.

Learning to watch out for when we are starting to be adversely affected by stress is a positive step to take. It is a way of looking after ourselves and protecting our quality of life. Hypnotherapy can teach clients about their own personal traffic light signals. The green light is good, it means that everything is in control and is being managed well. The red light is when everything is coming to a standstill, we are not functioning, everything feels too much effort, we may feel unwell, or feel depressed and negative about much in our life.

The amber light is the one to use as important feedback. This is the one to learn to recognise in ourselves as it warns us when we need to start taking better care of ourselves because things are starting to become a problem. Everyone has their own personal amber lights. The warning signal maybe when concentration starts to drift, or sleeping patterns become more restless. It maybe that we lose our sense of humour or our mood becomes more irritable. Learning to recognise your own signals tells us that it is time to take back control and intervene before things start to build up.

Hypnotherapy can be extremely effective for managing stress - by altering our reaction to a particular situation during hypnosis to a more positive one, the feelings about that situation can also become more positive. When we then experience those situations in real life, our reactions will often be very different.

Pick up the phone or email me today to find out how hypnotherapy can help YOU manage stress and relax more easily - Look after yourself, plan your life and take back control and you will keep those lights away from the red zone.

"Impossibilities are merely things which we have not yet learned." Charles W. Chesnutt

Having high levels of self-confidence can have huge benefits for all areas of life including your relationships, career, social life and state of mind. Many people who lack self-confidence aspire to be more confident and the good news is that self-confidence is a skill which can often be developed rather than something we are ‘given’.

The first step in building confidence is to acknowledge the current level of self-confidence and the cause of low self-confidence, and then find ways to build upon this until confidence becomes a deeply ingrained quality.

Hypnotherapy seeks to determine the root cause of the low self-confidence and then find ways to resolve it and often has high success rates for helping those suffering from low self-confidence. Hypnosis can reach the unconscious mind and modify belief systems, and replace negative thought patterns with positive ones. This can boost self-confidence and completely change your life.

Pick up the phone or email me today to find out how hypnotherapy can help YOU unlock that inner self-confidence.

"We can change our lives. We can do, have, and be exactly what we wish." Tony Robbins

A common assumption is that self-esteem and self-confidence are the same things. However, although self-confidence is related to self-esteem, they are not the same. Self-confident people may also suffer from low self-esteem, and this can be seen by the vast number of actors, celebrities and public figures who appear to be overflowing with self-confidence, yet totally lack self-esteem when away from the public eye.

Unfortunately low self-esteem is extremely common in today’s society and individuals can often struggle to find their sense of worth in the world. Many of us can suffer from a lack of self-esteem at some point in our lives, for example if you lose a job; however many also experience episodes of high self-esteem, for example if we achieve a goal or complete a challenge. The most important part is being able to bounce back from low levels of self-esteem.

Taking care of our physical bodies (good diet, exercise and reducing stress) and also engaging in creative activities (dancing, listening to music) are all fantastic ways to help boost self-esteem and feel good about ourselves, however sometimes we need a little assistance. Hypnotherapy can be extremely useful in helping discover any root cause of low self-esteem and use the power of suggestion to reprogramme your beliefs and overcome negative thinking.

We all deserve to like ourselves and be happy – Pick up the phone or email me today to find out how hypnotherapy can help YOU unlock your own potential.

"Without inspiration the best powers of the mind remain dormant. There is a fuel in us which needs to be ignited with sparks." Johann Gottfried Von Herder

Nerves can affect anyone, no matter how clever they are or how much they’ve prepared. Many of us will be able to recall how nerve-racking it can be to take an exam or give an important presentation at work. Butterflies in our stomach, sweaty palms, a racing heart and panicking that we won’t be able to remember anything are all common feelings we’ve all experienced at some time. Feeling nervous is a natural emotion and for lots of people these feelings actually help to motivate them and focus their minds. However if these feelings become intense they can threaten our performance and even cause us to achieve below our true potential.

When nerves become out of control they can cause anxiety attacks and stress, creating a vicious circle leading to more intense nerves. Over the long term, this can have a negative impact on our subconscious mind.

Help is at hand... hypnotherapy can be used to:

• Increase confidence
• Increase motivation
• Learn how to control anxiety
• Increase memory and concentration
• Encourage ability to focus
• Overcome fear of failure
• Learn how to relax

Feeling calm, relaxed and focused when you are studying, sitting an exam or when you are about to stand up in front of a crowd to give a presentation, means you will be much more likely to achieve your full potential and perform at your best.

So if you have an exam, test or even an important presentation coming up, contact me to arrange a hypnotherapy session to ensure you are fully prepared.

"The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." Confucius

Fear is a natural response caused by real danger. For example, we are all scared of coming face to face with a wild, hungry animal, and fear is a survival instinct which warns us against certain things or situations. A phobia, on the other hand, is an irrational fear of an object or situation that causes little or no danger. Phobias are linked to our subconscious, and because they are irrational, they can often be dealt with effectively using hypnosis.

Phobias are actually extremely common and range from the less well-known i.e. asymmetriphobia (fear of asymmetrical things) to the more commonly recognised dentophobia (fear of dentists) or trypanophobia (fear of injections). If you have a phobia, you will usually show strong avoidance behaviour connected with the phobia, and feelings of anxiety, loss of control and panic. Sufferers usually know their fear is irrational, but they cannot control it.

Hypnotherapy works by helping first identify if there is a root cause of the phobia (for example a traumatic experience as a child) and dealing with this. It can also help with relaxation and visualisation techniques for desensitisation, enabling you to become more calm and relaxed.

If you have a phobia you would like to overcome, pick up the phone or email me so we can discuss how I can help you overcome your fears.

Anyone suffering from Irritable Bowel Syndrome may feel at times they are perhaps the only person they know who experiences this often distressing and embarrassing condition. However it is actually a very common disorder affecting up to 15% of the population at any one time. In severe cases IBS can have a crippling effect on someone's life, leaving people in constant discomfort and can cause severe pain and bloating which can also prevent them from working or socialising normally.

As IBS is regarded as a medical condition, if you are currently suffering from (or if you suspect you have IBS symptoms) it is important to consult your doctor first for information, advice and a diagnosis. Doctors will often recommend making changes to your diet as there are a number of foods such as wheat, gluten and dairy which have been shown to exacerbate the symptoms. Finding an effective treatment however can be difficult and for many people however just making changes to their diet does not provide any significant or long term relief.

To date, there is unfortunately no proven medical (or otherwise) cure for IBS, however over the past few years, hypnotherapy has provided many IBS sufferers with relief from the discomfort of cramps and stomach pains and begins to give the sufferer a sense of control over the condition.

Stress and anxiety are believed to be significant triggers for the development of IBS and therefore hypnotherapy for IBS mainly involves using relaxation exercises and using visualisations to help calm the internal and emotional responses and also help develop a greater sense of personal control.

At Christy Hypnotherapy I work with clients to address individual needs, as IBS can affect people in many different ways. IBS is a complex condition which requires a compassionate and confidential approach. Before the hypnotherapy begins every part of the client’s life will be assessed and a personalised treatment plan will then be discussed and put in place. The overall aim is to reduce stress and help the client to change their lives for the better.

If you would like to find out more about how hypnotherapy may be able to help you manage IBS, please either email Christy@christyhypnotherapy.com or call me today 07527 576245 for a consultation.