29 July 2016: Anxiety can have a tremendous impact on people's lives. It can restrict you from doing things, trying out new experiences and sometimes even from going about normal daily activities. All this because you want to avoid feeling anxious and escape from aggravating experiences.

Anxiety is essentially the worry about a potential threat – or about a variety of potential threats. It is the futile attempt to cope with something that might lie in the future and that you think will be negative. You therefore are on the look out for possible signs of those potential threats and you try to judge if you will be able to cope with them. Whilst focusing on your internal experiences you notice the psychological and physiological symptoms of anxiety and take these as signs that you won't be able to cope – which in turn makes you even more anxious. That's the vicious cycle or better: spiral of anxiety.

Avoidance and safety behaviours make it even worse, as they contribute to your judgement that you will not be able to cope.

Cognitive behavioural hypnotherapy can help you reverse this process by turning it into a positive cycle of overcoming your anxiety. It works by gradually, step-by-step, confront your anxiety. Hypnosis is a safe place to do this in and to work through more and more difficult situations. It will vastly improve your sense of confidence and help you to work your way up, handling increasingly challenging things.

Relaxation and breathing techniques are also part of the treatment, which can greatly help with your progress as they have a direct impact on the physiological symptoms of anxiety.

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