Smoking is the biggest culprit, causing 23% of cases in men and 15.6% in women, says the Cancer Research UK report.

This is followed in men by a lack of fresh fruit and vegetables in the diets, and in women it is being overweight.

Lead author of the report published in the British Journal of Cancer, Prof Max Parkin said, “Many people believe cancer is down to fate or ‘in the genes’ and that it is the luck of the draw whether they get it.”

“Looking at all the evidence, it’s clear that around 40% of all cancers are caused by things we mostly have the power to change.”

“We didn’t expect to find that eating fruit and vegetables would prove to be so important in protecting men against cancer”

Today (14th May 2012) a poll suggests that just one in five of us in the UK eats the recommended five portions of fruit and vegetables a day, a poll for World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) suggests.

The WCRF says its survey of more than 2,000 UK adults shows people still find achieving the five-a-day goal difficult to achieve.

It is urging people to eat “just one more portion” for a healthier diet, which would increase cancer protection.

The sex split

For men, the best bet would be to stop smoking, eat more fruit and veg and cut down on how much alcohol you drink.

For women, it would be to stop smoking, but also watch your weight.

Prof Parkin said: “We didn’t expect to find that eating fruit and vegetables would prove to be so important in protecting men against cancer. And among women we didn’t expect being overweight to be more of a risk factor than alcohol.”

In total the report showed 14 lifestyle and environmental factors, even things such as where you live and where you work.  All together they are thought to cause 134,000 cancers in the UK each year.

About 100,000 (34%) of the cancers are linked to four main factors – smoking, diet, alcohol and excess weight.

Only 1 in 25 of cancers is to do with a person’s job, such as being exposed to things like chemicals or asbestos.

Some of the risk factors are well known, such as smokings link with lung cancer.

However, others are less recognised.

• Breast cancer, nearly a tenth of the risk comes from being overweight or obese, far outweighing the impact of whether or not the woman breastfeeds or drinks alcohol.
• Oesophageal or gullet cancer, half of the risk comes from eating too little fruit and veg, while only a fifth of the risk is from alcohol, the report shows.
• Stomach cancer, a fifth of the risk comes from having too much salt in the diet, data suggests.
• Mouth and throat cancer, are caused almost entirely by lifestyle choices.

Hypnotherapy can really help to change the behaviours and beliefs that underpin the lifestyle choices that we make. Most of us make the choices we do because of beliefs and experiences that have shaped the way we feel about ourselves and how we believe others view us.

These beliefs are usually based on outdated and/or fictitious ideas which fortunately are subject to change. Using hypnotherapy we can help the client re-evaluate and re-assess the things they believe and from that create new behaviours that are more appropriate to their current life which helps them make healthy choices and feel comfortable with them.

There is a huge amount of scientific evidence that points to a demoralising fact for the 25 per cent of the population in the UK that are trying to lose weight, our basic human biology is the greatest enemy of all.

When you have worked as long as we have with clients that are desperate to lose or control their weight you realise that diets don’t work. We are generally the last resort, clients have tried and failed on every diet you can think of. What I would like to show you in this article is that most people try dieting and when that fails they then come for hypnotherapy. However, hypnotherapy can be very effective at countering the reason why diets fail so the sensible strategy would be to have hypnotherapy during and after dieting.

Two years ago, a team of researchers at the University of Melbourne, including Joseph Proietto, a professor of medicine, discovered one of the possible reasons. His team recruited 50 obese men and women, and put them through a gruelling eight week programme of an extreme 500-550 calories a day diet.

At the end of the programme, they had dropped an average of 30lb. They then spent a year having counselling with the aim of sticking to a lifestyle of healthy eating. But the participants regained 11lb on average. They also said that they felt far hungrier and more preoccupied with food than before losing weight. If they had had hypnotherapy during the follow up period I suspect the end result would have been very different.

As the researchers reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, the volunteers’ hormones were working overtime, making them react as though they were starving and in need of weight-gain. Their levels of an appetite-stimulating hormone, ghrelin, were about 20 per cent higher than at the start of the study. Meanwhile, their levels of an appetite suppressing hormone, peptide YY, were unusually low.

Furthermore, levels of leptin, a hormone that increases the metabolic rate and reduces the hunger feeling, also remained lower than expected.

Proietto describes this effect as ‘a co-ordinated defence mechanism with multiple components all directed toward making us put on weight’. In other words, the body had launched a backlash against dieting.

This research points to the fact that the human body has been designed by thousands of years of evolution to survive long periods of starvation.

Our bodies have strong mechanisms to stop weight loss, but are not designed to stop weight gain. If, by whatever method, you manage to lose 10% of your weight, your body believes there’s a shortage of food. So it burns less fuel by slowing your metabolism.

The body learns to manage with fewer calories by changing your metabolic rate. The problem arises when you stop dieting and start eating more again, because now that your metabolic rate is low you don’t need more food so those extra calories are stored as fat.

This effect, at around eight weeks of dieting and research, suggests it might be up to six years. So what does this mean? Studies by Columbia University show that this metabolic slowdown means that just to maintain a stable weight, people have to eat around 400 calories less a day post-diet than before dieting. However, using hypnotherapy we believe that we can get the brain to speed up the metabolic rate whilst actually eating less. Increasing the speed of weight loss and establishing a way of keeping the weight off.

It’s also thought the brain changes in the way it reacts to food. This wilts our willpower, according to Michael Rosenbaum, a researcher at Columbia University Medical Centre who studies the body’s response to weight loss.
‘After you’ve lost weight, there’s an increase in the emotional response to food,’ he says, adding that there is also ‘a decrease in the activity of brain systems that might be more involved in restraint’. Hypnotherapy can be helpful here as well, by increasing the motivation to resist inappropriate foods and the desire for healthy foods.

In 2010, neuroscientists at Columbia University Medical Centre, Rosenbaum and his colleague, Joy Hirsch, scanned the brains of people before and after weight loss while they viewed objects such as chocolate, broccoli, grapes and mobile phones.

After losing weight, the scans showed a greater response in the areas associated with reward and a lower response in those associated with self-control.

And in 2011, scientists at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York discovered that when starved of food, brain cells actually consume each other. This causes the release of fats, which in turn results in higher levels of a powerful brain chemical that stimulates appetite, the journal Cell Metabolism reports. All bad news for dieters, as going without food could make them even hungrier.

“diets don’t work in the long run”

 

This explains why an analysis of 31 long-term clinical studies found that diets don’t work in the long run. Within five years about two-thirds of dieters put back the weight — and more. The researchers from the University of California discovered that dieting works in the short term, with people losing up to 10 per cent of their weight on any number of diets in the first six months of any regimen. But after this, the weight returns, and often more is added, says their report in the journal American Psychologist.

The analysis concluded that most volunteers would have been better off not dieting. Their weight would be pretty much the same and their bodies would not have wear and tear from yo-yo dieting.

This backfire effect is worst among teenagers: people who start habitually dieting young tend to be significantly heavier after five years than teens who never dieted. This mix of biology and psychology translates into a sobering reality: once we become overweight, most of us will probably remain that way.

Ultimately, of course, we should be more wary of piling on the pounds, than relying on diets to reverse the damage. As Tam Fry, chairman of the National Obesity Forum, says: ‘The way that the body protects itself against weight-loss diets is quite incredible. Putting on weight is for most people, sadly, a one-way street.’

Source: The Daily Mail

Maybe you’re thinking that you don’t smoke that much. Ok then, a smoker who smokes 20 cigarettes a day for just 10 years will spend £25,773.09.

A smoker who plans to smoke 20 a day for 30 years will waste £90,396.43.

These figures are based on a packet of cigarettes costing £6.50 for the first year and then increasing by 1.5% per pack, per year, thereafter, and this is not unreasonable to assume as this year in the budget it jumped 37p alone (5.6%).

As well as significant health issues, if you’re a smoker perhaps you should be asking yourself if you can afford to smoke. Half a million pounds would pay off more than the average mortgage and buy a nice car, and even a yacht, but because you spend the money in small amounts, i.e. daily, you don’t really notice it.  Smokers always find the money to smoke, even if they go short on other essentials.

Imagine your reaction if someone offered you £90,000 to stop smoking and never smoke again, and if you did you would have to pay it back. Would it change your desire to smoke? For most it would, however, there are some smokers that would refuse, stating that they enjoy smoking. These smokers are not ready to stop.

This illogical reasoning is caused by our conscious mind that has to make sense of why we do something as pitiful as smoking. I was a smoker for 27 years, I know. Often we use excuses like “I’m addicted”, “It’s a habit”, “It relaxes me”, etc, etc. These are just that, excuses. I have helped thousands of smokers to get rid of this pitiful behaviour.

So, how do you stop smoking? How do you get rid of this pitiful behaviour? Most smokers know that smoking is costly, both in financial terms and in the cost to our health, but the fear of stopping often holds them back. Many smokers think that they will fail, be ratty, not be able to concentrate, tearing their hair out and generally unable to cope with the imagined withdrawal symptoms and cravings. This fear of stopping is greater than the fear of smoking. Sometimes, our conscious reasoning process can work against us.

If you could stop smoking, feel good, significantly reduce any withdrawal symptoms or cravings so that you felt confident about your ability to stop smoking for good, would that change your view on stopping smoking?  That it would cost a fraction of the money that you would have spent if you were to carry on smoking, would you stop smoking now?

The aim of using hypnotherapy to stop smoking is to help you become a happy non-smoker in one session.

Would you rather spend hundreds of thousands of pounds feeding a pitiful behaviour that has not got a single benefit to it, or stop smoking easily, quickly, naturally and safely?

Imagine someone offered you £90,396.43, how would you feel? Excited or afraid?  You can do whatever you decide to do. Why not take that step to a richer future, both financially and in health. See our stop smoking programme

When people dismiss blushing as insignificant, it makes the blusher feel “silly” and “stupid”. I have never worked with a blusher who thought it was insignificant. However, what I do hear is “I know it’s stupid but….” or “I feel silly saying this but….”

Blushing is something we see a lot of and is very confusing and uncomfortable for the client. It is often accompanied with feeling hot, sweating, embarrassment and fear. But what is it? Why does it happen?

Blushing is used by the subconscious to remove the blusher from a situation that the subconscious believes is dangerous (normally danger of embarrassment). By making the person blush it generates the desire/need to leave the situation.

It usually occurs because of a severe fear of criticism. This can often be set up in childhood by critical parents, bullying or ridicule from teachers at school.

Let us consider a young girl whose father is always critical of her. Nothing is good enough, perhaps he calls her “silly” or “stupid” and makes comments like “What do you know, you have no idea”. However, he may also call her “pretty” and “beautiful”. This continues into her teens and often even when she leaves the home and has her family of her own.

Her desire to please her father increases with the level of criticism and often creates a need for perfectionism, which all leads to vile negative beliefs about herself and her abilities. But in contrast, her beliefs about her body and looks will probably be quite good and healthy.

As this girl grows she will start to avoid situations where she might be judged (critically with regard to intellect). However, she may be quite at home entering a beauty competition, providing they didn’t need to talk in public. Talking in public is liable to be the top things on her list to avoid.

If she starts to blush at sometime in her childhood this will just heighten her anxiety and add lots more situations for her to avoid, as now her anxiety is obvious and on display to the world.

To treat this form of social phobia the underlying belief that she is “not good enough” will have to be addressed in the first instance and once that has been achieved the fear of the fear will need to be addressed.

The fear of the fear, i.e. the fear of blushing in public, will need to be tackled by generating situations in her mind where she used to blush and have her complete these situations in a calm and relaxed way. This would all be done whilst she was in hypnosis.

Typically, if this treatment is done by an anxiety specialist, it should be achievable in 3 to 4 sessions (depending on the client and their circumstances).

If blushing effects you, do not despair, there is a way out of it. Hypnotherapy is a very effective way of getting your subconscious mind to change the beliefs that support the behaviour.

Source:Heatworld.com

We always thought of Simon Cowell as one of the most determined men in the music industry. The pop media mogul’s strict and determined attitude sometimes makes us a little scared that he’s trying to conquer the world! However, there seems to be one habit the X Factor boss is finding a little hard to control, smoking.

Simon has reportedly started to undergo hypnosis to kick the habit, as it has been claimed that the star’s friends and family want him to try and quit. The X Factor USA judge has been smoking for almost 44 years despite his family’s history of health complications, and he admitted that his New Year’s resolution was to try and give up his 15-a-day. A source says,

“His grandfather Robert was a heavy smoker who died of lung cancer…His father suffered a heart attack…It made Simon think long and hard about his own health now.”

Simon is reportedly attending a top medical centre in London in an attempt to quit the habit. Well, it’s a good time to start! We’ve still got to honour our resolution and shift all of this pesky Christmas weight, *sigh*.

Source: Heatworld.com

BBC news states:-
People with psoriasis have nearly three times the normal risk of stroke and abnormal heart rhythm, according to scientists in Denmark.

A study of 4.5 million people, published in the European Heart Journal, showed the highest risk was in young patients with severe psoriasis.

Researchers believe this may be because the skin and blood vessels may share similar sources of inflammation.

So what they are really saying is that is you have severe psoriasis there is an increased risk. Well thats really going to help the stress levels for someone with Psoriasis. In my work using hypnotherapy for psoriasis the main bulk of what I have to do is to de-stress the client. This sort of sensationalism about psoriasis does not help that work.

This type of conditioning, if it continues for a significant period of time, generates a belief that “I’m not good enough”. This belief we see in clients that have a fear of criticism, fear of failure and/or a fear of judgement, lead on to various types of social phobia including blushing, presentation nerves, exam freeze, nail biting, and ultimately panic attacks, anxiety and can even be a factor in depression. These beliefs have a significant effect on self-esteem and self-confidence.

We often blame ourselves but are we really to blame? This sort of conditioning is generally way out of our control. As a child it can come from parents, bullies, teachers or even siblings. Worst of all, if it continues for a substantial period of time, we become used to it. It becomes comfortable and eventually becomes the norm. So much so, in fact, that as we go into our adult lives we actually seek out similar people to be around. Often people seek out what they are used too. For example, if they have had a critical parent they may well get involved with a partner that exhibits the same type of behaviour, and so the cycle of criticism continues. Then what happens when offspring come along? Do you think the criticism will stop? Of course not. It is perpetuated down the generations. So where does it end?

Sometimes when the self-esteem and self-worth is low enough, or the person has reached the end of their tether, they will do something about it. This is the type of client we see at The Surrey Institute of Clinical Hypnotherapy all the time. By using hypnotherapy we are to change the core belief that “I’m not good enough”. Although not simple to do, it is essential to achieve so to facilitate change in the client, not only now but for generations to come. Getting rid of these vile, negative beliefs that they have about themselves allows them to believe in themselves and allow the thought that just perhaps others can believe in them too. It also allows them to re-evaluate their relationships with others and to decide which relationships are worth holding on to, and which ones that it would be better to let go. After all, if friends, partners and loved ones are continually negative and critical about you and the things you do, are they really being helpful or do they just put you down so they can feel better about themselves? Sometimes they need a wake up call and as you become more confident about yourself and your actions, you start to repel and rebuff their put downs and sometimes it can help them to realise that these types of behaviour aren’t helpful. At the very least you stop taking these put-downs to heart and start to enjoy your life with a completely new outlook. One that is full of promise rather than vile negative thoughts.

Clients are always asking for more self-confidence they say “I need more confidence”, but what is confidence? In the main what they are really saying is that I am less confident than I used to be, confidence starts to grow as children as long as we are nurtured, loved and live in safe surroundings. But for a large number of people this is not true. For a large number of the population they are fed on a diet of denigration, belittling, scorn and negative comments not to mention shouting, screaming and constant arguments. If a child is constantly denigrated they tend to believe it eventually and this perpetuates a lack of self belief. This is what we know as lack of self-confidence; i.e. no confidence. This is where hypnotherapy for confidence can really make a difference.

Now when a client comes to us with this belief they tend to perceive themselves in a very unenthusiastic way. They tend to believe that they will be unsuccessful at everything they try. It could be making friends, trying something new, business, sport or just life in general. These despicable and pessimistic beliefs that they believe about themselves are then projected outwards and they deem that others are thinking the same things about them that they do. They believe that others are judging them as harshly as they do themselves. If you have this sort of belief it makes things like presentations, speech-making, meetings, parties or any situation where they are in front of any kind of audience, be it one or two friends or a presentation in front of hundreds, extremely difficult. This can lead to excessive levels of anxiety, blushing, worry, insomnia and even depression. This is how low self-confidence is created and where hypnotherapy can help.

When you have low self-confidence it’s easy to generate unconstructive inner self-talk. For instance, ‘I always get it wrong’, ‘He/she always does it better than me’, ‘Everybody else seems so much more superior to me’, ‘He/she’ll never even notice me so why try?’. These statements are taken in by the subconscious and the beliefs are then created. These beliefs then become something to live up to and can often lead to feelings of anxiety and stress and can also create insomnia which just makes everything worse. The first step is to become conscious of these beliefs and then we use hypnotherapy to produce new and more normal patterns of thought and behaviour. Eventually these new patterns of behaviour will become automatic so you won’t even have to think about them.

Having confidence improves every aspect of life. Confident people are inspiring, fun to be with, they’re less demanding emotionally and ooze independence and a passion for life which often rubs off on everyone around them.

Lack of self-confidence instils a fear of failure and worry over change or unfamiliar situations. This fear can severely restrict lives, offering less variety, happiness and activities. Many people could benefit significantly from increasing their self-confidence, yet very few people know how effectively and simply they can improve their confidence levels.

Acquiring and developing confidence underlies all our lives. It’s the secret to happiness, satisfaction and success.

Think for a second of the people you know who are successful and have a great life… are they any more intelligent or talented than others that are not doing so well? The answer in the main is no! This is simply because it’s not intellect or gifts that breed’s success. It is visualization, ambition, motivation, determination and the readiness to take risks. All these attributes are simply by-products of confidence. However, confidence can be a fragile thing and can be crushed by a few careless words from a significant person in your life; for example, your partner, teachers, parents, siblings or peers.

Where did my confidence go?

You are born full of confidence, it oozes out of every cell. There is absolutely nothing you can’t do (or so you believe) and you try everything, even physically impossible things. However, as you grow you are subject to conditioning from parents, events and the individuals around you. If these events are distressing or the significant people around you are unenthusiastic, critical or unloving then that delicate confidence that you were born with can be pushed down and repressed. So you don’t actually lose your confidence, you just mislay it. Your confidence is replaced by a belief that you cannot do things or that it would be dangerous/embarrassing if you try.

How can I regain my confidence?

Hypnotherapy for confidence is very potent tool in releasing your confidence from the inside. We can revisit situations in your past that have knocked your self-confidence and allow your subconscious to re-evaluate the event using the power of your adult mind which is far superior than that of the child. Because you are now an adult, you are likely to come to far more sensible conclusions about the experience than you did as a child (things are much less frightening when we see them clearly using our adult mind). This allows the subconscious to reassess the belief and therefore modify the behaviour. This can be done in many different situations which is why hypnotherapy is so successful at restoring confidence.
We can then tackle all the current situations where you exhibit low self-confidence and create new patterns of behaviour in all those situations. Hypnotherapy for confidence is a powerful tool in creating a happy and confident future.

Paul Howard is a clinical hypnotherapist and trainer with over 10,000 client hours under his belt. With over 10 years experience he says he is still learning everyday with every client. He specialises in anxiety and psoriasis. He works as a full-time hypnotherapist and trainer with the Surrey Institute of Clinical Hypnotherapy. They run weekend and intensive hypnotherapy training courses based in Wallington, Surrey. Their courses are accredited by the National Council for Hypnotherapy, N.C.F.E and the open university.

If you are thinking of becoming a hypnotherapist you need to think about the type of training you are going to go for. Distance learning can seem very attractive on the face of it with regards to price and convenience. However learning the skills required to be an hypnotherapist by distance learning is like trying to learn how to ride a bike by using phone tuition. It simply does not work. I have never met a successful hypnotherapist who learnt by distance learning, although we have dealt with their failures. However, if that’s what you’re after there are hundreds of distance learning and cheap hypnotherapy training courses out there for you to choose. It does not really matter which type of distance learning training you go for as the clients will soon discover your lack of commitment to them and yourself and they won’t come back and you will have zero income.

But if you have a real passion for the work; i.e. you really want to help the people out there with real issues like anxiety, IBS, low self confidence, social phobia, etc, etc, then you need to think carefully about the type of hypnotherapy training that you choose. So lets have a look at the different types.

Types of Hypnotherapy Training

Distance Learning

Pros: Cheap, convenient and easy
Cons: Low standards, no interaction, no guidance and no examples

Personally I think you might as well buy a book or two, read them, and start trading as a hypnotherapist. Learning to be a hypnotherapist by distance learning just does not stand up. If we just look at the hypnosis part to start with; how can you train someone in the vocal aspects of hypnosis unless you are in the room with them?  The tempo, tonality, volume and speed to name just a few are all critical to achieving a good hypnotic voice. When I train new hypnotherapists they invariably speak to quickly, but by working together with a tutor they can be coached to take their time.  If a tutor is not present they cannot be taught properly.   When it comes to dealing with particular issues, without any interaction with the tutor and the rest of the class the learning is by definition sub-standard. Many of the good points and ideas we get come from discussions in the class, and this is something that just cannot happen at a distance. My advice would be to keep distance learning at a distance. It is simply not worth any amount of money, even a fiver.

Hypnotherapy training by DVD

Pros:Is visual and can give examples
Cons: Very rigid, no interaction and quality level varies

This type of hypnotherapy training course tends to cover very little material in any depth. The lack of interaction with the tutor does not make for a very good learning experience.  In fact I do not know of a single person that has taken this type of course that has qualified as an accredited hypnotherapist. It is very difficult to see how this type of course can teach you to treat clients affectively. Quite frankly this type of course in my experience doesnt train you up to hypnotherapy diploma level. They are normally just light weight courses with very little content.

Hypnotherapy diploma – 1 Year monthly weekend course

Pros:Plenty of time to absorb the knowledge needed, good structure
Cons:Extended period of time, Somethings continuity difficult to maintain for some students

Generally if the hypnotherapy training is accredited by someone like the National Council for Hypnotherapy then this type of hypnotherapy training is to be recommended with a few points that you should clarify:-

1. Make Sure the trainers should be practising therapists. Often training courses are run by people that have just qualified and/or see very few, if any clients. I came across a case just yesterday where the training course website claimed that the trainer was a very experienced hypnotherapist, followed by a list of her qualifications and the various areas where she was a “self proclaimed expert”. With very little research I discovered that this lady had only been qualified since May 2009, a mere 2 years. Now with the best will in the world I fail to see how you can claim to be “very experienced” with just two years in the profession. I then discovered that she was not supervised and that in fact she did not see clients! Draw your own conclusions.
2. Make sure the course has a high practical content. Students learn best when they are actually doing, rather than just reading about. For example, in our courses we demonstrate techniques which the students then go out and practise. We work with real clients in front of the class with little or no prior knowledge of the client. The students work with real clients during the course under close supervision.
3. Make sure the course is run in an appropriate environment. Many courses are run from a hotel where all the students practise in the same room which makes for confusion and chaos during the practical. It’s important for the student to hone their delivery including timing, tone, timbre and volume of their hypnotic voice. It is very difficult for the lecturer to assist the student to do that when there is a lot of background noise. Furthermore, how can the student experience it the way a client would in that sort of environment? So ideally the course should be run where the students have use of breakout rooms where they can develop their skills effectively.

Hypnotherapy diploma – Intensive course

Pros:Fast, high knowledge absorption, confidence building
Cons:can interrupt work and home life

To my mind this has to be the best way to learn. The knowledge comes at you hard and fast. However, because all your knowledge is recent when something previously learned is referred to it’s normally fresh in your mind. Of course, all the above proviso’s that I talked about in the weekend course still apply. However, if you have the time to do an intensive course (normally run Mon-Fri) then you can complete your training inside 8 weeks.  This means you can start practicing while your passion for the work is still on a high. The sooner you start the sooner you start to build your skills.

Hypnotherapy training – Your choice

Basically you need to choose the hypnotherapy training that meets your needs and circumstances. But it is important that the training you choose gives you the skills you need to practise in a commercial world. Private practise is not easy but it is rewarding as you get to help hundreds of clients make changes that make a real impact on their life.

Paul Howard is a clinical hypnotherapist and trainer with over 10,000 client hours under his belt. With over 10 years experience he says he is still learning everyday with every client. He specialises in anxiety and psoriasis. He works as a full-time hypnotherapist and trainer with the Surrey Institute of Clinical Hypnotherapy. They run weekend and intensive hypnotherapy training courses based in Wallington, Surrey. Their courses are accredited by the National Council for Hypnotherapy, N.C.F.E and the open university.

Don’t you think it’s strange what some people say when they get embarrassed and blush. Things like “I thought I would die” or “I just wanted the ground to open up and swallow me”. These type of expressions, when you analyse them, seem a bit extreme. However, when you work with clients that come to see you for a blushing problem you start to get an understanding for why these type of expressions are common place.

Blushing is more than just being embarrassed. Blushing is a physical reaction that occurs in certain situations. Blushing is usually triggered by some external event or situation. Usually when there is a perception that the “blusher” will be the center of attention. Things like when they say something interesting in a group of friends and everyone in the group turns to them to listen to what they have to say. The “blusher” may be quite confident about the subject, however, the mere fact that they are now the center of attention can trigger off a blushing response, even amongst friends.

Put that same person in front of an audience, say a meeting, presentation or even a wedding breakfast and the problem gets magnified tenfold. Even just doing a quick round robin in a meeting saying your name and what you do can fill a “blusher” with dread especially if they have to wait a few minutes while other people in the group do their bit. They will sit there predicting how they are going to go red. Often the blushing will actually start before they even have to speak.

What is blushing?

Blushing is just a form of social phobia. In general it effects people with a low self-esteem and a profound fear of criticism. This leads to beliefs that “I’m Not Good Enough” (see previous article). The physical act of blushing is generated when adrenalin makes veins expand, allowing more blood to flow and leaving the sufferer red-faced. However, if you’re embarrassed blushing is appropriate. The problem for many people is when they blush in situations that don’t warrant it.

Blushing is as bad as dying!

The reason people use these extreme statements when they get embarrassed is that when you have low self-esteem the danger of embarrassment is often almost as strong as mortal danger. It’s this perception of danger that the subconscious responds to with the fight-or-flight response which is when the body floods with adrenalin and voila they blush.

Using hypnotherapy for blushing

At the Surrey Institute of Clinical Hypnotherapy we use various hypnotic techniques to:-

1. Reduce the anxiety response in the situation they normally blush.
2. Improve self esteem.
3. Remove feelings of “I’m Not Good Enough”.
4. Increase feelings of relaxation.
5. Stop prediction of failure.

These are the key things that need to be tackled in the “blusher”. There can often be other factors that need to be taken in to account which is why each client that we see needs a unique treatment plan that fits them. For more information go to Hypnotherapy for Blushing.

Paul Howard is an anxiety specialist and has been helping clients with anxiety for over ten years. He has trained many hypnotherapists around the country to treat,  in particular, agoraphobia and social phobia effectively. He works at The Surrey Institute of Clinical Hypnotherapy in Wallington, Surrey, UK. He can be contacted via the website at www.sich.co.uk. He is also a director of The National Council for Hypnotherapy.

Finally, blushing is treatable so don’t let it control your life.