Anxiety is more openly discussed and recognised as an issue that can have a major impact on a person. What is less often discussed is the pressure anxiety or stress can put on a relationship. If one partner is experiencing severe levels of anxiety and stress it could lead to the breakdown of the relationship.

People can become anxious for a number of reasons:

• Childhood examples of how parents coped with life.
• Situations, such as bullying at school.
• A later life event and then developing a focus on all the awful things that could happen.

Whatever the trigger, anxiety can start to take over your life.

Many people who are anxious focus on their feelings and how terrible things might be. They may be upset by the physical symptoms they experience, not realising that this is their body responding naturally to a perceived threat or danger. To outsiders it can seem as though the person has become totally focused on everything that could go wrong. Those with anxiety often feel bad because part of them knows their worries are unlikely to happen yet they can’t control them. This leads to heightened anxiety and feeling a failure or weak for not controlling their responses.

Anxiety within a relationship can make it very difficult for both parties. Partners can find it very difficult to understand what is happening to their loved one and feels at a loss to know what to do. Often they may think that their partner should just ‘pull themselves together’ and get on with life. The person with anxiety may feel vulnerable, exposed, potentially let down and abandoned, scared of being alone, guilt, shame, worried that they are pushing their partner away.

Sometimes couples get locked in a cycle of negative thinking. Our inner talk can then become increasingly unhelpful and both can feel more and more trapped. Arguments, remarks, misunderstandings all increase the sense of anxiety and helplessness. The non-anxious partner may experience increasing frustration and this will again heighten anxious feelings.

HELP IS AT HAND

There are many ways in which couples experiencing anxiety issues can be helped. One is through the Improved Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) service, there are charities, such as Relate, which provide counselling and there are private counsellors and therapists. Therapies like hypnotherapy, CBT, mindfulness and relationship counselling, can help. Many therapists work with both partners at once, some provide a mix of individual and couple sessions.

The focus is often on helping both partners to understand what is happening. You might explore how you communicate, look at cycles of behaviour and assumptions, as well as identifying inner resources both may have that you can call upon to help. Part of the work will be helping the partner who has anxiety learn how to self-regulate their thinking and mood.

Don’t let anxiety break up your relationship, you can get help.

by Anne Morrison © 2015

Anne Morrison, MBSCH, GQHP, lives in Whitley Bay and holds clinics in North Shields and Newcastle. She can be contacted by phone on 07905 735 457 or via her website www.annemorrison.co.uk.

So the Christmas and New Year festivities are well and truly over and, perhaps, like many others you’ve over-indulged. The bathroom scales may be reading a kilo or so more than they did last year. And you made a New Year resolution to lose weight in 2015 but are already faltering.

In my experience those resolutions made at midnight on 1st January rarely last beyond the beginning of February. We’re full of determination to make that change this year. And just like previous years all those good intentions fade over time leaving you feeling fed up, frustrated, demotivated, and perhaps a little guilty and angry with yourself for being so weak willed.

You may be glad to know that you are not alone. The seven tips below have been useful in helping people change their relationship with food and how they feel about themselves.

LOSE WEIGHT AND MAINTAIN IT FOR LIFE

1. Consider it as reducing your weight. It may seem crazy but the word ‘loss’ can conjure up emotions such as sadness, missing something or someone and disappointment. We also try to find things that we’ve lost too, like keys. And you don’t really want to find that weight again do you?
2. Change how you think about the amount of weight you want to reduce. It can be difficult to picture yourself having achieved your goal, as the gap between where you are now and where you want to be seems unreachable. Break down your weight reduction into smaller, more manageable, steps.
3. Think of it as a change in your relationship with yourself and food that will last a lifetime. It’s not just for a wedding or special event. Perhaps your weight keeps yo-yoing up and down? It’s not only about the food but how you think of yourself and what food means to you.
4. As children we are often told to eat up all our food to grow big and strong. That teaching is still there in the back of our minds and influences us when we try to change behaviours. Give yourself permission to leave food on your plate and eat smaller portions.
5. Sometimes having a little of something you enjoy is better than denying yourself altogether. It is a choice you make. Before you choose, ask yourself “is this going to take me nearer or further away from my goal?” This will help you to consider your future self and the impact of the choices you make today.
6. If you do decide to have something, have a smaller piece and make it last. Imagine it is the most expensive food or snack that you have ever bought and take your time to really taste it.
7. Check your alcohol intake, something which is often forgotten – just don’t replace the alcohol with high sugar soft drinks!

There is so much conflicting advice and so many ‘fad’ diets that it can be difficult to know what is best for you. Hopefully, the tips above will give you some ideas that you can use.

by Anne Morrison © 2015

Anne Morrison, MBSCH, GQHP, lives in Whitley Bay and holds clinics in North Shields and Newcastle. She can be contacted by phone on 07905 735 457 or via her website www.annemorrison.co.uk.

Social anxiety disorder is a very widespread form of anxiety. This can affect anyone at any time, and causes problems with everyday circumstances, from shopping to talking to people over the phone. Those with social anxiety can isolate themselves from friends and family, which, in turn creates more problems both at home and at work.

Social anxiety can be present in many different situations, including:

• talking while in front of people
• reading aloud
• writing whilst being looked at
• lining up in queues
• attending meetings at work
• travelling on public transport

or any circumstance where someone is or thinks they are the focus of attention.

The fear of criticism may also be present with social anxiety and this can also add to more avoidance behaviour. Low self-worth and feelings of insecurity are also typical features and can lead to relationship problems. The partner with social anxiety may no longer wish to go out or needs constant reassurance from their partner that things are ‘alright’. This puts pressure on the relationship and can lead to further issues of lack of trust and being criticised.

Untreated, the levels of anxiety and fear may generalise and accentuate until the person begins to encounter panic and anxiety attacks. Further ramifications of this disorder are depressive feelings and an inability to relax, which can lead to misuse of alcohol and drugs in an effort to escape reality.

As the issue escalates, the fears can be self-fulfilling, as relationships begin to come apart and daily life becomes considerably more difficult.

How can hypnotherapy help? Anxiety, finding it difficult to be with others, low self-esteem and lack of confidence can be treated by understanding what is creating the anxiety – such as worrying about the future – and by recognising that perceptions of possible future events can be altered. Planning how to respond to things that might happen is helped by mentally rehearsing how they can be handled. This does take time but the result should be feeling better able to cope, a more positive outlook and increased confidence.    

Hypnosis works by making positive, beneficial suggestions that work at a conscious and unconscious level. We are very good at making negative suggestions to ourselves all the time – that little internal voice that tells us how badly we did something or makes some other equally unhelpful comment. These are auto-suggestions. In a way we ‘hypnotise’ ourselves by how we talk to ourselves. An experienced hypnotherapist can help us to understand the power we have and to use it in more helpful ways. It helps the person to change their thinking and re-establish favourable thinking patterns and feelings of positivity, control and confidence.

by Anne Morrison © 2014

Anne Morrison, MBSCH, GQHP, lives in Whitley Bay and holds clinics in North Shields and Newcastle. She can be contacted by phone on 07905 735 457 or via her website www.annemorrison.co.uk.

I don’t know about you but when I was little I often heard people saying “We’ll we just have to grin and bear it”. And they just got on with sorting ‘it’ out. It turns out there is more than a grain of truth behind the saying.

Recent research is showing that grinning actually does help us bear things more easily and recover from stressful situations more quickly.

Psychological scientists Tara Kraft and Sarah Pressman of the University of Kansas reported in the Psychological Science journal on their recent research into smiling and stressful situations. I won’t go into the details but it involved chopsticks and various tests like putting your hand into a bucket full of iced water. They found that smiling helped to lower the heart rate and reduce the intensity of the body’s stress response.

As we discover more about how the body works, so we are learning that we can trigger positive physiological and emotional responses even when we aren’t really feeling that happy. Their research showed that it can be enough to contract the muscles in the face to replicate a smile – although a ‘true’ smile had the greater positive impact on the body and mind.

Other things can also help us manage our stress response in a more effective way. Five of my favourites are:

• Saying to myself “I choose to respond more calmly”. It can feel quite liberating to ‘choose’ how you respond to people and situations.
• Thinking to myself “I may not like it but they are doing the best they can with the resources they have available to them”. This doesn’t mean that I don’t try and change things. It does mean I deal with it from a more balanced and calmer perspective.
• Deep breathing – taking 5- 7 slow, deeper breathes in and out through the nose helps to relax the mind and body.
• Going for a brisk walk – particularly along the beach (or imagining yourself on a favourite walk). It helps distance you from the situation.
• Funnily enough, something called the inner smile. A simple closed-eye process whereby you imagine a smile forming inside. Feel it developing without it showing on your face and then gradually allow it to move up and show on your face. Sit with the feeling for a short while then open your eyes and get on with things.

There are many stress management techniques you could use from being more assertive to planning and time management but practicing these simple steps will increase your ability to cope with things that you regard as stressful.

So the next time the kids are starting to get on your nerves or you are cut up at the roundabout or you feel under pressure at work just ‘Grin’. Your heart will thank you.

by Anne Morrison © 2012

Anne Morrison, MBSCH, Clinical and Cognitive Behaviour Hypnotherapist, lives in Whitley Bay and works in North Shields. She is also a volunteer therapist at Hospice Care North Northumberland providing support to patients and their relatives. She can be contacted by phone on 0191 300 0933 or via her website www.annemorrison.co.uk.