The Hypnosis Clinic

Hello, I’m Jonathan Garside from The Hypnosis Clinic.

One of the first things I tackled when I became a clinical hypnotherapist 26 years ago, was arachnophobia, someone with a morbid fear of spiders!

A phobia is more than a simple fear. It develops when a person begins to organise their life around avoiding the thing they are afraid of, whether it’s an animal like a spider, object, place or situation.

Phobias are the most common type of anxiety disorder. In the UK, an estimated 10 million people have phobias. They can affect anyone, regardless of age, sex and social background.

If you have a phobia, you may have an overwhelming need to avoid all contact with the source of your anxiety. Coming into contact with the cause of your phobia or even the thought of it can make you anxious and may cause you to panic.

If the cause of your phobia is an object or animal that you do not come into contact with regularly, such as a spider, it is unlikely to affect your day-to-day life. However, if you have a more complex phobia, such as agoraphobia, a fear of open spaces, you may find it very difficult to lead a normal life.

At The Hypnosis Clinic, we deal with lots of different phobic responses from people. Some of them are relatively simple phobias like a fear of spiders, heights, flying or dentists. Some of them are more complex like agoraphobia or a social phobia. Simple phobias tend to come from childhood, and are often thought of as lessons incorrectly learned. More complex phobias tend to start later in life and have a variety of different underlying causes.

Almost all phobias can be successfully treated and cured. Treating simple phobias may involve gradually becoming exposed to the animal, object, place or situation that causes fear. This is known as desensitisation or self-exposure therapy. Treating complex phobias often takes longer and involves talking therapies, such as counselling, psychotherapy and hypnotherapy.

In the sessions, we often look to find the cause of a phobia, because understanding where it came from really can help us to put it into a better perspective. I’ll give you an example; I treated a 26 year old woman who had a fear of elevators; she would never use one and the thought of travelling in one was positively terrifying to her. I was also interested to see that she had lost the use of her right index finger. She couldn’t remember how it had happened or when. Even doctors could find nothing wrong.

Using hypnosis, we were able to uncover the reasons behind this interesting story; it transpires, that at the age of 5, she had momentarily trapped her finger in a closing lift door. Her mother had become very angry, smacking her and yelling. The already traumatised child started a process of telling herself that elevators were so dangerous that they could cause your mother to go ballistic and even stop your finger from working - that was mum’s kind suggestion.

Now 26, she was still labouring under the childish belief of a 5 year old, even though she could see things logically as an adult.

After 3 sessions of hypnotherapy and some physiotherapy, she was able to use lifts again and regain use of her finger.

If you’d like to find out more about how to live your life free from phobia, take a look through some of my tips on this blog. If you’d like to find out more about the work I do helping people to overcome problems, make an appointment for a free consultation. You can either come to meet me at our clinic in London’s regent street, or via a Telehealth video call.

Have a look on our website for more details: https://thehypnosisclinic.com

Thanks to Business Talk Radio in New York!

Thanks to everyone at Soho Radio for the opportunity to talk about my work!

Hello,

I’m Jonathan Garside from The Hypnosis Clinic. One of the questions I get asked all the time is ‘Can you do anything about my sleep’?

According to the Sleep Foundation, Insomnia is a sleep disorder that affects as many as 35% of adults. It can have serious effects, leading to excessive daytime sleepiness, a higher risk of car accidents, and widespread health effects from sleep deprivation.

Common causes include stress, an irregular sleep schedule, poor sleeping habits, and issues like anxiety and depression.

Our modern lifestyle can also have a direct bearing on our sleep, keeping the brain stimulated until late in the evening, such as by working late, playing video games, or using other electronic devices.

The use of caffeine, alcohol, nicotine and even our diet can have an adverse effect on our sleeping patterns.

So what do we do to be able to get better sleep. Well, my work using Hypnosis to improve sleep over 26 years has taught me a lot about how to get good quality sleep.

The first thing to learn is you need 3 basic things to get good sleep; first, your mind has to be calm, second, you have to be relaxed and third, you need to be confident that sleep is something that’s safe to do.

It all starts with being calm in your mind, and that means clearing out all thoughts about the events of the day and any worries about the following day. Your mind needs to be calm to enable sleep to come and find you. And maybe that’s a revelation for you! Yes, sleep has to find you. There’s no point in you trying to hunt for sleep, it doesn’t work, sleep just runs away in the opposite direction, that’s why the harder you try to go to sleep, the more sleep eludes you.

Sleep is shy, so don't think about it, don’t analyse it, don't worry about it - only then will sleep come and find you.

The second thing you need is to be physically relaxed, and tired! When you’re stressed your body becomes tense, so practice relaxing each part of your physical self in turn - find a nice soothing colour to imagine your body relaxing to and allow your muscles just to relax and take it easy.

Thirdly, keep telling yourself that sleep is a safe place to be, have confidence that sleep will come and find you, and do your best not to worry about not being able to get to sleep. Concentrate on your breathing and keep your mind and body as quiet as possible.

Even if sleep doesn’t come and find you straight away, that’s OK; lying in bed, resting with your eyes closed is almost as good as being asleep, so be reassured that even without sleep, your body is resting safely, and that you are getting some benefit.

If you think it’s about time you got a decent night’s sleep, check out our sleep blog for more tips about how to do it.

To find out more about the work I do helping people to enjoy better quality sleep, make an appointment for a free consultation. You can either come to meet me at our clinic in London’s regent street, or via a Telehealth video call.

I look forward to meeting you soon. Sweet dreams.

Hello,

I’m Jonathan Garside from The Hypnosis Clinic.

You know, one of the areas I help a lot of people with is public speaking. Whether it’s a presentation for work, a training session for colleagues, or the dreaded best man’s speech, there seems to be something about speaking in public that terrifies some people.

And yet, the actual task of speaking to another person is simplicity itself! Telling a story to your friends in the pub, having a lively debate with the family over dinner, all so easy and so much a part of our lives that we don't give it a second thought, so why is it all of a sudden so much harder to do the same thing in front of a group of people.

The answer is - perception.

Let me give you an example; I place a large scaffolding plank on the floor of your living room, paint it bright red and ask you to walk along it from one end to the other. Think you can do that without falling off? Of course you can, it’s a doddle.

Now let’s take that very same plank, stick it out of the top of a skyscraper and take a walk along it. What? do you mean ‘No’? It’s easy! Its exactly the same task as it was in your living room, so why are you nervous about it being a little higher?

The truth is you are right to be nervous! The perceived threat is very real. If you fall off the plank in your living room, you end up on a nice fluffy carpet, if you do the same from the top of a skyscraper? Well, best we don't go there.

It’s this same ‘perceived threat’ that can make public speaking appear so scary; if you get lost in the middle of a conversation with your mum in the living room, it doesn’t matter, if you do the same in front of your boss and 3,000 people on Zoom, well, it does! Yet, the skill set is exactly the same, it’s just the venue that alters.

So how can you get your head around seeing a presentation at work in the same was as a chat with your mates in the pub?

Well, have a look through some of my tips in the blog - they really will help you to be prepared, in control and to actually enjoy speaking in public.

One of the areas I talk about is communication - did you know that only 22% of the communication between you and your audience is verbal, the words you are saying, the rest, 78% is physical - body language.

That’s why I teach how important body language is in presentations. There are so many little tricks you can use to engage your audience from the outset like this one!

It means expectation of success. Oh! An palms! Show the audience your palms, it means you mean no harm and have nothing to hide.

So, if you’d like to find out how to really enjoy public speaking, take a look through some of my tips on this blog. If you’d like to find out more about the work I do helping people to be brilliant speakers, make an appointment for a free consultation. You can either come to meet me at our clinic in London’s regent street, or via a Telehealth video call.

I look forward to meeting you soon.