Hypnotherapy for Depression and Low Mood
Depression can make us feel like a dark cloud is permanently following us, affecting our motivation to achieve anything in life. If you are suffering from depression or low mood you are certainly not alone. It is estimated that approximately 24% of women and 13% of men are diagnosed with depression in their lifetime. Using hypnotherapy for depression can help you free yourself from the debilitating effects of your condition.
It’s very probable that you are reading this with feelings of sadness and possibly hopelessness and that you’re worried that these feelings may never leave you. My goal is to always make you feel safe and secure and to support you while you make changes to your life enabling you to look forward to your future with positivity.
We will all experience some form of sadness in our lives, the passing of a loved one, the breakup of a relationship or not landing our dream job are just a few examples. Grief and sadness are natural parts of our lives. While we may think of ourselves as being depressed, when we suffer loss, we often have the ability to bounce back given sufficient time. When we are depressed we lose the ability to bounce back. While grief usually is experienced in waves, depression remains more of a constant in our lives. You may now be thinking that this perfectly describes your current situation. You do have the ability to change and free yourself from your current way of thinking. With support, it’s perfectly possible to reframe your current way of thinking in order to positively affect your future.
What is depression?
Depression is a common medical illness that can affect the way you act, feel, and the way you think. Depression can cause feelings of sadness and result in a loss of interest in activities you once enjoyed. It can make you feel like just withdrawing from society, hoping that somehow things will get better. It can also lead to weight gain or weight loss, a lack of sleep, low self-confidence levels, and a lack of energy and motivation.
Depression is often accompanied by feelings of negativity. You may then often start to see the world from a negative perspective which can lead to feelings of despair and hopelessness. These negative thoughts may then tend to become all-encompassing which can lead you to negatively forecast the future. Your once positive outlook of ‘I can’ and ‘I will’ can quite quickly be replaced with ‘I can’t’ and ‘I won’t’.
If you are currently feeling a sense of glumness then your life will seem to be free from fun and laughter. This really doesn’t need to be a permanent feeling. Together we can help you to feel happy and positive about your future bringing back enjoyment into it.
Why you think the way you do?
A negative outlook is very often accompanied by a build-up of anxiety levels and as a result, your body increases its levels of stress hormones. Your brain is naturally more negatively biased than positive. It’s evolved to look out for danger in order to help you react quickly in life-threatening situations. These excess stress hormones may mean that you often feel jittery and that you find it difficult to switch off and relax.
A build-up of stress hormones can be damaging to your health and your natural stress response makes logical thinking difficult. As a result, you may tend to think more emotionally and once you have started the process of negative thinking, without help it can be very difficult to shift your mindset. Negative thoughts can lead to feelings of hopelessness and make you withdraw from life. Whilst it is still possible to function with mild depression or low mood it can make life free from joy.
An accumulation of stress hormones causes a chemical imbalance in the brain. You may feel it difficult to relax and think with clarity. I can support you through your period of change so you feel able to reach a place of calmness in your mind.
The Role of Serotonin
Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that sends signals between different areas of your brain. One of the main functions of serotonin is to stabilize your mood. Serotonin is known as ‘your happy hormone’ because it positively influences your mood. High levels of serotonin lift your mood making you happier and more confident. It allows you to cope with your everyday lives and all the setbacks that naturally occur. If your serotonin levels are low then it’s natural for you to feel glum, unmotivated and lack confidence.
It is possible to increase serotonin levels naturally or medicines can be prescribed to enhance your brain’s response to serotonin. Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) are often prescribed by a GP to help treat people with depression. I can help you to positively reframe your thoughts enabling you to naturally increase your serotonin levels, helping you to cope and then thrive.
How hypnotherapy for depression can help
Solution Focused Hypnotherapy can help you break free from the negative cycle of depression. We always look towards the future, beginning with the end in mind. There is never a need to go back to the past and analyse when or why you became depressed. You might think of me as a taxi driver. For us to successfully reach your end destination there is no need for you to inform me where you have come from. We simply need to focus on getting you to where you want to get to.
You will be encouraged to visualise and discuss your future hopes. We then use hypnosis to help you work towards attaining this wonderful picture built up in your mind. By shifting some of your focus from the negative to more positive aspects of your life you start the process of change, thereby altering the chemical response in your brain. This in turn can help to lower your anxiety levels, increasing your feeling of being calm and in control of your thoughts.
I believe that have everything that you need within you to enjoy your future free from depression and you will be provided with all the knowledge and resources necessary to ensure you can enjoy lifelong change. I will support you up until the point that you decide that you no longer need my help.
How can I find out more about using hypnotherapy for depression?
If you would like to find out more about how we can use hypnotherapy online together to help you to live a life free from the debilitating effects of depression, then please get in touch using my contact form. I’d love to help you make positive change.