Managing stress the Svengali way

You may associate hypnotism with quacks but hypnosis really can help with stress management. What’s more you can do it for yourself.

Nowadays its almost impossible to remember what a nine to five working day was like. Whether you are at home raising children or at work delivering deadlines - the rat race is becoming a rat marathon, and an overload of stress is the result.

So when you do get time to relax its important you make the most of it. Hypnosis can be an extremely effective stress management technique. which works by implanting suggestions in your subconscious. Self-hynosis is the exactly the same - only you don’t need a Svengali - YOU do the implanting.

Learning to manage stress in this way is not difficult. Far from being complicated the technique will take only a little time to learn but the rewards can be incredible.

With all forms of relaxation it is vital that you sit in a relaxing position. Take a deep breath starting from the diaphragm and then exhale through the mouth with your lips slightly parted.

While breathing in say: “breathe in relaxation” either to yourself or out loud. While breathing out say: “breathe out tension”. Next you need to concentrate on each part of your body starting from the top of your head.

Tell yourself that with every breath you will relax the muscles in that part of your body. Tense the muscles first and then relax moving through each part of your body in turn from your head right down to your toes. By concentrating on each part of your body separately you will end up relaxing your whole body totally.

You may have heard of the progressive relaxation technique - well you’ve just done it!  Do this once a day and within a week to ten days you will have learnt the techniques required to fully relax your body. By following this simple procedure, you allow each of your muscles, your nerves, tendons, ligaments and joints to fully relax.

Don’t worry too much if you fall asleep - after all sleep is an excellent form of relaxation. Try again the next day until you get the hang of relaxing deeply without going to sleep. Once you achieve that you’ll have a simple strategy to manage stress which you can use wherever and whenever you feel the need.

Related articles:

• Learn to relax your way to stress relief
• Why managing stress matters
• Is your response to stress inherited?