How to reduce stress and anxieties
If you are experiencing excess stress and anxiety feelings, I can help.
My name is William Wood and I am NOT your traditional stress and anxiety therapist!
I am a hypnotherapist based in Ogden, Utah. I specialize in mind-based stress and anxiety reduction through hypnosis and mindfulness.
That means I help you teach your mind how to relax and find peace.
Peace sounds nice right about now, doesn’t it?
Let me tell you a little bit about how you can reduce or eliminate your stress and anxiety.
When you are ready to take the next step, you can also call or text us to book a 20 minute consultation in my Ogden office or over web conferencing: 1-801-698-0752
YOU CAN Train YOUR Brain To Be Peaceful
Since 2004, science has clearly shown that the brain reshapes in response to stimulus — both positively and negatively.
This ability of the brain to reshape is called neuroplasticity.
Neuroplasticity science has both good and bad news for your brain.
First the bad news.
The fact that your brain has the ability to rewire itself means things like chronic stress and anxiety start to reshape the brain so that they actually feel more stress and anxiety.
“Wait,” one client said, “That means my anxiety makes me more likely to get anxiety?”
Unfortunately, the answer to that question is yes…
And let’s be real, that sucks.
But that seed of bad news contains the seeds of good news too.
Think about it.
Because the brain has the ability to rewire itself, that means you can also rewire your brain for peace.
So if you do things that creates peace in your life, over time, you can literally rewire your brain for peace.
That means that in many ways, you can learn how to create inner peace. Then you can take charge of your brain and cultivate, shape, and create peace!
And that is really good news.
3 Approaches That Work To Reduce Stress And Anxiety
Since 2009, I have helped thousands of people reduce stress and anxiety by teaching them how to run their minds more effectively.
During that time, I have done more than 12,000 sessions with clients in my Ogden, Utah, hypnotherapy office, and over Skype and the phone.
Today, I want to talk about three tools that consistently help clients reduce stress and anxiety.
- Hypnosis
- Mindfulness
- Changing Key Thoughts and Emotions
Let me tell you a little bit about each tool.
Let’s Start By Talking About How Hypnosis Reduces Stress And Anxiety
First, let’s define hypnosis in the simplest way that I know, then I will talk a little bit about why that is important and how it can help you.
Ready? Drum roll…
Hypnosis is effective communication with the subconscious mind.
Effective communication means that we are able to send information to and receive communication from the subconscious mind.
ANYTHING that communicates with the subconscious mind is hypnotic in nature.
The subconscious mind is any cognitive function or process that operates outside of your conscious awareness…
…which for most of us, is ALMOST everything that our mind does on a daily basis.
Some scientists estimate that there are roughly 1,000,000 things that your subconscious mind does for every single thing your conscious mind does.
Let me give you an example a little closer to home.
Most people are consciously aware of their stress and anxiety. They feel it. And what they feel is REAL!
But, often, they don’t know what triggers it, nor do they know what processes keep it going.
And they certainly don’t know how to get rid of it!
Sound familiar?
The reason you want to learn hypnotic strategies to influence your mind is because you will be more successful treating your stress and anxiety after you learn how to send messages to your subconscious mind helping it relax and calm.
AND you will be more successful at eliminating triggers after you learn to listen carefully to what your subconscious mind is trying to teach you.
Give me a minute to explain.
One of my mentors once said this: “The reason that my clients become my clients is that they have fallen out of rapport with their own subconscious mind. My job is not to fix anything. Nothing is broken. My job is simply to help my clients regain rapport with their own deep inner wisdom, which is contained in their subconscious mind. And when they restore this deep communication with their own inner wisdom, my clients will not need my help anymore.”
Powerful idea, isn’t it?
I believe that there is a deep well of wisdom inside of you, waiting for you to learn how to draw water that will ultimately help you find peace and refreshment. Hypnosis is the tool that helps you draw from those fresh waters. And I can teach you how to do that!
You want to learn enough hypnosis to restore communication with your own deep inner wisdom. Hypnosis helps you find your own deep inner peace!
Mindfulness Is The Second Key To Treating Your Stress and Anxiety!
If you have paid any attention to the science of peaceful living over the last 10 years, you have probably seen one or more articles on mindfulness.
In fact, last time I checked, there are more than 10,000 peer reviewed articles on mindfulness that showed that mindfulness helps people reduce stress and anxiety.
Simply put, it works (more on this in a minute).
I am going to give you a simple definition of mindfulness, then I will tell you how it will help you reduce your stress and anxiety. After that, I will tell you a little bit about how it compliments and differs from hypnosis.
Here is the simple definition of mindfulness:
Mindfulness is a quality of attention and a quality of attitude that leads to a peaceful mind and peaceful heart.
So…
What it a mindful quality of attention?
Mindful Attention Is Attention Focused On The Present Moment, Focused On The Now!
Now for some bad news.
If your mind works like most minds that are riddled with stress and anxiety, your mind is constantly doing at least one of three things (and maybe a few more).
- You are thinking about the future and imagining all the terrible things that could be happening.
- You are thinking about the past and revisiting all the bad things that have happened.
- You are talking to yourself in a way that creates stress and anxiety.
All three of these mental activities effectively separate you from the present moment and make it a LOT HARDER to reduce your stress and anxiety.
That means that you essentially have mind habits that are doing the exact opposite of what peaceful minds do.
Now for some good news.
YOU Can Train YOURSELF To Be More Mindful
And it does take training–and usually requires the help of a skilled guide, someone you can trust, like me.
I have helped thousands of clients learn mindfulness and in my experience, most of my clients BEGIN to see significant improvements in their mindful attention after 8-12 weeks of training and home exercises.
My goal is to help YOU treat YOUR own brain, to learn the skills that will turn your life around!
You deserve peace and you can create it!
And NO ONE else can do it for you!
The reason that I combine hypnosis and mindfulness technologies to help you treat your stress and anxiety is that hypnosis tends to work faster than mindfulness and mindfulness works deeply to reverse the anxiety and stress patterns that have controlled your life, up until now.
Back to my definition of mindfulness.
A Mindful Attitude Is An Attitude of Gentleness And Kindness.
Let me ask you, are you gentle and kind to yourself? Or are you hard on yourself? Do you criticize yourself?
Most of my clients with stress and anxiety struggle with this attitude initially. They have been trained since they were little to criticize or belittle themselves. Some people even learned it as a motivation strategy to help them be more acceptable or more perfect.
For some, it may have even been a survival strategy to cope with a critical parent or sibling.
You can learn to train your brain to be kind and gentle.
And you can make significant progress in 8-12 weeks!
There are many mindfulness strategies that CAN work. My job is to help you find one that fits your situation and helps you retrain your brain for peace and happiness.
You can change, when you learn the tools to help you change. Mindfulness is one of the key tools to help you change your brain and keep the change!
What Are The Similarities and Differences Between Mindfulness and Hypnosis
Both hypnosis and mindfulness use the mind to create change. Both are considered mind-based stress reduction techniques. Both ask you to direct your attention. Both strategies are effective for reducing stress and anxiety.
However, there are some important differences, in my opinion. Let me explain a few of them.
Difference #1: Hypnosis is a communication model, so it asks you to both send and receive messages to and from the subconscious mind.
Hypnosis assumes that there is a deeper intelligence inside of you and that you have the ability to tap into that deep wisdom. Accessing that deep inner wisdom helps you create deep and lasting changes to your mind.
Mindfulness finds its wisdom by focusing the attention exclusively on the present moment.
Difference #2: Hypnosis directs the attention and awareness of the mind away from the present moment. Mindfulness always redirects the attention and awareness back towards the present moment.
In hypnosis, one simple strategy for calming the mind is to imagine a peaceful place in vivid detail — seeing, hearing, and feeling the peaceful place as if you were there. This activity can produce deep peace for many people…
…and does not direct the attention towards the present moment, but away from it, which is the exact opposite of what mindfulness asks you to do.
Difference #3: Hypnosis leverages the power of the imagination in a helpful way. Mindfulness helps you get out of the stranglehold of your imagination.
Stress and anxiety are MOSTLY produced as a byproduct of the imagination. Like I mentioned earlier, you imagine the future, you remember the past, you speak to yourself in a way that creates anxiety.
Your anxious thoughts create an anxious response.
Hypnosis uses the same process of imagination that created the problem, but redirects it towards your own healing in powerful and meaningful ways.
Mindfulness teaches you to step out of your imagination into reality, into the present moment.
Little by little, you break the headlock your imagination has had on your life. You find yourself free in the present moment.
Interestingly, the methods taught to produce mindfulness and hypnosis are often quite similar. I am a firm believer in both. Both helped me virtually eliminate stress and anxiety from my own life.
Both practices create peace through the mind.
Both will help you turn your life around!
Reduce Stress and Anxiety By Learning To Change Key Thoughts and Emotions
Your thoughts affect the way you feel!
Often when someone is experiencing chronic stress and anxiety, there are several specific key thoughts and emotional responses that need to be changed before they start to feel good again.
The good news is that YOU can learn how to change those thoughts.
And I can teach you how to do it.
Are there certain situations or people that trigger your anxiety?
You can learn how to reprogram your thinking. Change your thinking and you can find peace.
Often when helping someone with their stress or anxiety, I will help them change anywhere from 6 to 20 chronic and persistent thoughts that have a negative impact on their anxiety.
Change is simple, if you know how to change.
And if you don’t, it can feel like it is impossible.
My approach is to teach YOU how to run YOUR mind. Then you have the power to treat your own stress and anxiety.
Once you learn how, the power is yours.
Forever.
Knowing how to identify and change a thought and how to retrain an emotional response will set you free and help you live a life of emotional freedom and peace.
What Is The Next Step?
When you are ready to take the next step towards emotional freedom, the next step is to book a 20-minute session with me in my Ogden, UT, office or over Skype or Zoom. The best way to do that is to contact my assistant, Vicki Bowden, at 1-801-698-0752 (call or text).
Once we talk for 20 minutes, I should have a better idea about how I can help you and what to recommend to you as a next step.
Do You Want More Information?
Here is an article on hypnosis that will help you understand a little more about what I do. Click Here.
Here is a link to my FAQ Page.
*Let me tell you a little bit about what I do and don’t do. I work with clients in Ogden, Utah. I also work with clients over Skype and the phone who can’t make it into my Ogden, Utah, office. I help people reduce stress and anxiety by teaching them how to retrain their mind through hypnosis and mindfulness. However, my services are non-diagnostic. I do not offer “stress therapy.” So if you are looking for someone to give you a diagnosis, you will want to see your medical doctor or psychologist. If you have a serious medical or mental health condition, I do not offer treatment for such conditions. If you are looking for a traditional stress and anxiety therapist who does talk therapy, I recommend that you look for a licensed psychologist. I am a hypnotherapist and I work with hypnosis for personal and professional self improvement, including reducing stress and anxiety. If you have any questions, you are welcome to contact the office or book a short consultation with me. If you are experiencing a medical or mental health emergency, please do not contact our office, but dial 911 and go straight to the hospital.
