Addiction plagues most people around the world in one form or another. When we imagine addiction, we commonly picture drugs, alcohol or cigarettes. However, we may be addicted to a lot more than that, such as gambling, sex, and even work.

Addiction may be defined as not having any control over taking, doing or using something to the point of harm. It's an issue that affects your mind and body, consuming lives and affecting careers and relationships. There are many reasons why people develop addictions, and various factors may be involved, from purely environmental to genetics. The most common suspects, like drugs, alcohol and nicotine, give a nice physical or emotional feeling, urging you to use them repeatedly, but a price is attached. You can find a similar high when you engage in gambling, compulsive shopping and more.

What Causes Addiction?

There is no single underlying cause for all addictions, but many factors may increase the risk of someone developing one. The factors fall into two categories - chemical and behavioural. 

Behavioural Factors

Certain traits in behaviour may make you more vulnerable to addictive substances and activities, such as the following:

• Background - Traumatic experiences during childhood, such as abuse or neglect, tend to increase the risk of developing addictive behaviours. Early use of such substances or activities also links to a lifelong struggle with addiction.

• Genetics - there is enough evidence to suggest that there are also genetic links to addiction. If you have a family history of addiction, you have a higher chance of developing one. Certain genetic traits may also speed up or delay the progression of addiction.

• Mental Health Issues - People who experience more anxiety and nervousness in their lives tend to be more vulnerable to the lure of addiction. Individuals who struggle with stress and seek coping methods may also lean toward such addictive behaviour patterns.

Chemical Factors

There is a link between the repeated use of specific substances or engaging in certain activities and the brain's pleasure centres. Addictive behaviours trigger the creation of dopamine, which causes a mental high and a sense of satisfaction. The brain remembers this state of pleasure and wants it repeated, which is the primary mechanism behind addiction.

The repeated use of a substance or activity tends to change the way the brain feels pleasure, so the user needs more, either upping the frequency of the activity or substance use or the dose to catch up with the same feeling they experienced in the beginning. The withdrawal symptoms get more severe when the tolerance increases and the addiction is in full swing.

Using Hypnotherapy for Addiction

Recovery from addiction requires long-term changes in your behaviour. This is extremely difficult without a strong support system to back you up. Hypnotherapy uses a state of deep relaxation or hypnotic trance to make your mind more open to positive suggestions. This allows the hypnotherapist to help you change your addiction's perspective and push you toward changing your habits. 

The process of hypnotherapy is a relaxing experience and helps lower stress levels, making you better at managing stress in general. As stress triggers addictive behaviour, this makes a big difference. Depending on withdrawal symptoms and the added stress of your recovery, hypnotherapy offers a layer of support you can count on, alongside other methods like balanced dieting, exercise and more. Reinforcing the changes made during your hypnotherapy sessions will take multiple sessions, as well as the use of self-hypnosis techniques you can use in your daily life, helping you stay focused and motivated on your path to rid yourself of your addiction.

© Zoe Clews & Associates

Hypnotherapy has become quite a popular solution for many problems in people, from physical issues to habits, beliefs, fears and other mental problems that you wish to overcome. Surely you have wondered how to resolve many of these blunders in your life, to feel better and improve your wellbeing. Many people are rather sceptical about hypnotherapy. They believe that hypnosis as a whole is nothing more than a stage act and that it will hardly help them in any way. Of course, this is not true, and there is a growing number of researches that proves it. Hypnotherapy is useful in many ways, even more so when you consider some of the following tips that will help you get the best results:

You should find out what it works for

Hypnotherapy offers a broad range of solutions to many issues, some of which may even surprise you. For example, hypnotherapy is excellent for various children’s issues, like bedwetting, low self-esteem, problems with concentration, etc. Adults can benefit from treatment of various phobias and conditions that have a lot to do with the psyche – emotional eating, addiction, anxiety. Hypnotherapy is a well-known treatment for people with depression. Sports people often resort to this method, to improve their performance on the field or overcome the obstacles that are holding them back from giving 100%. Evidently, knowing what you can use hypnotherapy for is a sure way to make the most of it, and seek it out in the first place.

Seek a therapist with a medical background

Since hypnotherapists don’t have special training by law, sometimes you can end up with a person who has little experience and no clue how to address your issue. One thing you can do to minimise the risk of ending up with someone who cannot help is to find a therapist with a medical background. Whether it is a doctor, a counsellor or a psychologist, working with a hypnotherapist who has the expertise is a sure way to see positive results in regards to the issue you are dealing with.

Look for an expert with experience in your problem

Hypnotherapy can help with many things, but the best way for it to do so is to have an experienced therapist on your side. Sometimes the issue may be rather severe, such as a mental health problem (depression, anxiety, phobia), or perhaps you are trying to improve your weight loss efforts. When you find a therapist with experience on the matter, you are significantly improving your chances for the treatment to work.

Ask people you know for a recommendation

If you have a friend or a family member who has been to hypnotherapy, ask them about their experience. If they are happy with the service, maybe you too should try the same therapist. This is all the more important if it is the same problem you want to deal with. Although it is true that hypnotherapy works differently for everyone, at least you will know that the therapist helped someone you know.

Check if their organisation is accredited

Working with an accredited hypnotherapist is another way to tell if they are serious and work to the approved standards. See if they are part of an organisation that maintains high standards from another authority on the matter. As you can see, there are quite a few ways to improve the odds of hypnotherapy helping you out. It is up to you to make the most of it. For more hypnotherapy news and tips, make sure to visit Zoe Clews & Associates.

© Zoe Clews & Associates

Addiction is a major issue, which causes quite a lot of problems for the individual as well as for their family/loved ones. As devastating as it may sound, there is always a bright side. In this case, it comes in various forms of treatment, among which is hypnotherapy. This kind of therapy is gaining more popularity and recognition, as studies reveal the beneficial impact it has on an addict.

According to many, hypnotherapy can successfully deal with addiction, because the problem is mainly a mental one. Many studies reveal that hypnotherapy performed throughout several weeks can severely help people get off drugs and stay that way for an extended period of time. Such success rates should come as no surprise because hypnosis has been used for treating drug addiction since the 70s.  

So what exactly is hypnotherapy?

In essence, this is the science of using hypnosis to affect a person’s unconscious part of the mind positively. This should not be confused with stage hypnosis, which is mostly used for entertainment purposes. In hypnotherapy, a trained therapist talks to their client about different aspects of their life and what the person wants to change/achieve. Afterwards, the said client is put in a trance-like state. In it, their conscious mind is completely relaxed, which allows the therapist to imprint various positive unconscious commands on their mind.

During hypnotherapy, the client is in a state of extreme suggestibility. This doesn’t mean they can be asked to do absurd things. On the contrary, they are in control, because the state they are in is neither asleep nor awake. Their unconscious mind is accessed and thus open to suggestions, which the therapist provides.

There is unequivocal empirical support that hypnotherapy works. When it comes to addiction, it has clear benefits:

• Helps with the withdrawal symptoms – going through rehab is painful for anyone and it - sometimes causes people to return to the substance. Thanks to hypnosis, the severity of these withdrawal symptoms can be significantly alleviated.
• Helps physical/mental pain – other than withdrawal discomfort, there is also a physical and psychological pain for the addicted to deal with. Hypnosis works wonders for these symptoms, whether on its own or alongside other forms of treatment.
• Adjustment of addictive behaviours – to beat addiction, one often needs behavioural adjustment techniques. Since hypnosis targets the unconscious, it can easily change these deeply-rooted behaviours.
• Gives the person better emotional health – anxiety and depression often manifest in a person battling addiction. Hypnotherapy steps in to help with both of these symptoms. By undergoing sustained hypnotherapy, one can remain focused on rehab and reduce the stress caused by withdrawal symptoms. Not only will it take the edge of these symptoms, but also decrease the chance of co-occurring disorders.

As you can see, hypnotherapy is definitely a worthy choice in the battle against addiction. If you or someone you know is struggling with the condition, be sure to try it out.

Find out how hypnotherapy can further help with addiction by contactingZoe Clews & Associates on 07766 515 272.

© Zoe Clews & Associates