An effective alternative to anti-anxiety medication

A Sunday Times investigation has found that pregabalin, a powerful medication widely prescribed for anxiety, has the fastest rising death toll of any drug in the UK.

Pregabalin is an anticonvulsant designed as a medication for epilepsy. In recent years, however, it has been prescribed for a wider range of uses, including for anxiety. It is highly addictive. In England in 2022, there were 8.6 million prescriptions for pregabalin.

During the pandemic, there was a huge rise in the number of people suffering anxiety. According to Mental Health UK, there are still about eight million people living with an anxiety disorder. Many are being prescribed anti-anxiety medication such as pregabalin and gabapentin, a similar type of drug.

However, there are highly effective, non-chemical, alternatives to medication, such as hypnotherapy.

To understand why hypnotherapy is so effective, it is helpful to understand the neuroscience behind how anxiety is created.

Our primitive mind

The original primitive part of the brain, which runs all the automatic processes in our bodies, prioritises our our safety and survival. The central and most influential part of the primitive mind is the amygdala.   You may have heard of this referred to as the ‘fight/flight/freeze’ area of the brain.  It works closely with two other very primitive parts: the hippocampus, which holds all our primitive and sometimes inappropriate learned habits and behaviours; and the hypothalamus, which regulates chemical responses in the body and mind.

If the primitive mind thinks that we are in some sort of danger or that there is an emergency or crisis it will react immediately. Anxiety, anger or depression are the primitive responses it will use to protect us.

We have evolved and developed the intellectual part of the brain which enables us to make sensible assessments of situations but when anxiety goes up the primitive mind rapidly takes over to protect us and sometimes it overreacts. This happens before the slower intellectual mind has had the chance to assess the situation and come up with a rational, more sensible, response.

It is important to understand how this part of the mind works so that we can stop it overreacting when it doesn't need to.

The primitive mind is a negative mind, it will always see things from the worst possible perspective. It must, for our self-preservation.  

So what causes anxiety?

Anxiety is caused by negative thinking. It is not necessarily what is going on around us that makes us anxious, it is the way we think about what is going on around us.

Every negative thought we have is converted into anxiety. The mind can’t tell the difference between imagination and reality. So, if we are negatively thinking about something it is as if it's real and it's happening now.

The mind can't tell if we're thinking about the past or the future, if it is a big problem or a little problem… It is a problem now and our anxiety will go up.

Every negative thought we have is accumulated and stored in a ‘stress bucket’. This is the hippocampus, in the primitive part of the brain. We do have a natural way of emptying our stress bucket and this is great because the emptier our stress bucket, the less anxious we feel and the better we're able to cope with day-to-day life.

This process happens when we sleep. It is a special part of our sleep cycle known as rapid eye movement (REM) sleep.

When we sleep we process the events of the day . They are moved from the primitive part of the brain to the intellectual part.

An example

Suppose someone really upset you in the afternoon. You tell your partner about it, and they say ‘forget about it’. But you just can't, so you're still thinking about it when you go to bed.

During REM sleep, whilst dreaming, we process the event either clearly, as it happened, or metaphorically. The event is moved from the primitive brain to the intellectual part where we have control over it and can make an intellectual assessment of the situation. When you wake up in the morning you may well have forgotten about the upsetting event, you might not, but you will be saying something like ‘why did I let that person upset me?’

But sometimes

Sometimes our negative thoughts can build up so much that our stress bucket will overflow! Sadly, REM sleep is restricted to about 20% of our overall sleep pattern and if we are trying to overdo it then the mind will wake us up. When it's the mind waking us up, we’ll be wide awake, possibly not feeling too good. The mind might be racing, and we may have trouble getting back to sleep. Even if we do get back to sleep, we won't have emptied our stress bucket.

We are now in the grip of a vicious cycle. Waking up with stress still in the bucket and not having as much intellectual control to cope so well with the day. More time is spent in the primitive mind, and we are encouraged to be negative.

Regaining intellectual control

During our therapy sessions we focus on what we can do to get intellectual control back and get on top of things. In particular:

• Restricting the amount of stress that's filling up the bucket by focusing on the positive things in life.

• Getting our sleep patterns working more efficiently.

• Producing natural ‘feel good’ motivational chemical responses in the brain which act as catalysts for mentally healthy behaviour.

If you would like to know more about how hypnotherapy can help you to overcome anxiety, please email me at simon@coast-hypnotherapy.co.uk or call me on 07833 431113 to arrange an initial free no obligation conversation.