Photo by George Stojkovic

There are so many people now being displaced because of earthquakes, floods and now all the tornadoes!  Post traumatic stress was only thought to be a phenomenon among soldiers returning from war, but it can also occur for people who have other types of traumatic experiences. The symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder include extreme anxiety that does not go away, being “jumpy” or easily startled, nightmares, flashbacks and other anxiety-related symptoms that interfere with everyday life.  If you have lost everything you own, family members, friends and even the town you lived in, this is an overwhelming experience for those people who are living this reality right now.  People in Joplin, Missouri are in shock and just trying to find loved ones at the moment. They are in survival mode and for some maybe the extent of the devastation hasn’t even sunk in yet. It may be years before they recover if ever. It is when things settle down that people who have lived through a devastating experience like this will need to seek help. One thing someone can do after a natural disaster, when they remember the event, feel jumpy or notice their anxiety and stress levels rising is hypnotherapy. Managing your symptoms is important because the longer you suffer with the symptoms, the worse they will get and the harder they will be to manage. Maybe you have tried treatments for anxiety like counseling or medication, but you still feel a gnawing anxiety or even outright fear much of the time.

Hypnosis can address the root cause of your symptoms by helping you to deal with the trauma you experienced at a subconscious level.  You can change the perception that you are in danger all of the time and recognize that your symptoms are a result of the shock and stress of the trauma you suffered. That trauma is in the past and is no longer a threat to you. It can help you to manage the symptoms of PTSD at the subconscious level, help you feel safer in the world and teach you to access a feeling of peace and inner calm.

For more info please click here for our Hypnosis MP3 to help with PTSD.

As a parent you might wonder what the symptoms are for OCD in children.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is an anxiety disorder characterized by uncontrollable, unwanted thoughts and repetitive, ritualized behaviors one feels compelled to perform. They may recognize they are irrational but even so, they feel unable to resist them and break free. Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) causes the brain to get stuck on a particular thought or urge. You might wash your hands over and over not knowing if they are really clean and you are just waiting for that feeling that tells you that they are ok. You could check the stove or the door over and over to make sure that it is off or locked. You may stand in front of the stove for an hour just staring at the knobs or touching them and checking them and continually doubting yourself that they are really off. You don’t want to have these thoughts and in fact, you know that they don’t make any sense. But you can’t stop them. These obsessive thoughts are usually disturbing and distracting and then compulsions are performed in an attempt to make the obsessions go away.

Many people have mild forms of OCD but it is when it takes over your life and causes you great stress that it is considered a disorder. It can take up a great deal of your day and symptoms get worse in times of stress.

The main categories are:

• Washers are afraid of contamination. They usually have cleaning or hand-washing compulsions.
• Hoarders fear that something awful will happen if they throw anything away. They compulsively hoard things that they don’t use or need.
• Checkers Continually checking things like stoves and locks to make sure they are turned off or locked. They associate this with harm of danger.
• Sinners & Doubters are afraid that if everything isn’t perfect or done just right something terrible will happen or they will be punished.
• Counters & arrangers are obsessed with order & symmetry. They may have superstitions about certain numbers, colors, or arrangements.

A person with OCD can have one or more of these obsessions and the problem is that the relief they get from a compulsion never lasts and can come back stronger.

You may notice your child washing their hands a lot or being excessively afraid of getting dirty. They may ask you questions over and over and seem afraid that they might hurt someone by some action that they do. They might want everything extremely neat or things lined up in perfect order. They may have excessive focus on religious or moral ideas. They may count things or have lucky and unlucky numbers. They may tap or repeat certain words over and over. They may accumulate junk or continue to check on loved ones to make sure they are safe.

These are all signs that your child is suffering and may have OCD. They should not be made fun of or scolded for such behavior as it is not their fault. There is a switch in the brain that is not working properly; kind of like a “brain hiccup.” This is an anxiety disorder and the sooner you get it treated the better chance you have of it going away completely.

If you notice these behaviors in your child then it is wise to get help. There are many effective treatments for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), ranging from therapy to self-help and medication. However, the treatment for OCD with the most research supporting its effectiveness is cognitive-behavioral therapy.

There are two parts to this:

• Cognitive therapy
• Exposure and response prevention

Even though these are the main treatments suggested for OCD, hypnosis can also be very effective in that it gets the person very relaxed and can help ease the feelings of fear and panic. It can help a person with OCD to reprogram their behaviors. It is a natural drug free solution to Obsessive Compulsive behavior.

The MP3 download should be listened to every night for 3 weeks for best results. Click here for more info.

It is not easy to watch your child going through these rituals. Just know that what they are doing is trying to make themselves feel safe in some way even if it doesn’t make any sense to you. To them it does! It is important to talk to them about it and get them help!

Even though relaxation is a natural state, you might be surprised how difficult this can be for people to do.  We tend to get in the habit of endless thinking, worrying, stressing and planning. In today’s hectic world people don’t seem to take the time to just sit quietly for a few moments or to just breathe. Conscious breathing can make all the difference when it comes to reducing stress levels. Slow breathing lets the body know that it is time to relax!

Stress and anxiety are a part of our modern life but there are things you can do even in the midst of a busy work day!

First of all…………………

Breathe!!!…… Breathing is the most important thing, but not just any breathing.

Place your hands on your belly and begin to breathe from the abdomen. In and out through the belly, as you inhale let the belly balloon up and as you exhale let it sink down. Keep the breath in the belly. This is called abdominal breathing.

Ujjayi Breathing: ……Continue breathing with the belly but now add the “sounding breath” or in the ancient yogic tradition called Ujjayi breathing, making a sound in the back of the throat as if you had nostrils in the back of your throat. The “sounding breath” is created by moving the glottis (in the back of the throat) as air passes in and out. The throat passage is narrowed and the airway where the passage of air comes through creates a gentle snoring sound. The length and speed of the breath is controlled by the diaphragm. This strengthening is, partially the purpose of ujjayi as well as being tremendously relaxing and calming.

Hypnosis Relaxation MP3’s or CD’s: …… Hypnosis allows you to enter a state of deep relaxation which in itself is a very useful therapy for lowering stress. It also allows you to become calm and focused, so you can concentrate on solving your problems. Hypnosis is a state in which the conscious mind is temporarily suspended or distracted and in which all parts of the mind work in harmony for your highest good. Hypnosis MP3’s or CD’s can be very useful in helping one to relax.

Try this Deep Relaxation MP3 which is free right now! It will put you into a blissful state!

Click here to download it for free!

With anxiety and depression so prevalent in our society it is hard to say which is worse.

Anxiety can create feelings of fear, worry, uneasiness and dread. The worry often is unrealistic or out of proportion for the situation. Daily life becomes a constant state of worry, fear, and dread. Eventually, the anxiety so dominates the person’s thinking that it interferes with daily functioning, including work, school, social activities, and relationships.

Depression may be described as feeling sad, blue, unhappy, miserable, or down in the dumps. Most of us feel this way at one time or another for short periods. True clinical depression is a mood disorder in which feelings of sadness, loss, anger, or frustration interfere with everyday life for a long period of time. The exact cause of depression is not known. Many researchers believe it is caused by chemical imbalances in the brain, which may be hereditary or caused by events in a person’s life. Some types of depression seem to run in families, but depression can also occur in people who have no family history of the illness. Stressful life changes or events can trigger depression in some people. Usually, a combination of factors is involved.

If you had to choose one I suppose it would be very difficult to decide which one to have. A good deal of the time they are interconnected and a person may have a little of both.

I guess I would say it is about equal, both cause a great deal of pain. The question is how can we be free of both of these feelings and move on to a feeling of freedom and joy? To become free we have to start from within. We have to go to a place of stillness. I think we tend to forget that we have that within us when the entire world is spinning around us so fast. There is so much to get caught up in. We are bombarded with TV, internet, social media and more! How many people really spend a little time each day just sitting, whether it be meditating, listening to relaxation MP3’s or just contemplating but sitting and being quiet?

We are often so busy we feel there is no time to stop and meditate! But meditation actually gives you more time by making your mind calmer and more focused. A simple ten or fifteen minute breathing meditation can help you to overcome your stress and find some inner peace and balance.
Meditation can also help you to understand your own mind. We can learn how to transform our mind from negative to positive, from disturbed to peaceful, from unhappy to happy.

“The power for happiness, for good, for everything we need of life is within each one of us. The power is there- unlimited power.” Robert Collier

We all have our own concept of the perfect power nap; after we’ve mowed the lawn, in the office at 2:30 with the door closed, in the parking lot at the supermarket while the spouse does the shopping. We even joke about the power nap, but taking a break to rest and rejuvenate your brain is more beneficial than you can imagine.

Sometimes all it takes is just 15 minutes rest to help stress and worry reach the exit door. Your brain can revitalize and you can be ready to conquer all challenges and everything on your ‘to do’ list without being worn out or making mistakes. It is the perfect solution to the “I just can’t get it done” problem.

By using a power nap hypnosis mp3 you will be training your brain to ‘go off line’ on demand. It really does work amazingly well. The short hypnosis mp3 takes you through relaxation and helps you shut down your brain. Just like turning off the lights. Each time you listen it will get easier and easier to turn off the sounds in your head and let your brain go offline for a much needed rest. You can do this anywhere you can be comfortable and undisturbed.

Listening to a power nap hypnosis mp3 allows you to let go of everything except for those suggestions that you hear. Your brain responds to these suggestions and you get a rejuvenating nap. The best part of this is that you do not have to do any of the ‘thinking’ yourself. You listen to a series of suggestions and your brain goes where it is supposed to go ‘sleep’. The hypnosis program will also wake you up at the end of the approximately 30 minute recording! That way you’ll never oversleep or miss an important meeting or phone call. The power nap will change the way you look at work and convince you that hypnosis can be a powerful tool that will improve your focus and drive for greater successes in your life.

Take a power nap any time you want with our “Power Nap MP3″

Living with stress is common for most people in this day and age. We all have stress in our lives due to personal relationships and finances; we have stress related to our jobs and our children. And, boy do we get stressed just driving in traffic back and forth to work. The result of this commonplace environmental stress is that it piles up on us, and it builds to the point that we can’t tolerate it any more. Eventually we simply adapt to living such an enormous level of stress that we don’t even realize what the cumulative effects of stress on our physical bodies and our minds and emotions really are. Stress is a killer, if you let it, so … let me ask this – where is the high school course on managing life stress that everyone needs to learn?

Actively dealing with high levels of stress daily, and working diligently to counteract it, helps us to chip away at the effects of stress and keeps us feeling better and more centered. Living a high stress life with no attempt at stress relief will create side effects (otherwise called dis-ease) that we never expect and disease can certainly be devastating. In this case, it is important to learn to use the best stress relief techniques available to you to avoid getting ill. You can reverse the effects of stress but you need to learn how to reprogram your brain and your life to fully conquer to its effects.

A deep relaxation mp3 will assist you in reducing the stress in your life by using multiple senses at one time as hypnosis is used to reprogram your brain and re-educate your body on exactly how to relax and let go of all the stresses of your life. As you hear the hypnosis MP3, your thoughts will be guided through a deep relaxation exercise that helps you to enter a deeper state of relaxation despite the daily stress you now experience.

Using this audio mp3 will cause relaxation to be immediate, and has been proven to be effective and with the mp3, you will learn how to allow your mind and body to enter a state of deep healing level of relaxation and improve your quality of life immediately. Here’s where you can find it:  Click Here to Relax.