Anxiety is the feeling that you won’t be able to cope with what is going to happen. Sometimes we can feel fine consciously but just have a sense of unease or disquiet. However as no one knows what is going to happen in life this is a misuse of your imagination. Worrying about the future will not help you have a better future, it will just mean that you will have a future where you will worry. When we imagine negative things we get all the physical feelings in our bodies that would happen if our imagined scenario came to pass such as a racing heartbeat. Anxiety can effect our sleep or trigger attacks of IBS. Sometimes we don’t realise that we are causing our own feelings which reinforces the unpleasant sensations because we feel out of control and eventually this can spiral up to a full blown panic attack. We all feel anxious to some degree when faced with the challenges and stress of everyday life and in moderation it can be a good thing, motivating us to do well. However, if the anxiety is out of proportion to the event or if you keep feeling anxious for no obvious reason, then it becomes a problem. Hypnotherapy can be used to identify the source of the anxiety and give you back control over your feelings. I can also teach you some tools that can be used to break quickly out of the cycle of anxiety and restore our underlying default state of calm positivity. Being aware of our thinking is really important to stop anxiety and mindfulness meditation can be really useful. See my post on How to do Mindfulness Meditation.