Click on the 'Katharines Creations' link to view my new creative blog.I'll post pictures and photos from the last few years and you can track my progress as I work through a drawing course.
Saturday 27 October 2007
Katharines Creations
Click on the 'Katharines Creations' link to view my new creative blog.I'll post pictures and photos from the last few years and you can track my progress as I work through a drawing course.
Tuesday 16 October 2007
Dental Fear and Anxiety - Tip 3: Easy Breathing for Relaxation
The 7:11 Breathing Pattern
Whether you are thinking about making an appointment, you are in the waiting room or in the chair many people find that the easiest way to relax is to concentrate on their own breathing.
It is a special type of breathing, not into your chest but deep into your tummy or diaphragm which is below your chest. Experience this now.
Sit down and close your eyes for a little while. Just become aware of your breathing. Make sure you are sitting or lying in a comfortable position with your hands resting in your lap or by your side and your legs un-crossed.
Concentrate on being aware of your feet on the floor, your arms, legs, head wherever they are resting.
Make each out breath last longer than the in breaths. This causes stimulation of the part of your nervous system responsible for relaxation. This is a basic law of biology and if you breathe in this way then your body will have no choice but to relax.
Your body will respond regardless of what your mind is thinking.
Now count to 7 as you breathe in and 11 as you breathe out, concentrate on counting to keep your mind focused, welcome the sense of calm gradually flowing in.
Do this 10-20 times knowing you will relax more with each breath.
It may be a little difficult at first and you may like someone to guide you through it until you are familiar with it, but doing this regularly causes your general anxiety level to come down. You may also find that you begin to breathe this way automatically if you feel anxious. Regular relaxation actually starts to inhibit the production of stress hormones in the body so it actually becomes harder and harder to panic. As you become more generally relaxed the 'baseline' of arousal from which you are starting lowers. It actually becomes harder to get stressed!
You can gain much more control over panic attacks.
Whether you are thinking about making an appointment, you are in the waiting room or in the chair many people find that the easiest way to relax is to concentrate on their own breathing.
It is a special type of breathing, not into your chest but deep into your tummy or diaphragm which is below your chest. Experience this now.
Sit down and close your eyes for a little while. Just become aware of your breathing. Make sure you are sitting or lying in a comfortable position with your hands resting in your lap or by your side and your legs un-crossed.
Concentrate on being aware of your feet on the floor, your arms, legs, head wherever they are resting.
Make each out breath last longer than the in breaths. This causes stimulation of the part of your nervous system responsible for relaxation. This is a basic law of biology and if you breathe in this way then your body will have no choice but to relax.
Your body will respond regardless of what your mind is thinking.
Now count to 7 as you breathe in and 11 as you breathe out, concentrate on counting to keep your mind focused, welcome the sense of calm gradually flowing in.
Do this 10-20 times knowing you will relax more with each breath.
It may be a little difficult at first and you may like someone to guide you through it until you are familiar with it, but doing this regularly causes your general anxiety level to come down. You may also find that you begin to breathe this way automatically if you feel anxious. Regular relaxation actually starts to inhibit the production of stress hormones in the body so it actually becomes harder and harder to panic. As you become more generally relaxed the 'baseline' of arousal from which you are starting lowers. It actually becomes harder to get stressed!
You can gain much more control over panic attacks.
Dental Fear and Anxiety - Tip 2: Fast Phobia Cure
Fast Phobia Technique, also known as the re-wind technique
Identify the particular aspect of your visit to the dentist you are phobic about and gauge you level of anxiety on a scale of 1 – 10.
Remember that you feel safe and comfortable before and after the event.
I want you to imagine yourself seated in the middle of a cinema and up on the screen, you can see a small black and white snapshot of yourself in a situation just before you experience your fear of a dental visit identified in (1.)
Now, I would like you to imagine that you float out of your body sitting in the cinema seat and back into the projection booth, so you can see yourself sitting in the middle of the cinema looking at the black and white snapshot of yourself on the screen.
Keeping the snapshot small, turn it into a black and white movie running all the way through that experience in which you used to have a phobic response. Let it run all the way to the end until the moment the event is over and you are feeling safe and comfortable, freeze it as a still image.
Float from the projection booth and float from your seat and into the screen and into your body at the end of the movie.
Turn the snapshot to colour and looking through your own eyes run the film backwards at four times the normal speed, so all the action is moving backwards, all the sounds are played backwards, remember you are IN the movie and experiencing it. Play it all the way back to the moment before the event when you felt safe and comfortable.
Repeat steps 4 to 7 a few times until you feel more comfortable. Increase the speed of playback in step 7 and add some comedy music if you like.
Now imagine your next visit to the dentist and really go into detail about the aspects you are most concerned about. Gauge you anxiety on a scale of 1 – 10. Repeat until you are at 0!
As for the swish it is possible to work on this on your own but sometimes it is more effective when working with a trained practitioner.
Identify the particular aspect of your visit to the dentist you are phobic about and gauge you level of anxiety on a scale of 1 – 10.
Remember that you feel safe and comfortable before and after the event.
I want you to imagine yourself seated in the middle of a cinema and up on the screen, you can see a small black and white snapshot of yourself in a situation just before you experience your fear of a dental visit identified in (1.)
Now, I would like you to imagine that you float out of your body sitting in the cinema seat and back into the projection booth, so you can see yourself sitting in the middle of the cinema looking at the black and white snapshot of yourself on the screen.
Keeping the snapshot small, turn it into a black and white movie running all the way through that experience in which you used to have a phobic response. Let it run all the way to the end until the moment the event is over and you are feeling safe and comfortable, freeze it as a still image.
Float from the projection booth and float from your seat and into the screen and into your body at the end of the movie.
Turn the snapshot to colour and looking through your own eyes run the film backwards at four times the normal speed, so all the action is moving backwards, all the sounds are played backwards, remember you are IN the movie and experiencing it. Play it all the way back to the moment before the event when you felt safe and comfortable.
Repeat steps 4 to 7 a few times until you feel more comfortable. Increase the speed of playback in step 7 and add some comedy music if you like.
Now imagine your next visit to the dentist and really go into detail about the aspects you are most concerned about. Gauge you anxiety on a scale of 1 – 10. Repeat until you are at 0!
As for the swish it is possible to work on this on your own but sometimes it is more effective when working with a trained practitioner.
Dental Fear and Anxiety - Tip 2: Swish
The Swish technique
As well as Dental fear and phobia this is used for a great many purposes by successful people all over the world. It is particularly suitable to help you deal with 'one-off' situations where you need a confidence boost, although there are many other times when it may be useful.
To use it successfully, you need to be wide awake and in a place where you will not be disturbed.
1. Create the CUE picture. Close your eyes. Steady your breathing and relax your body as much as you can for a minute or two. Now create, in your mind's eye, a projector screen, and on it get an image of you what you see when you become frightened of a dental visit. It must be as vivid and sharp as you can make it, filling your whole vision, the colours bright and alive, with you looking just as uncomfortable as you can possibly imagine. Make it seem like an enormous colour slide being projected in your mind, and include anything that will make it more lifelike; other people around you, their expressions, the scenery, listen out for sounds, notice the smells, experience what you are ‘touching’, feel the emotions. When you have that picture vivid enough that it actually makes you squirm, then you've got it right. For now, clear your screen.
2. Create the DESIRED picture. Imagine what you would look like when you have overcome your fear of the dentist, how will you be? Really see a picture of you of how you want to be. Check your facial expression, notice the rhythm of your breathing. You should be looking absolutely as if you truly have just been incredibly successful at your appointment – feeling the feelings really intensely, seeing what you can see, hearing the sounds and noticing any smells or textures. When you get it right, when it makes you feel good, allow yourself to enjoy it for a moment, then imagine it shrinking, becoming smaller and smaller, with the colours becoming less and less pronounced, until you are left with a small black-and-white picture the size of a postage stamp.
3. Pick up the CUE picture, and make sure it fills your entire vision, just as sharp, just as lifelike, just as 'squirm-making' as it was before, but with an important addition. The small, black-and-white SUCCESS picture is tucked into the bottom left-hand corner.
4. When you have that image clearly in your mind, just say to yourself:
'S-W-I-S-H', at the same time changing the pictures over in your mind so that the 'moment of achievement' becomes the large colour picture and the 'moment of anxiety' shrinks to the size of a postage stamp tucked into the bottom left-hand corner, becoming black-and-white as it does so. Speed is important! Change the pictures as quickly as you say ‘S-W-I-S-H’.
5. Enjoy the success picture for a few moments.
6. Think of a pink elephant – actually it doesn’t have to be a pink elephant but you do need to get an unrelated picture in your mind and this usually does the trick.
7. Now get the CUE picture back on your screen and repeat steps 3-6. After three or four attempts the cue picture will begin to fade or break up or have ragged edges. Repeat the sequence until the you simply cannot produce the moment of anxiety picture at all.
When that happens, you have programmed yourself for success, rather than failure. You will find that when you actually get to the event you have been working on, you will feel confident and easy, and able to give of your best as a result. It might all sound rather complicated at first, but you soon get used to it and it is worth persevering with. It is one of the most powerful 'quick-fix' methods in existence.
It is possible to work on this on your own but sometimes it is more effective when working with a trained practitioner.
This can used in other situations too. For an example, driving test fear. The moment of anxiety would be, perhaps, sitting in the car; looking very anxious, perhaps having trouble with the seat belt, the examiner looking stern. The feeling of 'nerves' could be included, too. The moment of achievement could be tearing up the 'L' plates, big smile on the face, congratulations from the examiner, a feeling of excitement and jubilation. Maybe even a congratulatory pat on the back from a friend. In these images, anything goes, as long as they give you absolutely the right feeling, both the anxiety and the jubilation.
The 'swish' technique can help you to excel in exams and other test situations; public speaking; sports performance; other games performance like snooker, darts, bowls, etc.. It can, in fact, help you deal with anything where you can create those two pictures.
As well as Dental fear and phobia this is used for a great many purposes by successful people all over the world. It is particularly suitable to help you deal with 'one-off' situations where you need a confidence boost, although there are many other times when it may be useful.
To use it successfully, you need to be wide awake and in a place where you will not be disturbed.
1. Create the CUE picture. Close your eyes. Steady your breathing and relax your body as much as you can for a minute or two. Now create, in your mind's eye, a projector screen, and on it get an image of you what you see when you become frightened of a dental visit. It must be as vivid and sharp as you can make it, filling your whole vision, the colours bright and alive, with you looking just as uncomfortable as you can possibly imagine. Make it seem like an enormous colour slide being projected in your mind, and include anything that will make it more lifelike; other people around you, their expressions, the scenery, listen out for sounds, notice the smells, experience what you are ‘touching’, feel the emotions. When you have that picture vivid enough that it actually makes you squirm, then you've got it right. For now, clear your screen.
2. Create the DESIRED picture. Imagine what you would look like when you have overcome your fear of the dentist, how will you be? Really see a picture of you of how you want to be. Check your facial expression, notice the rhythm of your breathing. You should be looking absolutely as if you truly have just been incredibly successful at your appointment – feeling the feelings really intensely, seeing what you can see, hearing the sounds and noticing any smells or textures. When you get it right, when it makes you feel good, allow yourself to enjoy it for a moment, then imagine it shrinking, becoming smaller and smaller, with the colours becoming less and less pronounced, until you are left with a small black-and-white picture the size of a postage stamp.
3. Pick up the CUE picture, and make sure it fills your entire vision, just as sharp, just as lifelike, just as 'squirm-making' as it was before, but with an important addition. The small, black-and-white SUCCESS picture is tucked into the bottom left-hand corner.
4. When you have that image clearly in your mind, just say to yourself:
'S-W-I-S-H', at the same time changing the pictures over in your mind so that the 'moment of achievement' becomes the large colour picture and the 'moment of anxiety' shrinks to the size of a postage stamp tucked into the bottom left-hand corner, becoming black-and-white as it does so. Speed is important! Change the pictures as quickly as you say ‘S-W-I-S-H’.
5. Enjoy the success picture for a few moments.
6. Think of a pink elephant – actually it doesn’t have to be a pink elephant but you do need to get an unrelated picture in your mind and this usually does the trick.
7. Now get the CUE picture back on your screen and repeat steps 3-6. After three or four attempts the cue picture will begin to fade or break up or have ragged edges. Repeat the sequence until the you simply cannot produce the moment of anxiety picture at all.
When that happens, you have programmed yourself for success, rather than failure. You will find that when you actually get to the event you have been working on, you will feel confident and easy, and able to give of your best as a result. It might all sound rather complicated at first, but you soon get used to it and it is worth persevering with. It is one of the most powerful 'quick-fix' methods in existence.
It is possible to work on this on your own but sometimes it is more effective when working with a trained practitioner.
This can used in other situations too. For an example, driving test fear. The moment of anxiety would be, perhaps, sitting in the car; looking very anxious, perhaps having trouble with the seat belt, the examiner looking stern. The feeling of 'nerves' could be included, too. The moment of achievement could be tearing up the 'L' plates, big smile on the face, congratulations from the examiner, a feeling of excitement and jubilation. Maybe even a congratulatory pat on the back from a friend. In these images, anything goes, as long as they give you absolutely the right feeling, both the anxiety and the jubilation.
The 'swish' technique can help you to excel in exams and other test situations; public speaking; sports performance; other games performance like snooker, darts, bowls, etc.. It can, in fact, help you deal with anything where you can create those two pictures.
Monday 8 October 2007
Top Tips dental anxiety
Long lasting changes can be made easily and quickly with the NLP fast phobia technique and the SWISH, for which you may need a therapist or coach to guide you through.
Regular calming can be achieved with the breathing techniques which can be enhanced with EFT (emotional acupressure with affirmations). See below for more information on EFT.
Some problems (like a gagging reflex) may need a bit more work than others but change is possible for everyone!
Be persistent, keep focused and amzing things can happen.
If you'd like some help - give me a call!
Regular calming can be achieved with the breathing techniques which can be enhanced with EFT (emotional acupressure with affirmations). See below for more information on EFT.
Some problems (like a gagging reflex) may need a bit more work than others but change is possible for everyone!
Be persistent, keep focused and amzing things can happen.
If you'd like some help - give me a call!
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