#47 Relaxation Hypnosis for Stress, Anxiety & Panic Attacks

Hello and welcome to Relaxation Hypnosis for Stress, Anxiety and Panic Attacks. Now, I only listen to this when you can safely close your eyes. I've been doing a little bit of writing down a few little notes, which is very unlike me to do any preparation whatsoever before making a recording.

But today I have. And I've just been looking at different ways, different things, different activities, changes that you can make in your life that can have a beneficial effect for you for reducing anxiety, stress, increasing relaxation. So there's a few things.

One that came to mind was something that I've been doing for many, many years and that's listening to music for the sole purpose of relaxing. I thought I'd specify that for the sole purpose of relaxing because I'm guessing everybody has listened to music. And I used to listen to classical music because I read books that told me that classical music was you know, the best type of music to listen to in order to relax.

So I kind of believed that. And I actually, I think I naturally do find classical music relaxing. Especially, there's a few instruments I really like.

The violin, piano, the two ones I like. Trumpets are not quite as relaxing for me personally. The triangle.

But there is, I like an orchestra, but I like it being gentle. I'm not really into the whole kind of going quiet and then being loud again and then being quiet and being loud. So I quite, you know, that's just what I quite like.

And then I watched a documentary on television and it was by, I think the, I'm not even sure what the name of it was, but the basic premise around it was, does classical music help you to relax? So I watched it out of interest and they had these specialists which were put in these, you know, those caps that they put on people's heads, which measure the brain activity and the different parts of the brain.

And they could measure the stress levels, cortisol, whatever, different levels of the person. And they'd put them into a booth and they got members of the public and they'd get them to sit in the booth and listen to the music.

And it was like classical music, but then they decided to, they needed to test it with other music to see whether or not classical music had made a difference over listening to a different type of music. Well, the outcome of this, the, of this study was that, basically, it makes no difference what type of music you listen to. It just has to be music that you love, which might seem quite obvious, but somebody listening to their favourite album may get the same benefits as listening to a, you know, Beethoven concert.

I'm quite a big fan of Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat. Dreamcoat. So that's something that I would, I can listen to and feel really relaxed because, you know, it's lovely.

Or Grease. You know, technically Grease isn't a relaxing record. The, you know, the album of the film, the soundtrack.

If you listen to something that you enjoy, it releases those chemicals from your brain into your body that relaxes your body and relaxes your mind. And I thought back to times in the past when this has been completely true for me. I remember when I was, I don't know what year it was, it was 2000 and, probably 2002, 2003, and I moved into a little caravan because I needed to get away from where I was living because it was noisy and just, you know, I wanted some peace.

And I remember, I'll always remember this because it was the first bit of peace I'd had for quite a while. And it was a Saturday afternoon, the caravan came with a recliner chair, way better than the one I've got here. And I remember just sitting back in the recliner chair and listening to Craig David, at one of his albums on CD.

And just feeling that, all that stress just leave my body. It was as if it was just draining away through the chair. It felt so good.

And then I think back to other times, because I hadn't really made the connection. You know, for quite a while, I've thought of it being, oh, it's, you know, it's got to be classical music or something really, I suppose, in some cases, a bit boring, you know, perhaps. But even when I was a kid, when I was young, I remember I used to lay down on my bed.

I was probably about 12, 13. I'd listen to Madness, The Best of Madness on my tape, tape recorder with my headphones on. And I'd just be laying on my bed and I'd just feel so relaxed.

It's really, in some ways, blissed out, really, just felt so good. But not in an excitable way, but in a, I suppose, in a sense, if you're going to sleep, you don't want to have that necessarily blissed out excitability that might be there. And stress, you know, someone goes to a concert and sees their favourite band, it probably is a level of, definitely a level of excitement, physically and mentally.

But it's pleasurable. So they're relaxed, but at the same time, alert and just enjoying being alive. So listening to music can really have a beneficial result for all of us.

But it doesn't have to be classical music. It doesn't have to be any type of music. What it needs to be is something that you love listening to.

And I suppose in some ways, it doesn't even have to be music. It could be your favourite podcast. You know, it could be someone talking, it could be, it could be anything, anything that you like, it could be an audio book.

It doesn't necessarily have to be music. It could just, it could be the sounds of birds singing, which is one of my favourite things, actually. Because I've got this garden with a huge tree in it.

Technically, it's in, no, it is in my garden, yeah. It's big, it's massive. It's bigger than my house.

It's just really big. It's like, like a beanstalk. It's not, it's nothing like a beanstalk.

I don't know why I said that. But it's a big tree. And there are lots of birds living there.

And I hear them. And it doesn't matter what time of the day or night that they start and singing and talking to each other. I could always sleep with that sound.

Even, even a pigeon. Even the ones that sound like helicopters going past. I don't know why helicopters going past this time of night.

Yeah. It's a little bit late. I mean, I remember even younger, laying in a bed listening, because my dad used to have albums, record albums, I forget what you call them, discs, plastic things that people used to listen to.

Vinyl, that's it, vinyl. And because he's a lot older than me, he'd have a different kind of type of music that he liked. He grew up in the 60s.

So he liked, well, grew up in the 60s. He was born in 1947. So I guess he grew up in the 50s and 60s.

So he liked the music from the 50s, from the 60s and onwards, 70s. And this was in the early 80s that I'd be listening to this stuff. So he had albums, you know, from ABBA, the Bee Gees.

He had, if there's one album he had that I really liked listening to, which was the soundtracks of lots of famous movies at that time. So like Star Wars, Superman. But it was all music.

It's all the music soundtracks, like the introduction, some of the spaghetti western films. Close Encounter of the Third Kind, I think was on there. And I was just like, wow.

I used to lay down, and I'd have the album on, playing it, and I'd just listen to it. And because I listened to it so often, I kind of knew what was coming. And there'd be certain parts of it where I'd just completely bliss out, completely so relaxed.

It was almost as if every muscle in my body just melted. And even though I hadn't watched every one of those films that was on the album, I probably watched most of them. But there was a few, you know, that were just... I loved the Superman.

If you ever listen to the Superman album, the soundtrack from Superman, this was a very long, long version of the Superman. And it included the bit where he's flying with Lewis Lane, where they're kind of whispering what they're thinking. And that, you know, at that time, it was... Superman is one of my favourite childhood films.

It always will be. But I guess the favourite childhood films isn't really going to change, I guess. But I think that connection, to listen to a song or an album of music, or your mp3 album, or however you listen, there's that connection.

Like there's that connection, perhaps, with listening to me and feeling relaxed, which can give you a sense of comfort and calmness, even though I'm just talking about listening to music. And the main purpose, I guess, was to talk about that and to look at, and think about how you could benefit from listening to, you know, your favourite album. And ideally, and I'm coming at this from a purely hypnosis perspective, and it is a personal, it's a personal thing, is I would say ideally listen to something that has some positive lyrics.

Because listening over and over to an album that has, let's say, negative lyrics, would be the equivalent to listening to The Hypnotist, but from a different angle. Because repetition, repetition has an impact, a huge, huge impact. So what we do regularly, what we do a lot, is the thing that we're going to do more of.

It's the thing that has the biggest effect on us, generally. Of course, there are times when it's that one-off learning, you know, that one thing that's happened that you learn from it straight away. And quite often phobias can be caused that way.

But as far as learning to relax more, learning to feel karma within yourself, learning to actually enjoy living in your own skin with confidence and the knowledge that you actually are going to be okay, that relaxation is something that you can enjoy. And that it's not a chore, it's not a test, it's not a task, it's just calmness. It's just natural to feel relaxed.

Because it's something that doesn't really take much effort. And the effort that it might take really is worth it. Even if it's just a little bit of effort, as I say, like putting some music on, laying down and just listening, or sitting in a chair and just listening to the music.

Noticing how your body is relaxed and relaxes more. Noticing how your mind slows down and feels more relaxed. Noticing those feelings of pleasure that you can gain from just letting go for the duration of that album, for however long it is, or that audio book or that podcast.

Just enjoying that time for what it is. Just for the calm feeling that you can experience more of a sense of that serenity and looseness that's naturally there for you to experience more of and to enjoy. Because as well as feeling relaxed, calm, you also deserve to have some pleasure.

And listening to your favorite music, your favorite album, it's pleasurable. It actually feels nice. And I talk about this with my podcast for sleeping, or my podcasts, because I've got a few.

It's actually laying down on your bed, it's a really pleasant experience when you're not trying to tell yourself to go to sleep. But just lying there, enjoying the bed supporting your body, enjoying not having to do anything, enjoying not having to think about anything, anything. It's actually a joyful experience.

The same as listening to your favorite music. Just feels so nice to just let go. Because you choose to let go, to enjoy that feeling.

Because you choose to enjoy listening to the music, or the podcast, or the audio book, whatever it may be. So I'm going to leave you with that thought. And maybe you can spend more time relaxing, listening to something that allows you to feel really good inside, as well as completely relaxed.

That's it for me today. I'll speak to you very soon. Remember to be kind to yourself, or to love.

Bye.