#67 Relaxation Hypnosis for Stress, Anxiety & Panic Attacks (Jason Newland) (12th December 2019)

Hello and welcome to jasonnewland.com. My name is Jason Newland and this is Relaxation Hypnosis for Stress, Anxiety and Panic Attacks. Please only listen when you can safely close your eyes. And before I go any further, I'd just like to take this opportunity to thank all of you for listening and being patient as well because I haven't released a new recording for a little bit.

Yet I still, technically this is probably one of my most popular podcasts now. Bearing in mind the amount of downloads I get each day, yet I don't record many. So this is number 67 and I've been thinking about making more regular recordings, possibly even daily.

But I'll have to see how that goes because I'm not always able to do it. So my intention is to make more recordings and included in those recordings would be some just general relaxation sessions. So they're not all going to be me talking, you know, like I am now.

They're not all going to be me talking about my personal experiences and maybe some ideas that may be useful. But there'll be some recordings that are specifically a nice relaxation session where you just close your eyes and I just talk and you just feel relaxed. You know, it might be a body scan where I focus on the different parts of your body.

It might just be, it might just be me droning on and on where you get bored and you just drift away, which may happen anyway. That's why I always say about only listen when you can safely close your eyes. So there is a chance I might repeat myself from something that I maybe have spoken about previously.

And that's just, that's just the way it is because I don't always remember what I've said. I don't prepare what I'm going to say. I don't, I don't write down and I don't listen to what I've said either.

Because I've already heard it when I said it first time. But I don't always remember what I've said. So today I wanted to talk about something that, I want to talk about something that happened to me lately.

And I'm not sure if I've made a recording since it happened because it was last week. So I'm going to just talk about a situation that involved an ambulance coming here. And just my experience of that, my experience leading up to it, my experience during and my experience afterwards.

And also my experience, you know, sort of a week or so later. So as I've said, I'm not sure if I've made a recording since that happened. I can't remember.

And I'd have to look at my laptop, which would mean getting out of the chair and but I don't think I have. But if I have then apologies if I'm just repeating myself. And because I make the Let Me Bore You To Sleep recordings, pretty much every day.

So I kind of lose track of what I've said and on which podcast. And so what happened is, and this may seem like a sound like maybe a familiar thing that perhaps has happened to you or someone that you care about. And I started having palpitations in my chest, heart palpitations.

I just ate and just had a meal. And I started coughing as well. And I couldn't kind of figure out what was going on.

It seemed a bit weird. And I didn't feel very well. It was not quite unpleasant.

So what I did is I lay down on my bed. And I did a relaxation body scan, focusing on different parts of my body. And I did feel relaxed or more relaxed than I had.

Now, I just want to just point out, there's a couple of things. Before this happened, I didn't. I wouldn't have told you I wouldn't have said that I felt stressed.

And I've got a few things going on, but nothing that's particularly out of the ordinary. So it didn't feel, first of all, it didn't feel like a stressy situation. Secondly, it didn't feel like a panic attack.

And it didn't lead me into a full on panic attack either, which in the past, it perhaps would have done. So I'm sitting with the feeling or laying down with the feeling. And then I start to think, well, you know what? Just because I've had panic attacks in the past, and ended up at the hospital, thinking it was my heart and it ended up not being, it doesn't mean that I'm not immune to illness.

You know, I'm still a human being. And having mental issues, mental ill health, panic, stress, whatever you want to name it, doesn't, you know, we're still humans. We're still allowed to have physical illnesses as well.

That's part of being alive, isn't it? It's just standard stuff. But sometimes I kind of feel that I shouldn't, you know, I should put everything down to the bipolar or the stress. I shouldn't, you know, that I'm not, it's like I'm using up all the resources that I should already with my mental health issues.

So I'm not kind of, I shouldn't take up the time of the NHS or the hospital staff or doctors with physical stuff, which is kind of ridiculous. Because we're human beings. I'm probably going to keep mentioning that we're human beings.

And we deserve as much, I say we, I'm talking about people with stress, anxiety issues. We deserve to be kind to ourselves and to treat ourselves the same way that anyone else would treat themselves. So if there's a physical pain, if there's problems physically, that you're concerned about, get to the doctor.

That's my advice on that one. But I'm not a doctor, I'm not a medical expert. So I can't offer medical advice.

But anyway, I was laying in bed and I had these feelings. And my heart was, I felt like my heart was just pumping, but not really kind of, well it was palpitations, it was unpleasant. And it kept happening and I was coughing.

And I laid in bed for probably about an hour, 40 minutes relaxing. And then I thought I'll get out bed now. And then I start coughing even more.

And what I realized is normally, I've had a few like chest infections over the years. It seems to be a bit of a hereditary thing, unfortunately. My nan's had it, my dad has it.

So I think I might have inherited a bit of a chesty kind of thing. But I know that whenever I've got a cough, if I lay down, the cough gets worse. Can't lay down with a cough.

Generally, that's how I find it. Yeah, I wasn't coughing when I was lying down. That's going to just kind of get to know yourself.

We do get to know how we are individually in those situations. So I get up again, and I'm coughing. And I leave at another hour, and I start thinking, I don't know what to do.

Should I go to the hospital? Or you know what, what if it is something that needs medical attention? So what I do is, I go online, and I look up the symptoms. And that's not always a good idea, because of the Google, and because of the internet will come up with some quite serious stuff. But because I was focusing on my heart, and to get the symptoms of any kind heart issues.

Coughing can be a part of it. It's not a routine part of someone having cardiac issue, but it can be. So that's when I saw that, I thought, okay, I'll call NHS Direct, which is, it's a national health telephone number in England, or Britain or wherever, but it's in this country.

So I phoned them. And I just for advice. And I said, just here's what's going on.

Can you, have you got any advice for me? Do you think I should go to the hospital and get it checked out? Or do you think I'll just just leave it? And I'm fine? You know, what do you think? And they said, you do need to be seen. We feel you need to be seen by a paramedic. And I said, well, I can go to the hospital.

And they said, well, we've already called an ambulance for you. I told them I didn't want an ambulance. Never in my life ever called an ambulance for myself.

And I hope never to have to but one day I might have to but I didn't want this. I didn't want that. It's not what I wanted.

Anyway, they said it's too late. We can't cancel it. It's been booked.

And we can't legally cancel it in case you you know, there is a serious situation. So I said, okay, fair enough. There's nothing I could do then.

So I'll just wait for them. And I waited an hour and a half, an hour and a half. And then they phoned NHS direct phoned up to see if I was still alive.

Well, they still fully not see if I'm still alive to see if I was okay. And they said the ambulance should be there soon. And then there's another hour.

And then the ambulance turned up. So it's nearly it was nearly two and a half hours wait for the ambulance. Which makes me think they couldn't have thought it was anything serious.

Which then makes you think why did they send an ambulance in? Because I was I was well, well, I was willing just to go to the hospital and get checked out. I just got a taxi there. And anyway, the NHS people on the phone when I originally spoke to them, they said, Have you got anyone that can sit with you while you wait for the ambulance? So I said, Okay, I'll go and speak to my friend.

I was still coughing. Still heart palpitation. I'm still going.

I could feel the stress now. Before it happened, I didn't feel stressed. I didn't.

I wasn't aware of my stress levels. But once I started talking to this person on the phone, I went downstairs, I knocked on my friend's door. He he was about to go to bed, but he came up and sat with me for the next three hours really.

He was here, you know, until early hours of the morning, three o'clock or something. And that period while I was waiting, there was a mixture of an increase in stress, or maybe more of an awareness of the stress. But he was also a distraction.

So having him here with his dog was a distraction for me. And although I felt anxious, I didn't feel like it was a panic attack. Because as I said to my friend, if this was a panic attack, I wouldn't be able to sit here and talk to you.

I'd be pacing, I'd be outside, I'd be, you know, I wouldn't be able to function because previous panic attacks, like the full on ones, I couldn't function. But during this, I was able to function. So it started making me think, should we start renaming things, you know, panic attack, anxiety attack, or just acute anxiety, you know, rather than an attack.

Kind of a weird word, isn't it? The attack, like something's doing something to you from outside. So the paramedics arrive. And they're really lovely.

And they give me an ECG thing, heart monitor. Absolutely fine. They do my blood pressure.

Perfect. Give me a diabetic testing. Everything's perfect.

And they said I was in tip top condition. And they said it might be worth just check going to the doctor or whatever, just to sort of let them know what's going on. And I said, Well, I've got a doctor's appointment on Wednesday.

So so this was the Sunday night, or I think the doctor's appointment was Thursday. And this was the Monday night last week, something like that. And I didn't know what to make of it, I'll be honest with you.

Because it didn't feel like a panic attack. I did feel stressed while it was happening. Didn't, I wasn't aware of feeling stressed before it happened, before I started having those feelings.

And the next day, or the next evening, it happened again. Started coughing, started. And it's weird, because pretty much all day I was wondering, will it happen again? And I haven't been in that mode for a long time.

Because I've had panic, anxious moments. And then I just move on. I managed to just, I don't get caught up in the panicking about panic attacks, you know, like, I kind of got out of that routine that I used to have.

I started to think about it. And I did start coughing the next evening. But during that day, I had a stressful day.

I had to go out, didn't feel well, enough to go out emotionally. And I felt stressed. And then I went to the hospital, I went to the doctors the day after.

And I was coughing, and I was having palpitations while I was there. And the doctor said the same as what the paramedics said. They thought it was stress.

And they all asked the same thing. What's happened in your life to cause this stress? What's happened? A major event to them, a major event must have taken place for me to be in such a state physically, or emotionally, you know. And I said nothing.

Nothing really that big has happened. A couple of things has happened, but nothing that I could kind of put my finger on where I could say, well, yeah, actually, this happened. But on reflection, that's a good thing about time.

On reflection, planes like to go past when I'm making recordings. It's a loud plane as well. I'm recording this during the day.

Normally, I make recordings at night, but I'm waiting up for a delivery or to get my chair picked up. So I kind of have to stay awake. So I'm making use of the time.

Yes. On reflection, I just thought, you know what? I have been stressed. I got turned down from a university course I wanted to be on and made a few bad decisions lately, which I regret.

And Christmas, it's a difficult time. It's a difficult time for some people. And I'm just one of those people where it's not.

It's, yeah, I don't enjoy the whole process. I enjoy some of it, but it's, I'm not a grinch or anything. I just, it's kind of a weird time.

My nan died four days after Christmas, four years ago. So it's kind of, it's a weird month for me generally, December. So I don't feel, I think it kind of, it's like an invisible thing.

You know what I mean? Like an invisible, invisible stress that kind of seems to just sort of catch hold of me a little bit. Being aware of it does help. So what this made me think, what I thought about is, firstly, what I said earlier is, you know, if you're, if you're feeling unwell, go and get help.

Without feeling guilty, regardless of the outcome, even if the outcome is what some professionals like to say, it's just stress. Just, okay. As if we're going to feel relieved.

The idea that I'm going to, you know, again, if I have made this, talked about this before, I felt actually, I feel embarrassed to say that when the paramedics were doing the ECG, I wanted something to show on there. Just so that they hadn't wasted their time, so that I hadn't wasted the resource and the time of the paramedics when someone else needs them, you know? I didn't, I don't want to have a heart condition.

I don't, not one part of me does, but I just didn't want to be a fraud.

I didn't want to feel like a fake. Or, there's probably still part of me that thinks I don't want to be weak, even though I know it's not a weakness. Having mental health problems or illness, it's not a weakness.

But there's part of me that still thinks it is. Be towards myself, that is. And I know it's not.

I know it's not. But it's still that, it's, you know, it's still that, like, oh, just pull your socks up. Just get on and get on with it.

Just, you know, that internal dialogue, which isn't always helpful. It's not always our own voice either, is it? I don't think. So, that's the one thing.

Get medical help. Seek medical advice. That's what the medical people are there for.

They're not there, they don't want people turning up when they're really, really, really ill, and beyond help, possibly. The doctors and hospitals, the nurses, they want people to turn up as soon as possible in an illness, so they can prevent it getting any worse, they can cure it quickly, or they can help the person to cope. So, actually, by going to the doctors, by going to the hospital, I'm helping the doctors in the hospital, you know, in a roundabout way.

That makes sense to me anyway. I think it makes sense. So, I felt guilty anyway, I did.

And then I felt guilty for thinking or kind of hoping that there was some kind of abnormality on the ECG monitor. Because that's, it's almost like I'm feeling guilty, I got wishful wishing that I was ill, and I really don't. So, I felt guilty on various different angles.

Guilty for having the paramedics turn up, guilty for not being ill, and then guilty for wanting to be ill, in order for having not, to not have wasted their time. And this was quite an unpleasant experience, generally. And what I noticed is, and this is, it's the same thing happened in the hospital.

I've been to the hospital twice or maybe three times with pains in my chest or whatever, over the years, and there was a panic, I was going through panic. This time, a similar thing, well that wasn't pains, it was palpitations. The paramedics told me everything was fine.

Palpitations went, I stopped coughing. So then, because of, I suppose from an intellectual perspective, I started to think, oh, so, am I a hypochondriac? Am I, it was, it wasn't real, the feelings I was feeling weren't real. Is her being here a placebo for me? I've got the placebo effect.

It's like all these things, basically trying to aim blame at myself for being a human, a human being with feelings. So I really, I didn't enjoy that evening. And again, I had the palpitations the day after, had the palpitations at the hospital with the doctors, and then doctors started talking to me saying, you know, just showing a little bit of interest and telling me that it was stress and looked at my medication, and the palpitations stopped, the coughing stopped.

And since then, I've had no coughing or palpitations. It's a weird, a weird feeling for me. I can only speak from my own perspective.

It's, I kind of look at things from different, various different angles. And I suppose, if I can pass anything on that's of use, other than remembering that you deserve to be cared for, and you don't have the right to seek medical advice, regardless of what emotional or mental health issues may be happening. There's still a body, and the body doesn't, sometimes the body has problems, doesn't it?

It's just part of being alive.

So the other thing is the guilt side of things. What possible use is that? I mean, really, what use? What did it give me? I think the answer is absolutely nothing. It gave me zero, zero usefulness.

Feeling guilty. Having the awareness, I think, is useful. But without the guilt, feeling guilty for what I was thinking, feeling guilty for what I was feeling, when how I was feeling wasn't, wasn't anybody's fault, it just happened.

Feeling guilty for the paramedics coming in an ambulance, that's not what I wanted. I didn't ask for an ambulance, otherwise I'd have phoned up 999 and asked for an ambulance. I just phoned up asking for medical advice on the right number, 111, which is NHS Direct, hoping that they would just tell me what they think I should do.

So I did the right thing, I think. Because if you've got pains in your chest, you shouldn't ignore it. Pain is there for a reason.

It might be caused by stress, but it might not be. So I don't know if that's the only message I've got really with this is take care of yourself. Remember that you're just as important as anybody else and the medical services are available for everybody, not just for people that perhaps don't have mental health issues or don't have stress or anxiety or panic or depression or any of those things.

It's for everybody. Just in the same way, this mental health advice, medication for depression, psychiatrists, mental health services are for everybody, not just for us or the people that are currently using the services and you taking that medication, but it's available for people that may need that service in the future. So the same way as don't ignore physical pain, if you're concerned about it, I'd say the same to someone who's feeling depressed, don't ignore it.

Or having a really terrible time with stress, don't ignore it. Go to the doctor, get some help. If taking a little tablet once a day or twice a day can change your whole outlook on life from being severe depression to being able to manage and cope, it's worth it really.

I'm not really big into taking medication, but I do so because I know that I need to. And I've been on and off medication since 1995. So that's 24 years.

And the first time is for stress. I think it was September 1995. And that was after 10 months or so of medical tests because I was physically ill.

I've talked about it in previous recordings and then it turned out they said it's just, yeah, just stress. Oh, great. So just remember, I'm going to leave you now, remember to be kind to yourself.

I'll speak to you soon. Bye.