Much has been said about the effects that stress has on the human body. We are all aware of the obvious results, such as depression, hyper-anxiety, sleeplessness, road rage etc, and the often self destructive ways of managing stress, like drinking a little too much, or self medicating with food, comfort food being the preferred soporific for our ragged nerves. Few people realise that adrenal burnout can be the result of prolonged low-grade stress. Dramatic life-upheavals tend to gain more sympathy and attention than the misery of a hated job, a difficult family situation, or some other long term but hard to escape from plight.

Even without the challenges we face through the different stages of life, our modern pace of living provides us with enormous amounts of stress. A difficult job, dealing with ageing parents at the same time as trying to cope with a teenager’s forays into ‘ life ‘, perhaps trying to handle a bereavement or health crisis of yourself or someone close to you ….the list goes on. Putting a happy face on an unbearable situation simply buries the stress which has a nasty habit of re-emerging as health problems at a later time. The slow weight gain, gradually getting less and less sleep, irritability, lack of libido, low energy, mood swings….the slow erosion of quality of life until you just can’t remember when you felt really well, not to mention happy.

There are a number of strategies that can be employed to regain some enjoyment of life and a return to better health. A good naturopath can assess the best way that nutrition and supplements could improve your biology and thence your overall health. Toxic overload, too much copper, hormone imbalance including cortisol elevation all lead to health conditions that leave you feeling emotionally and physically exhausted. Cortisol plays a vital role in helping you to meet challenging situations, but it is the prolonged production of this hormone that does the damage. It can slow natural healing and cell replacement ; destroys muscle and bone ; impairs digestion, metabolism and mental function ; interferes with healthy endocrine function leading to all kinds of conditions including poor fertility, thyroid imbalance and endometriosis. Cortisol also stimulates the release of glucose, fats and amino acids for energy production - and stimulates your appetite. The kind of fat that will accumulate because of this stress induced appetite will naturally concentrate itself around your abdomen. As if you didn’t have enough to be stressed about already

To address the emotional aspect of long term stress, hypnosis is a wonderful adjunct to any health improvement strategy. By reducing or removing the emotional causes for high stress levels, or by helping to change the perception of an unavoidable but unchanging situation, hypnosis can speed the return to a much happier life.