#60 Relaxation Hypnosis for Stress, Anxiety & Panic Attacks (Jason Newland) (4th October 2019)

Hello and welcome to relaxation hypnosis for stress, anxiety and panic attacks. My name is Jason Newland. My website is jasonnewland.com. Please only listen to this when you can safely close your eyes.

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So this recording has been inspired by an audiobook that I was listening to earlier today. And the book is about positive psychology, which is a subject that I've been studying lately. I'm very interested in it, hoping to do a master's degree in the subject as well.

And I was listening to the audiobook because, to be fair, it's easier than reading. I like to listen to audiobooks. I'm all, I suppose, maybe like you, I like to listen.

I get something different. I do like to read as well. But sometimes it's nice to listen.

And although I do say only listen when you can safely close your eyes, and when I listen to audiobooks, quite often I might be on the computer and doing other stuff. And sometimes I lay down on the bed and listen. But what was being said in this book, it wasn't concentrating necessarily on anxiety or anything like that.

But it did touch upon the subject. And there was a statement that was made, which really grabbed my attention. And the statement was, apparently it's a famous statement, I've never heard it before.

But it's probably more in psychology places, I don't know. But the statement is, Zebras don't get ulcers. Or zebras don't get ulcers.

As in stomach ulcers. And I kind of, my ears pricked up a little bit like, what? What are they talking about? Zebras don't get ulcers. And then she explained, the lady that was reading the book that she wrote.

Zebras don't worry about stuff. They deal with it when it happens. Their fight or flight, well it's flight, isn't it, with zebras.

I mean, they're not going to take on a lion and have a fight with a lion. But that sense of urgency, you know, where all the muscles, the blood moves from the stomach to the muscles and, you know, the adrenaline kick starts and that tunnel focus of getting the hell out of there, away from that lion, only happens when a lion turns up. It doesn't happen the rest of the time.

And that's the analogy, in the sense of the difference between a zebra, I'm going to say zebra because that's how I pronounce it, that's how we pronounce it in England, but I know that other countries may call it zebras. So I just, you know, I can't keep changing it. So I'm just going to say zebra.

That's why a zebra is compared to humans in the sense that we have that fight or flight response kicking in when we don't need it. But even people that don't have issues with stress or anxiety or panic, I'm talking about the whole population, pretty much, in the human, not everybody, but we're thinking about what ifs, worrying about stuff that might happen, and being ready for something bad to happen when there's not necessarily evidence that it will.

And I know that that level raises a heck of a lot with people that are perhaps struggling with anxiety and stress and panic.

And clearly it's a much, much higher level. But as I said in the past, on these recordings, when I had the panic, the panic attacks, my main worry, the main thing I was scared of was having panic attacks. In fact, I could pretty much say that's the only thing I was worried about.

I thought I was going to die as well, even though it was a panic attack. And I knew that it was a panic attack. And I got medical advice, got checked out, and was told that I was fine physically.

And it was just a panic attack. Just, that word, just, it's very dismissive. I used to say that to myself, it's just a panic attack.

Well, if I'm dismissing my own feelings, why would I expect other people to take them seriously? So I started to think, what if we became more like a zebra? Just the idea of it, that's what I'm thinking. I don't mean physically. I mean, just that part of the brain that the zebra has.

That's not worried, until it needs to be. Now, I've known a lot of people that were very relaxed, very experienced meditators. I was involved in Buddhism for a long time.

And I've met some people that you think that nothing would have fazed them at all. But what I noticed with some of those people is there is zero urgency, even at times when a bit of urgency was possibly required. Not in an emergency situation, but just almost like they're going in slow motion.

And I'd wonder if they were actually a zebra, that if they saw a lion, they might not actually run, which would mean they'd get eaten. So although being really chilled out and relaxed and calm and practically vertical may be an ideal goal for some people, because I think it's that thing of, you know, when you're really hot, let's say in the summer, really in the winter, in the summer, you're really, really hot.

And the idea of being covered in ice cubes actually seems appealing.

When in reality, being covered in ice cubes would probably be horrible. You know, it might be nice for a second. Or when you're really cold and maybe outside, the idea of stepping inside a sauna and just thinking, oh, I'll stay in that sauna for hours.

You wouldn't want to, because once you got in there, you kind of would be too hot. So it's as if our brains want the complete opposite, which isn't really logical. It's not really what we want.

I'm suggesting. So the idea is, if you're in extreme stress, extreme anxiety, the idea, and I used to think this, I just want to be completely relaxed all the time. And that is not useful.

So being able to relax at will is a great skill to have. But also being able to, you know, act quickly also is incredibly important. For example, if you're, if you see someone crossing the road and there's a car coming, shouting to them to move, or they're in front of you, grabbing and pulling out of the road.

Quick reflexes can be very, very useful. Slow reflexes, not so much. Sometimes.

So this zebra mind, and it's only the part of the mind that part, the worrying part. In fact, it doesn't worry. It acts on reality.

A zebra acts and responds based on what is actually happening in that moment. So, of course, there wouldn't be much good for planning or preparing. So we've got the capability to prepare ourselves, which is a great skill, a very useful thing to be able to do.

But when you connect worrying to it, worrying about all those things that probably won't ever happen. I just thought about it, you know, I could spend the next 30 years of my life walking on the pavement, scared, really scared that a car's gonna drive onto the pavement and run me over. That could be my, and just I have an awful time every time I'm walking on a pavement for the next 30 years.

Or I can not care, not even think about it, not even give it any energy. And if one day a car does come on the pavement and run me over, and I don't see it, then, or if I see a car coming, then I can act, then I can put all my energy into that. But to just be continuously thinking, as I have in the past, on public transport and stuff, there's something bad's gonna happen when there's a big chance that it's not.

There's probably more chance of winning the lottery a few times in your lifetime. Than being in a train crash, or a bus crash. Of course they happen every now and then, but so rarely.

So I wonder what a zebra would feel as they're walking down a pavement. No concern, I imagine. Probably be wondering why everyone's staring at him, but to have that lack of fear actually appeals to me.

I think it's good to be cautious at times, but how do you find the balance? When I'm talking about a zebra mind, a zebra's brain, I could talk to you about a ferret's brain, or a dog's brain. A dog will happily run around the road, run around the streets, in fields, completely unconcerned about anything. Don't care about the traffic, because they don't know about the traffic.

And most of the time, they'll come home safely. But they're not worried about that kind of stuff. They're kind of in the moment, loving it.

And this ferret, I've got a ferret, called Andre. He's not interested, he doesn't worry about anything, I don't think. I'm not a mind reader, but I've been studying him for four years.

It's been like a little psychological project, just studying his behaviour, his responses. I don't think there's any worrying in him. There's no panic, there's no fear.

Doesn't have fear. The only thing that makes him jump is motorbikes, you know, the really loud motorbikes, that let off like a big bang. That makes him jump.

But things like thunder, fireworks, none of that stuff even affects him, doesn't even wake him up. He's not scared of anything. If he saw a lion, he'd probably try and fight the lion.

It wouldn't last long, but he's not scared. So in a way, that's almost ridiculous, you know, being fearless could be dangerous. Walking across the road without looking is a stupid thing to do for anyone.

You need to look before you cross the road. Just preparation, but without fear. I'm not scared when I cross the road.

I don't expect the car to hit me. Because I look before I cross, and there's no reason a car would hit me. But the idea of the zebra only acting when it needs to, and actually enjoying itself the rest of the time, feeling relaxed the rest of the time, not worrying, imagine what that would be like.

To not worry, to literally, to not be concerned about stuff that may or may not happen. And the only things that you actually focus on in the future are things that you want to happen. The nice things.

And that's it. You're only focusing on the things that you're going to enjoy happening. Which would, that would change the way you think about things.

Change the, the way you feel physically inside. You can test it now. Just imagine, in your mind, and think about tomorrow.

And think about the nice things that you want to happen. Focus solely on that. The things that you would like to happen.

Things that you expect to happen, that you're going to enjoy. That you're going to appreciate. And just focus on that, those things.

Notice how you physically feel. Notice how it changes the way that you feel. Inside.

How easily your emotions transform into something different from stress and worry. To something, you could call it positive. It's definitely closer to reality.

Because the reality is, if you expect things to go well, they're more likely to go well. That's just the way things are. If you meet someone for the first time, and you are told all these wonderful things about them, you're going to be pleased to meet them, and you're going to be friendly to them, and they're going to be friendly back to you.

But if someone fills your mind with all these negative things about this person, before you've even met them, you're going to feel very differently about them. And when, well, you probably won't even want to meet them. But when you do meet them, you possibly won't be very friendly, but minimum friendliness.

And they possibly will respond with minimal friendliness. And you'll think, oh, they're not very friendly. That's right what they said about them.

Just reminds me, years ago, I went to, there was a film I wanted to watch. A friend of mine saw it before I did, and he told me all these negative things about it. Telling me how rubbish it was, and all this stuff.

And when I watched it, I didn't enjoy it. And that might be, maybe I'm very easily influenced possibly, but regardless of that, it tainted my experience, because that negativity clouded my own judgment of just watching the movie and deciding for myself. And in reality, I wanted to watch it, and I was preparing.

I expected it to be funny. I expected it to be good. But having this little, my friend whispered, whispered in my ear, but saying, oh, it's not very funny.

It's not very good. It's a bit of a letdown. It had an effect on my experience of that film.

Another thing I remember, I used to work in a comedy club, and I remember seeing, more than on one occasion, a few times, not that many times, but a few times, I'd see a comedian on the Friday night and the Saturday night. And one particular time, I remember, this comedian went on stage on a Friday night. And they basically booed him off the stage, the audience.

And I thought, he's rubbish. Absolutely rubbish. Saturday night, he was back on stage, different audience, same club.

One of the best gigs I've ever seen. Same material. If I hadn't seen the Saturday night, I don't think anything that anyone could ever say would have changed my opinion.

Wow, so I just heard a bunch of birds, sound like ducks or going past geese. That was weird. So, we're influenced, or at least I am, and I think other people are too, influenced by one-off situations, like one-off learning, which can be what a panic attack can be, a phobia.

You do something once, and maybe it doesn't work out, and you think, oh, that's how it's always going to be. There's the old saying, isn't it, you never get a chance to make another first impression, or first impressions last. First impressions only last if you never meet the person again.

Because nobody is how they were when you first meet them. If you get to know them, you get to find out more about them. So, I wonder what it would be like if we started to think that way about our own experiences, things that maybe were just done once and were generalised.

Perhaps we haven't given ourselves an opportunity to correct it, to correct that experience, the same as the way I did with that comedian. I saw him on a Friday, I saw him on a Saturday. I wasn't looking forward to seeing him on a Saturday, but I was working, so I had no choice.

And he was brilliant. I really couldn't believe it. So, he had a chance to make a second impression.

And that Friday night is wiped out. It's just the Saturday night completely wiped away Friday night. So, I wonder what has happened since some of those experiences that have maybe left a lasting impression, that's maybe contributed towards anxiety, stress, panic.

What other things have happened since then that actually, when you focus on them, these positive experiences, because we all have them, actually, when you focus on them, you realise that the generalisations that you've made about yourself are just that, generalisations, not fixed in stone. And it's just general. And generalising is something that's really useful in life, but it's also very unhealthy at times, very limiting at times, especially when we're, that generalising is getting in the way of our own happiness.

So, the zebra drinking water out of the pond or whatever, and with all his friends. I guess they might not all get on with each other, but I'm just generalising. And a lion turns up and they all, you know, someone shouts to him, Oi Bob, there's a lion over there.

And he says, Oh, okay, let's go straight away. Bang, run. And as soon as they all stop running, they just go back to what they're doing.

They're not worried about the next time they see a lion. They're not concerned or stressing about the last time they saw a lion. It happened.

And thinking about it isn't gonna really help them unless they can learn something from it. I think in my situation, I think if I was going to be a zebra, I'd make sure that I was always standing next to someone that could run slower than me. But that's just the way my brain thinks.

That's bad, isn't it? But imagine having that mind though, that mind where you're not concerned about stuff that hasn't happened. You're not worried about stuff that has. You're left with what's happening now.

And someone might say, Yeah, but if all we're doing is focusing on this moment, then that's a bit, you know, it's a bit boring. It's a bit, you know, that sounds a bit, yeah, it's a bit tedious. And I'm not saying that actually.

All of us have got huge numbers of nice memories. Even if we pretend we don't, we do. I had a fairly rubbish childhood at times.

Really bad at times. But recently, I've been getting in touch with the reality of the fact that there was some really good times as well. Christmas when I was a kid when I was between ages and seven and 14 or whatever were really good.

Christmas time was great. Birthdays were great. Bonfire night, guide folks night was great.

When there was snow outside, we had fun, built igloos. When it's really sunny, we used to go down the beach. We had good times.

I think back to when I was 16, working in a chip shop. And for years, all I focused on was the negative part of it. But actually, I had some fun times.

I was just starting to go out to pubs and drinking, getting a bit tipsy, singing in the street, making new friends, dreaming about the future, thinking about how wonderful things will be. So even then, going through, because even then, my mood swings were up and down. But thinking about nice things for the future, and it's an obvious statement, what I'm going to say, it's so much better or nicer than thinking about imagining crappy times for the future.

I mean, what is the point in that? Because we can't change the past, obviously. We can change our perception of the past. We can focus more on those nice times from the past.

And it might even take writing down a list of things that happened that you liked, that you enjoyed. It might have been in school, it might have been a club you went to. One of my really nice memories I've got is when I was doing karate, and one of the adults, because a kid, one of the adults was getting married.

And he asked me and another kid that was there to hold swords up in a full karate gear, to hold swords up, crossed above the church as they left the church, and had photographs taken of us. I loved that. Loved it.

Brilliant. When I was nine, I was on a television show. The whole of my school was, loved it.

Singing songs, great fun. Getting my gradings in karate, always got a first class pass. I loved it.

I felt so good. So, and there's so many, especially at my age, 49, I've got a lot of memories that I can tap into if I just put the energy, and if I'm willing to do it. You're listening to this, you may be, you may be 90, you may be 20, you might, I don't know, any age in between.

You could be younger than that. We've all generally got memories of the past that are nice. So it's about focusing on things that we like.

So if you're about to go to a restaurant, and you know you're going to, say, a Chinese restaurant tomorrow night with someone that you like, or maybe it's a work outing, or friends, family, whatever, and you're thinking about what food are you going to have? I'm very certain that you're not going to be thinking about the food you don't like. When you're thinking about ordering a pizza, you're not thinking about the toppings that you don't like, because it wouldn't make sense.

It just, you know, it just doesn't, it's not, it's not just that it isn't logical, but it just probably wouldn't happen, automatically wouldn't happen.

So when you think about the future, even if, I mean, it's all made up, isn't it? The past isn't even real. It's been proven that our memories of the past aren't correct. We remember some of it, we don't remember all of it.

And some memories get mixed up. So the future, it's imagination, that's all it is. So if you think, if you're going to read a book, you choose a book to read by an author, what do you choose? It doesn't have to be a fiction, it could be nonfiction, educational, it could be anything, but you choose, I'm just guessing this, but you choose something that you like.

You choose a subject that you're interested in. You choose an author that you like to read. Some people like to read Stephen King books, or the Harry Potter books.

You choose something that you know you're going to enjoy. You don't just choose a random book. And think about memories, you know, if you read a book by, I'm trying to think of an author off the top of my head, but let's say Sue Townsend, who wrote the Adrian Mole books.

If you read one of her books, and you didn't like it, what's the chance that you'd buy another book by Sue Townsend? So there's a memory that you don't like. Why think about other memories that are similar? Why would you read another book from the same author that you didn't enjoy that book for, you know, the one that you read, you didn't like it? Why waste your time reading another one?

Although it could be good, but you know, generally, if I read a book by an author, I didn't like the book, I wouldn't read another book by them. I think it's a standard kind of recipe for choosing a book.

And if you was going to write your own book, if you're going to write your own future, would you write a load of crap? Would you write a load of horrible stuff happening? Would you write nice things happening? You're going to write your book, and whatever you wrote in it is going to happen next. It's going to happen over the next year, it's going to happen over the next 10 years, the next 30 years.

You're not going to add, you're not going to put illness in there, are you? You're not going to put in catastrophe and things to be concerned about, things to worry about.

Are you going to make yourself a worrier? Are you going to add panic attacks into that book, into that story, into that future? Or are you going to make it really positive, positive for you, where things work out really well, where you're happy, where you enjoy your life, free of unnecessary stress or anxiety, free of panic attacks? Because that stuff's in the past. Because at the moment, it is in the past.

It can't be anywhere else.

Everything is in the past. The only thing we have right now is me talking and you listening at this moment. All those memories are gone.

If you think about the memories as a DVD collection of movies or television shows, and if you're like me, you've watched a lot of television, a lot of movies over the years, I've watched thousands and thousands of movies, and millions of hours of television probably. So when you think back, in a sense, you're bringing out the library, your library of DVDs, I'm going to watch, I'm going to watch back.

And you know, every day for an hour, you're going to watch one movie, or an hour and a half, two hours, whatever.

So every day, in the future, you're going to watch one movie from the past. Whether it be Naked Gun, Titanic, whatever. And you've got a choice of all the movies that you've ever watched.

Are you going to choose a movie that you didn't like? I think the answer is no on that one. You're going to choose a movie that you enjoyed the first time around. And that's like memories.

You've got so many choices, so many things that have happened. You've got a choice of things to think about. And what we think about affects how we feel.

And how we feel affects how we act, which affects our future. Happiness. So if you've got a party to go to, or a wedding to go to, and it's not really your thing, I'm not a big fan of big public events at all.

But if you're going to write a little story about how it went, wouldn't it be more enjoyable to write a nice story? Especially if you knew that what you wrote was going to happen. You'd write something nice, wouldn't you? I went there, felt confident, felt relaxed, had fun, dealt with everything easily, was surprised at how well it went. I read in a book a while back, it's from an author called Yallam, Irving Yallam, and he said, it wasn't his quote, but he quoted it from someone else.

If, what is it? If you came back, if you had to come back and relive your life, and you knew a million percent that you're going to have to come back and relive your life exactly the way you lived it this time, how would you spend the rest of your life? And I kind of had to read that sentence a couple of times before it really sunk in.

Because on a kind of a basic level, it's like, well, I'll do this and I'll do that, and I thought, wait a minute, you're going to want to enjoy the experience, make as many wonderful experiences and be happy, feel relaxed, not going through trauma and stress, not worrying about things that will probably never happen. Yeah, I think it's quite a nice idea.

So your future, my future, all of our futures, it's up to us. And I don't mean that in an unrealistic way, I can't get up tomorrow and hire a private jet to take me to Dubai, I can't do that tomorrow, I know that, I could imagine I can do it, and I probably feel quite nice. But even though it's unrealistic, it's a hell of a lot better than thinking, I'm going to get up tomorrow and I'm going to feel crappy, and I'm going to get a bill come through the door, and it's going to ask for lots of money.

That's unlikely to happen as well, to be fair. But what makes you feel better in the moment, as you think about it? Yeah, I'm not saying, you know, that we should all be fantasizing about stuff, unrealistically glorious things. But hey, if we're spending our time fantasizing about extremely horrible things, they're never going to happen.

Then the only difference is, you're going to feel happier. It's still a fantasy, but you'll feel differently than you did before. And it's starting to play in the future, the future that you want.

A future where it doesn't have stress, or anxiety, or panic. Because you've done that, you've been there. It's boring, isn't it? It's boring.

It's not interesting. It's not exciting. Anxiety, stress, and panic is not exciting at all.

It's painful. It's boring. And I'm sure that you, you can't be part of it anymore.

I can't. I don't want that stuff no more. I want to feel relaxed.

I don't expect to feel relaxed the whole time. That's not realistic. But I want to be able to deal with things.

And I want to be able to look forward to things. I want to think about the past. Choose something that you want to think about.

There's lots to choose from. Just like all those movies that you've watched in the past. You wouldn't keep a collection on your shelf of stuff that you didn't like.

What would be the point of that? There's a reason why people keep photo albums of happy events, family events, birthdays, weddings, christenings, all that kind of stuff. Christmas or whatever. We don't have pictures of funerals.

Don't have a, oh, this is a grandma's funeral. Yeah, this is just as the, as the coffin is lowered down. This is her in a hospital bed as she's dying.

No, we don't have pictures like that. We have nice pictures. We want to remember nice things.

Doesn't mean that horrible things don't happen. Of course they do. Doesn't mean we need to focus on that stuff.

We can, we've got all those movies that we enjoyed watching. We've got a photo album. It's in our mind, but it's more than any photo album that's ever been created.

More pictures, memories of nice experiences. First times of doing things. The first kiss, the first dance, the first time you drove your own car maybe.

The list is endless and it's personal for each person as well. So let's maybe test being like a zebra when it comes to stress and worrying about things. Let's leave it to when it happens and deal with it when it happens.

Maybe test it out. Test it for a day, test it for a week. Just see how it feels.

I'm going to do that. See how it feels. See how you feel differently.

Embrace the zebra. And that's why zebras don't get ulcers because they don't worry about stuff. They don't need to.

So that brings us to the end of another of these recordings. I hope that you're well. And I'll speak to you very soon.

And remember to be kind to yourself. Because you deserve to be happy. Lots of love.

Bye.