We actually had some sunshine here last weekend (cue classic small talk introductory discussion about weather) and it seems like Spring may finally make an appearance following a long, cold Winter that seems to have gone on forever. The clocks changed, the evenings are lighter, and my dog has found the place in my office to lie and overheat by sunbathing where the sun comes through the windows. 
 

One of the articles I am sharing this week offers up a range of ways to get high on life - naturally occurring euphoria is what it seeks to advance. So getting high without alcohol, drugs or anything else that may actually contribute to more problems than it solves. I talk in class often about delivering an experiential lecture entitled "Tripnosis" whereby I offered a number of hypnosis sessions with the explicit aim of elevating mood using natural phenomena along with hypnosis. 10 years ago, I also recorded a series of audio tracks offering the same. Today, I thought it would be good to offer one of those hypnosis audio tracks to you with my compliments, the details are below along with a download link that will expire in the next 7 days. I hope you find it an interesting and uplifting experience. 
 

I have a number of other new articles for you also - in particular one that sets out to explain how to increase a healthy sense of belonging. With me doing all I can to attempt to get my children to read more, and be able to focus on more than a 15 second TikTok or YouTube clip, I also wrote an article on the topic of how to increase one's attention span, and there's another on how to build resilience and overcome psychological fragility. 

I've shared quite a few short video clips on social media since the last edition of Adam Up, the clips are all below and cover some topics that are close to my heart and that I consider to be really cool, including one about how we can become trapped by dopamine in our brains, one that includes details of a study that showed how holding hands removed pain and anxiety, one that offers a range of quotes to encourage psychological flexibility and in another I champion Eleanor Roosevelt's inspiring way of embracing fear and explain the neuroscience in support of such an attitude. 
 

Wherever you are in the world, I hope the sun is shining for you in all manner of ways. 

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Ok, let's get on with it, shall we?

1. Adam often champions the virtues of constructive thinking within the clinical hypnotherapy setting and discusses how to avoid toxic positivity (personally and as a hypnotherapist). In this snippet, he briefly explores the benefits of balancing positivity with a healthily realistic mindset.
 

Watch The Full Video Here: The Power of Constructive Thinking: Balancing Positivity with Realism.

2. In this video Adam explains how a thought form that hypnotherapists equip their clients with is also used by him to help his students understand the variety of componential skills we learn and apply with cognitive approaches to hypnotherapy.  

And he kicks the flip chart a few times for good measure!!
 

Watch The Full Video Here: Explaining Cognitive Approaches to Hypnotherapy with a Thought Form.
 

3. Stress and Pain Disappear When Oxytocin is Flowing! Adam highlights the astonishing effects that holding hands has on anxiety and pain perception.
 

In class last weekend, I was discussing somatic approaches to hypnotherapy and I was discussing the impact of techniques that increase oxytocin in the body. Oxytocin flowing through the body can preempt the stress response. In this clip I am referring to a study by Coan, Schaefer & Davidson (2006) whereby 3 groups of women entered an FMRI scanner to see what happened in their brain when they got a slightly unpleasant shock in the ankle.
 

The brain scans revealed the remarkable difference between being supported by a stranger, a loved one, or alone. The 3rd group of women who are holding the hands of their husbands not only reported no anxiety, but their brains registered no pain, and they even reported having a pleasant experience because they were holding the hand of someone who loves them. Which was in contrast to the experiences of the other groups.
 

Hypnotherapists can teach their clients a range of practices to activate the oxytocin flow in the body to help preempt the stress response and other clinical applications.
 

Watch The Full Video Here: The Power of Love: How Holding Hands Can Reduce Anxiety and Pain.
 

4. During a recent lecture I was giving on Somatic Intelligence within hypnotherapy, I was explaining one way to recondition an anxious nervous system by helping patients to embrace courage and to equip them to take action accordingly. I illustrated by referring to Eleanor Roosevelt’s famous motto, “Do one thing every day that scares you,” and how it can lead to crossing the somatic threshold of anxiety. We can all gain resilience and explore new experiences from a remarkable role model.
 

Watch The Full Video Here: Rewiring Anxiety: Eleanor Roosevelt’s Wisdom for Embracing Courage.
 

5. Typically, we focus upon how to boost dopamine in order to derive more of the benefits that come with it. However, dopamine can also hold you back from trying new strategies and potentially lead to addictive behaviours as Adam explains in this snippet from a recent lecture he gave before he went on to detail the dopamine trap more comprehensively.
 

Watch The Full Video Here: The Dopamine Trap: Is Dopamine Actually Holding You Back? 
 

6. I’m discussing the brain’s capacity for response flexibility to shift out of automatic negative habitual thinking patterns – and using some famous quotes to illustrate.
 

Watch The Full Video Here: Response Flexibility – Choosing Your Attitude.


New Articles:

All articles are founded in science and have references for you to explore should you wish: 
 

Back in 2016, Nurofen’s maker the drug giant Reckitt Benckiser was ordered to pull painkillers off the shelves in Australia when they admitted that Nurofen marketed for specific types of pain were actually identical. Here in the UK, we have Nurofen Migraine Pain and Nurofen Tension headache caplets that both have the identical active ingredients comprising of 342mg of ibuprofen lysine that is in the Australian versions. These products marketed as helping with specific types of pain also cost a fair bit more than the regular packets of Nurofen. What’s more, anyone could stroll into a major supermarket here in the UK and spend £2 on a packet of 16 regular Nurofen when a packet of supermarket brand 16 identical ibuprofen tablets is just 40-50 pence.
 

Many who have read Ben Goldacre or Irving Kirsch may well explain people’s desire to take tablets in terms of the placebo effect. There is evidence to show that often when we know that we’ve taken something we can feel better as a result. This phenomena is often used in clinical trials to test interventions or new drugs against.
 

Many people are loyal to certain brands of tablets and they also invest belief in them over time. In a recent study by Kate Faasse and colleagues that featured in Health Psychology Journal, participants who suffered from frequent headaches were given a placebo tablet. Of these dummy pills, some were packaged as branded painkillers while others were not. The branded ones proved to be more effective at pain relief by the study participants.
 

A BBC article stated “In the UK, Tesco makes its generic ibuprofen silver to match the Nurofen packaging. Its generic aspirin is yellow, the same as Anadin Original. Its generic paracetamol is blue, the same as Panadol’s original paracetamol packaging. In other shops ibuprofen is typically red.

Colours also have an effect on how people feel about the medicine they are taking. Red pills have been reported to be more effective for treating pain than blue, green or white pills. But blue pills make more effective tranquilisers than red ones, except for Italian men. It’s been suggested this could be because blue is associated with their national football team.”
 

It seems the world is crazy for tablets. We are clearly crazy for the solution they promise and maybe it is the promise and the expectation that makes them so effective for people? We then also take vitamins, minerals, sports nutrition tablets, caffeine pills, recreational drugs, steroids and all sorts to give us some extra oomph in areas of our lives.
 

One of the major issues that we face here is that tablets and popping pills as seen in these stories is just so flipping easy. it is really really easy to take a pill or have an injection. People can buy them, they have an effect and they do not have to do any other work to gain that effect.
 

With these readily available types of tablets, we have become accustomed to simply taking a tablet to deal with pain, to deal with stress and to lose weight. Very little investment needs to be made by us, and if we believe in them, despite how dangerous it might be, we continue to take them and that becomes our solution to the problem.
 

Let me introduce a fascinating author who I love…..
 

“There isn’t any feeling you can get on drugs that you can’t  get without drugs.”
– William Burroughs  (former drug addict and author of Naked Lunch)
 

The famous beat generation author and drug addict William Burroughs wrote greatly about drugs, mainly recreational drugs, but this quote is still very valid here. Many believe that his best work was done when he  was clean and sober.
 

I interpret this quote though, as a means of highlighting the fact that we all have so much more within us that we simply do not take the time to access or learn about. If we explore, we learn that actually we can learn how to be active instead of passive. Most of the good feelings, comfort and well-being can be found within us. We can learn how to engage with our own mind and lower pain, reduce weight and ease stress. The world is awash with evidence to support such statements.
 

It takes time to learn self-hypnosis, but not that much time. You then get to transport non-pharmaceutical assistance around with you wherever and whenever you go. In the same way that belief and placebo can advance the effectiveness of tablets, belief in oneself (self-efficacy) is proven to have the same effect. That is, when we start to recognise and believe in our own ability to create change, we become better at it. When we practice skills, develop them and start seeing results that lead to a level of belief, it gets even better.

Visit this page for loads of resources and tuition about self-hypnosis: Learn Self-Hypnosis. 
 

Self-hypnosis is not just for reacting to the problems or the symptoms though. It is a preventative measure/tool too. That is, we start to use it to stop the issues occurring in the first place or to help deal with circumstances or situations that trigger the issues, for example.
 

Anyway, in conjunction with my article included today about getting high on life, here is a free hypnosis audio download that I recorded a decade ago as part of a Tripnosis programme I put together. The audio induces hypnosis and then has you consume a hypnotic tablet to achieve a natural high and elevate your mood naturally. Enjoy! .

Hypnosis Audio Download: The Hypnotic Tablet.


Useful resources for hypnotherapists: 

Visit this page for lots of resources for hypnotherapists.


My Hypnotherapist Development Hub.

There is so much education, support and resources included and that can be accessed if you are a member of my Hypnotherapist Development Hub. Visit the link here for full details on how to subscribe to it monthly or annually. 
 

The evidence based hypnosis meme of the week is  below....

Evidence based hypnosis meme of the week. 2018 study shows hypnotherapy to have a positive effect upon migraine and tension headaches.... 
 

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