Welcome to EKTherapies Blog

Welcome to EKTherapies blog, I hope you enjoy looking around and reading about the benefits of Hypnotherapy, CBT & NLP.

I am currently on maternity leave but I am taking bookings for my return. I am also still available on email and over the phone although it may take me a little longer to get back to you than normal.

Happy reading and I look forward to hearing from you soon

Tips for Beating Blushing

It is not surprising that in today's "got to look good" society, facial blushing can cause people a lot of stress and worry. At its extremes, the embarrassment from blushing can become so acute that the sufferer avoids social contact as a last resort to avoid the problem.

So what can you and Hypnotherapy do to help yourself to control your blushing?

Acceptance
The first thing to understand is that blushing is a perfectly natural human response. Everybody blushes, of course some people blush more than others but it is a reassuring fact that blushing is a matter of degree, not whether you do or don’t blush. It is a natural occurrence. When you blush, the blood vessels in your face widen allowing more blood to pass through to the skin. The tiny muscles in your blood vessels usually keep the vessels slightly squeezed, but during a blushing episode, nerves in your body send signals to relax these muscles. Because this action is an automatic response, it is nearly impossible to stop once the action has begun. In fact, the harder you try to stop blushing, the redder you will usually get. Acceptance is the first step to controlling your blushing.

Relax
Blushing tends to increase as people start to get embarrassed about their embarrassment, creating a sort of vicious circle. The tenser you get as you start to blush, the more the blood is forced to the face. One trick is, when you feel it coming on is to deliberately drop your shoulders and relax your body. Breathe through your stomach, pushing it out as you breathe deeply and calmly, focusing on calmness or what is happening around you rather than not blushing. This can take a bit of practice to become second nature, so practice deep breathing and focusing on other things on a daily basis. You can learn all of this and more with a Hypnotherapy, CBT & NLP session with Erika.

Accept it, don't Fight it
You need to shift your relationship to the blushing. At the moment you are trying to hide it because you are embarrassed about it. If you can work on relaxing about it, it will get better. This will be helped by you accepting it as a current part of yourself. You can try saying to yourself "At the moment, I am a blusher". It sounds strange, but if you can bring yourself to like that part of you more, it is more likely to go away.

Hypnotherapy can introduce you to some techniques that you can employ and keep working with on your own in the future.

Other peoples' opinions
Part of the embarrassment about blushing is caused by the thought that others will see you as weak or silly. However, everyone has had the experience of being embarrassed, it shows in people in different ways. Even people who appear as very confident have their moments of self-consciousness. Remember too that often it can seem a lot worse to you then it appears to be. People are so self-absorbed that they probably haven’t noticed you blushing; in fact it is often only your own change in behaviour that draws attention to it. Does this sound like your experience?


People tease you
If people tease you and point out your blushing they tend to do this because of your reaction to them. If when they tease you, you are able to smile with them, it will usually lessen the impact of their joke and make it less likely that they will push that button in the future. This can be done in a healthy way that does not internalise your anguish, but instead shares it!


Retrain your mind
Hypnotherapy can help greatly as you can train your mind and body to relax as you feel the blushing coming on, or have the thought that you might blush. Hypnotherapy can help you to feel more confident and at ease with the situations that make tend to make you blush.

Your Standards
Remember, you are an unique individual. Like everyone else you have different factors that contribute to make you the person you are. Accept yourself for all that you are, blushing is just one of those things that make you you. The more you accept it the more you won’t mind if it happens. The more you don’t mind the less it will happen as you refind that inner confidence in you.

Ring Erika for a no obligation chat and see how along with your commitment hypnotherapy, CBT and NLP can help you achieve your goals.

© EKTherapies

Smoking Ages You

We all know smoking is bad for our health; there is no hiding from the fact any more with cigarette packets carrying shocking images and smoking being banned from advertising. But the fact that smoking ages you will be a lurking demon in many people’s minds.The beauty industry is worth billions of pounds, but the most effective product available to help your skin remain youthful is stopping smoking.

“For smokers, middle age starts in the early 30′s as the tell tale wrinkles around the mouth and eyes begin to appear. Young female smokers are likely to be wasting their money on anti-ageing face creams if they continue to smoke,” says Amanda Sandford from Action on Smoking Health.

Smoking ages women more than men, a fact supported by many years of research by reputable medical bodies. The ageing effects of smoking on the skin are worse for women, who are much more likely to develop“smoker’s face” than male smokers. For women smoking and ageing are inextricably linked. Smoking is also linked to early onset of menopause.

Remember, when you look at your skin some of the damage caused by smoking won’t appear until ten to twenty years after you began to smoke. So if you haven’t been smoking that long and you don’t see much damage yet – don’t assume it won’t happen.

“Smoking exerts such a noticeable effect on the skin that it’s often possible to detect whether or not a person is a smoker simply by looking at his or her face. Smokers have more wrinkles and their skin tends to have a greyish pallor compared to non-smokers,”says Professor Young, Head of Dermatology at Guy’s School of Medicine, London.

So just how does smoking affect the skin in both men and women?

• Smoking restricts blood flow through the capillaries (tiny veins near the skin’ssurface) preventing oxygen and nutrients getting to the skin
• Smoking increases production of an enzyme which breaks down the supply of collagen to the skin’sstructure. Collagen supply is vital to the skin’s elasticity; it decreases with age but smoking cigarettes accelerates this process
• Smoking reduces the body’s store of vitamin A which provides protection from skin damage
• Smoking gets in the way of absorption of vitamin C – a vital antioxidant for skin protection and health
• Smokers’continual puckering from drawing on a cigarette and squinting in reaction to the cigarette smoke results in deeply wrinkled skin around the eyes and mouth –classic signs of ‘smoker’s face’

Smoking statistics will clearly tell you the risk of death and disease from your smoking habit. This is frightening enough but the fact that it ages us too is something we should be aware of.

This is what you might expect your skin to look like if you continue to smoke:

• Dull appearance to the skin – loss of skin glow and vitality
• Discolored skin (an ashy look on white skins)
• Deeper wrinkles around the mouth and eyes
• Loss of tone and elasticity above and beyond the normal ageing process

The damage done from smoking cannot be completely reversed, but the sooner you stop and begin to look after your skin and diet then you can begin to get back your youthful skin and body.

Take the first steps today to becoming a non-smoker in a positive and focused way. Your commitment and a one-off Hypnotherapy, CBT & NLP session is all it takes. Hypnosis makes it 10 times more likely that you will quit smoking for good. During the session we will look at all your smoking triggers and make sure you have the coping mechanisms, motivation and determination to become and remain a non-smoker. Why wait until the damage of smoking is showing on your skin and in your body. Take control today, call Erika see how you can take the first steps to becoming smoke-free today.

“I haven't touched a cigarette!! Today is my 16th day as a non-smoker - I'm so proud of myself but don't want to get complacent. The first few days were really tough, but since then it has got easier and I think about it less and less. I've even been out with people at work or pub and have just stood with them whilst they smoke and it’s actually been fine . I'm starting to feel better in myself, have a bit more energy and plan to start jogging next week. So thank you very much! I'm still taking it one day at a time but those days are getting easier.” Lisa, London who had a one-off Stop Smoking treatment with Erika at EKTherapies.

© EKTherapies

Blue Monday

Apparently today 14th January is Blue Monday. It is considered the most depressing day of the year.

How can one predict the most depressing day of the year? Who knows what is going to happen on this day and the next and the one after that?

Tomorrow will be here sooner than we think, and it can be a better day. We are too good at focusing on what is missing or wrong in our life, but we can change and look at what we do have. We can start to focus on the 70% (or more) that is right in our life rather than the small amount that needs improving.

It is good to have stuff to strive for; we need goals, dreams, targets and aspirations. But it is also important to stop and appreciate where we have got to and enjoy the life that we have created for ourselves.

The world continues turning and life goes on day by day.It is up to us to make our own lives as good as we can. You can learn to work with the positive and to see what we do have in life – a Hypnotherapy, CBT & NLP session can help you to have this outlook.


Today can be whatever you want it to be. Yes it may be cold outside, the evenings may be dark, but we have passed the shortest day of the year. Summer is on the way. We can either get there with a smile on our faces or allow ourselves to be dragged down into a negative spiral.


Take control of how you feel today. You can learn a different way of dealing with stress and let go of the anxiety in your life. Today can be the best day of your year as it is the start of working with the power of your mind, focusing on the positive and realising that we choose where we put the energy. You can choose to put it towards positive thinking; you will be amazed at how you can change your perspective and realise that life is quite an amazing thing to be involved in.

© EKTherapies