Feeling nervous is a natural emotion and for lots of people when kept in perspective, these feelings actually help to motivate us and focus our minds. However if these feelings become intense and overwhelming they can threaten our performance and even cause us to achieve below our true potential.

Exam nerves can affect anyone, no matter how clever they are or how much they’ve prepared. There is a great emphasis in today’s society to succeed and this is often used to measure an individual’s ability (e.g. for certain jobs, to drive a car, performance in the work place etc.) and the pressure of this can be overwhelming.

Nerves can become out of control and can affect our ability to focus, create anxiety, stress or panic attacks, creating a vicious circle leading to more intense nerves. This can have a negative impact on our unconscious mind and lead to more general, longer term performance based anxiety. These feeling of anxiety can cause negative perceptions of ourselves and become barriers to our success because our thoughts influence our behaviour, and if we think we are likely to fail then we probably will. Of course the reverse also holds true.

Feeling calm, relaxed, focused and confident when studying and sitting the exam or preparing for an interview or speaking in public means you will be much more likely to achieve your full potential. Accessing this state of mind is a skill and can often be learned by implementing new ways of thinking using different techniques.

Using Solution Focused Hypnotherapy you will be taught the techniques that will help you to clear your racing mind and approach the exam, with a cool, calm state of mind. During Hypnotherapy the therapist will guide you into a relaxed state enabling direct access to your subconscious (primitive) mind. This is where our instinctive behaviour patterns and natural reactions are formed. Using positive suggestion and imagery the therapist is able to focus on the behaviours that you wish to change giving you the ability to cope in different situations in a calm and effective way.

Solution Focused Hypnotherapy can help to change and redefine your perceptions of your own abilities and resources, and change the negative perceptions we have of ourselves. This can have a tremendous effect on the way you think and therefore the way that you feel and behave, helping you to change your behaviour and achieve your goals.