Havening for Anxiety Issues, such as Panic Attacks, Stress, Fears, Phobias,Trauma & Depression are now available online as private one to one sessions on Skype or Zoom
Email stephen@stravershypnosis.com with your name and number or call 086 178 6809 for Your Free Phone Consultation.
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Havening for Anxiety Reduction -Coronavirus- TV Interview
Below is the full transcript interview to read:
You’re very welcome back to the show now. Everyone reacts differently
to stressful situations, and with the current outbreak of the COVID-19
virus people’s stress and anxiety levels may be higher than usual. Now
fortunately there are ways to ease your coronavirus related stress, and
joining us now to tell us more about one effective technique Havening
is the Director of UK & International Havening Stephen Travers. Thank
you so much for joining us on the show today, it’s a scary time for a lot
of people, we’ve been talking about it for weeks now, it’s finally hit
home with an awful lot of people in Ireland, we’re in an almost
lockdown situation now. What is your background, what is Havening?
What is Havening?
ST: Well first of all I have over 15 years’ experience specialising and
helping people overcome anxiety based disorders, trauma and building
emotional resiliency. So Havening is a ground-breaking psychosensory
therapy.
EC: What does psychosensory mean?
ST: Psychosensory means we use sensory touch where we gently stroke
the arms, hands and face, we won’t be doing the face today though.
EC: No we will not, we’re being very responsible here [Chuckles].
ST: And we use pleasant psychological distraction. So what’s happening at
the moment, a lot of people are feeling obviously very stressed and
fearful and trapped by what’s happening, that’s increasing cortisol and
adrenaline in their brain and body, and it’s putting people into that fight
flight or freeze response. So that’s why you’re seeing the panic
buying and some of the irrational behaviour happening now. So the
Havening Touch increases serotonin, oxytocin and GABA in the brain,
this happens when you feel very calm and relaxed, these are these
pleasant calming neuro chemicals. So they can reduce your heart rate,
your blood pressure, and just calm your whole autonomic nervous
system down.
EC: Yeah because hormones like cortisol not only do they cause stress
they can weaken our immune system as well, so it’s not good to be
having these. It can have both a mental and a physical reaction,
nobody needs a compromised immune system really at this time.
ST: Yeah. Short term stress tends to be good to motivate us to do things.
EC: Yeah, because flight or fight is going back to the caveman days of if
there’s a woolly mammoth or a sabre-toothed tiger running after you
you need to get away.
ST: Exactly. So the purpose of it is to keep us safe so we can survive, but
prolonged stress, what’s starting to happen now because this thing
seems like it could be going on for months, and people are perceiving
this sense of inescapable stress. When you perceive inescapability it
shoots up your cortisol and adrenaline levels, but this treatment, the
Havening treatment can help quickly reduce the anxiety and fear that
people may be feeling.
EC: Where did it actually originate?
How was Havening developed?
ST: It was developed by an American doctor called Ronald Ruden, he’s a
Harvard University academic, he’s a neuroscientific researcher, and has
the largest private medical practice in New York City. And it really goes back to
2001, he was talking to Paul McKenna, and Paul Mckenna was
talking to him about tapping techniques, you might’ve heard of tapping.
So Doctor Ruden really starts studying things like tapping and worked
out how trauma gets encoded in the brain and how sensory touch can
change what’s happening in the brain and the body quickly and
effectively in terms of calming your whole system down. It goes back to
when you were a child, when you were born and you were put into your
mother’s arms and you’re hugged and you feel safe. So all these
associations through touch are helping us feel calmer and more
relaxed.
Havening for Anxiety Issues, such as Panic Attacks, Stress, Fears, Phobias,Trauma & Depression are now available online as private one to one sessions on Skype or Zoom
Email stephen@stravershypnosis.com with your name and number or call 086 178 6809 for Your Free Phone Consultation.
For Fast, Lasting, Positive Results!
EC: And I suppose everyone loves hugging somebody they love, we can’t
really do a lot of that at the moment, there’s a lot of anxiety around that
at the moment, and that human connection that we all need isn’t really
there. How does Havening help somebody who is having stress related
anxiety when it comes to COVID-19?
ST: Well the best way of maybe doing it, I can demo it–
EC: Yeah, actually to demonstrate for anyone at home, can anyone do this
now watching at home right now?
ST: Yes.
EC: So I’ll actually ask you to look at the camera here and just talk to our
viewers at home.
ST: Okay, so maybe if you’d like to even follow along with me Elaine.
EC: Okay.
Havening for Anxiety Reduction- Quick Demo
ST: So to the viewers at home if you’re feeling any type of stress, anxiety or
fear that’s been building up for the last two days, just take a moment
and think about what you’re feeling, and just get in touch with that fear,
anxiety or stress about what’s happening with this virus. And just notice
on a scale of zero to ten, ten being very uncomfortable and zero being
calm, how high does that stress and anxiety go, then just clear your
mind and begin using the Havening touch. So if you’d like to follow
along with me, so start stroking from the top of your shoulders all the
way down to your elbows, and imagine walking into a beautiful park or
along a beautiful beach on a bright summer’s day. So just distract your
mind away from what you’re thinking about, and with every step you
imagine taking count out loud from one to twenty. [Counting] 1, 2, 3,
keep stroking, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, really imagine
walking along the beach or the park, 17, 18, 19, 20. Now I’d like you to
move to something called palm Havening where you’re gently
massaging the palms of your hands. And we’re going to do a bit more
distraction, we can have a little bit of fun with this, I’d like everyone at
home to hum happy birthday. We’re already doing it as we wash our
hands so let’s hum or sing happy birthday [Singing] ‘happy birthday to
you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Elaine, happy birthday
to you’. The distraction part is giving your brain an escape from what
you were thinking about, right so it’s taking your brain away. And then
just go back to the arms, take in a slow deeper breath, and just notice
what’s changing, if you’re feeling calmer, if you’re feeling more relaxed.
And then we’re going to count backwards very quickly down from 30 to
zero in twos out loud, so at home I’d like you to start counting with me,
[Counting] 30, 28, 26, 24, 22, 20, 18, 16, relaxing with every number,
14, 12, 10, 8, 6, 4, 2, 0, just keep gently stroking. And I know it looks
strange but this is helping to regulate the cortisol, the adrenaline,
sensory touch is increasing serotonin, oxytocin, and it starts calming
your whole nervous system down. Now I know we’re limited on time,
but doing at least five minutes of it can make a significant difference.
EC: Yeah, so you just keep doing that for about five minutes?
ST: Yeah and keep distracting yourself away from what you were thinking
about and focusing on the arms and the hands.
EC: I mean there’s a lot of celebrity advocates of this at the moment, you
mentioned Paul McKenna the hypnotherapist a short time ago, I know you’ve worked with
him, he’s a great supporter of this sort of technique. Justin Bieber has
used this, he’s really really into it at the moment, so it does work for a
lot of people whose lives are under constant stress.
ST: Yeah Justin Bieber just came out recently, he was suffering a lot with
anxiety and stress and Havening has made a significant difference for
him. We’ve got doctors, psychologists, therapists all around the world
now training in Havening, primarily using it for anxiety based disorders
and trauma, and we’re getting remarkable results with it.
EC: Yeah, and of course I suppose it’s gaining in popularity all the time and
it’s relatively easy to do once you’ve trained yourself. I know one-on-
ones aren’t really advocated right now, but is there online tutorials you
can do with this, is that what you do?
ST: Yeah I have a lot of You Tube videos, so if people go onto my You
Tube channel they can find free videos of self-Havening, so they’re
much longer sessions. See
EC: And there’s links to that from your website as well.
ST: From my website, if you just click on the You Tube channel.
See https://www.youtube.com/c/StephenTraversHypnosisDublin
EC: I think we have your website details there on screen as well shortly
So thank you very much for joining us on the
show today, I nearly had a little snooze in the middle of that, I don’t
know about anybody else. Now I wasn’t very good at counting
backwards because my maths is always terrible, I was a bit confused
for all of that [Chuckles] but apart from that I think we’ve done some
people a great benefit today, Stephen thank you so much for joining us
on the show today.
ST: Okay, thank you Elaine, thank you.
Havening for Anxiety Issues, such as Panic Attacks, Stress, Fears, Phobias,Trauma & Depression are now available online as private one to one sessions on Skype or Zoom
Email stephen@stravershypnosis.com with your name and number or call 086 178 6809 for a Free Phone Consultation.
For Fast, Lasting, Positive Results!