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2 September 2026
Are you feeling a bit stressed or overwhelmed right now? Has the end of the summer, with the return to school runs, packed lunches and back-to-work deadlines, created extra demands on your time and energy? It’s a time of year when life seems to speed up again, with more to organise, more to remember and more to juggle.
Much as some people enjoy the fresh start of September (and plenty don’t), it’s completely normal to find this time of year stressful.
Everyone experiences times of stress, and it doesn’t feel good. You may notice your thoughts speeding up, your heart racing, muscles tensing, a dry mouth and even nausea and butterflies in the stomach.
This is the body’s fight or flight response kicking in. When you sense (or even think about) a threat, your body automatically tenses up, ready to fight or run away. It’s not something you can decide, your body does it for you. This may happen to you when you think about the new term or the return to your usual routine.
Maybe you worry about getting everyone organised for school, your child starting college or university or how you’re going to manage the workload piling up after the summer break. Whatever you’re worrying about, your body experiences that stress in the same way as if you were facing a physical threat.
You can find out more about how to help with feelings of overwhelm here
The fight or flight response developed through centuries of evolution, programming the brain to respond to danger to increase the chance you’d survive. In prehistoric times, it was important to access quick bursts of energy to fight or escape from predators such as lions, tigers and bears.
The fight or flight response helps you to respond quickly in dangerous situations, such as when a child runs out in front of a car or if you woke up to an intruder in your house. Apart from these exceptional (and rare) circumstances, most people don’t have much call for these emergency responses in everyday lives.
The trouble is, the fight or flight response is like an oversensitive alarm clock going off whenever it senses danger. It can’t tell the difference between a real threat such as a tiger, and a perceived one, like the pressure of getting back into a routine, a painful memory or worry about the future. It treats both the same way; tensing the body and preparing it for action. The mind then interprets that tension as further proof of a threat, and tenses even more in response.
Sometimes, the body will go back to normal on its own, once it has sensed the threat has passed. At other times, the feelings of stress, fatigue and low mood remain and nothing seems to shift them. The mind has automatically switched to full alert but hasn’t switched off again the way it’s meant to do.
As the fight or flight response kicks in, the mind begins to trawl through its memory bank of experiences to make sense of these feelings. If you’re feeling stressed or in danger, your mind digs up memories of when you’ve felt like this before, and uses the imagination to picture what may happen next.
There is light at the end of tunnel though, as same mechanism that turns the stress response on, can also turn it off.
As soon as the brain decides the situation is no longer dangerous, it stops sending out emergency signals. This stops panic signals reaching the nervous system.
It only takes three minutes from shutting off the danger signal for the fight or flight response to burn itself out. Then the metabolism, heart rate, breathing rate, muscle tension and blood pressure all return to their normal rate.
This natural, restorative response is known as the relaxation response.
For more on the body and stress check out https://blossomhypnotherapy.com/the-benefits-of-body-awareness/
Michael (not his real name) is a 50 year old hedge fund manager who came to see me feeling constantly wound up, exhausted and unable to switch off, even at home. His job meant long hours, frequent travel, high pressure decisions. When he did manage to get downtime, he was finding it increasingly hard to switch off and recover. He was noticing his heart racing, frequently had headaches and was having problems sleeping.
We worked together to help Michael understand his own stress response and to build practical, realistic tools he could use during his working day, not just in a quiet room at home. Over several sessions, Michael learned to recognise his early warning signs of stress and to use calming techniques to bring his body back into balance before things escalated.
Michael is now sleeping better, and his heart rate variability, a good marker of how the body recovers from stress, has improved. He gets far fewer headaches, finds his reaction time has sharpened, and says he’s able to think more clearly and solve problems at work with far less effort than before.
After years of struggling I decided to seek help from Celia and I’m very glad I did. Celia has a reassuringly calm and patient approach, and the sessions themselves were focused very much on my specific issues and responses to anxiety. I have gone from thinking there was something wrong with me, to being able to distance myself from my anxiety and take on new challenges that I would not even have considered a couple of months ago. Celia gave me the tools and insight that I needed.
For me, the hypnotherapy element has been really relaxing, and it was great being able to access the recordings at home too. Possibly more important though has been the range of tools and strategies for managing anxiety on a day to day basis. I am now optimistic about the future and know that if I continue to apply these techniques, I will continue to make progress. Celia is welcoming, practical and gentle, and I totally recommend her services.
When I work with stressed and anxious clients, we work together to change the thoughts, feelings and behaviour that cause stress. Clients discover how to tune into their body and mind so they can stop stress in its tracks. They learn to understand the fight or flight response and how to harness it in a way that helps them. Going at the client’s pace, I take care to support them to develop the skills they need to make changes.
As well as recognising what’s going on in their bodies, clients learn new ways to manage stress. They build coping and problem solving skills and ways to manage their thoughts, feelings and moods. We work together to develop self confidence and the ability to cope, whatever what life has in store.
Try my four ways to help you to activate your body’s relaxation response and be calmer this Autumn, right now.
Practice calming breathing to help reduce the physical sensations, emotions and intensity of thoughts triggered by the fight or flight response. Deep breathing helps to calm your body and mind and stimulates the relaxation response.
Take a few deep breaths – breathing in to a count of 7 , and out to a count of 11. With practice, this will help you to feel calmer and more in control.
For more on breathing, take a look at how-to-relax-in-just-five-minutes.
Use your imagination to prepare yourself in advance for situations that cause you stress.
Close your eyes and imagine yourself in the situation, going into as much detail as possible. Take a deep breath and relax away all the tension. Now imagine feeling calm and relaxed as you cope with the situation.
For more ways to use your imagination to combat stress check out creating-calm-uncertain-world.
Hypnosis allows you to experience positive thoughts and images as if they are real. Self-hypnosis has been proven to be clinically effective for treating anxiety and for improving relaxation.
Click here to find out more on how self hypnosis can help you.
When your mind is racing ahead to tomorrow’s to-do list, bring your attention back to right now.
Notice five things you can see, four things you can hear, three things you can feel, two things you can smell and one thing you can taste.
This simple grounding exercise interrupts the stress spiral and gives your nervous system a chance to settle.
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Written by Celia Griver, GHR registered hypnotherapist and psychotherapist with over 10 years experience supporting adults and teenagers with anxiety, depression, and confidence issues. Celia holds a Higher Diploma in Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy from the UK College of Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy and specialises in CBT, mindfulness and hypnotherapy approaches.
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