Episode 5: Chloe Brotheridge

How to handle your nerves, appear more confident and silence negative thoughts

HealthHackers Ep 5 with hypnotherapist & anxiety expert Chloe Brotheridge.

No time to watch the video? Below is the audio podcast on Soundcloud. Or subscribe on Apple Podcasts to get the audio on your iPhone here.

In this episode, we cover:

how to handle a panic attack
the top anxiety-triggering foods to avoid
boosting self-confidence even when you’re feeling anxious
techniques for increasing willpower
learning how to make a decision without getting stressed about it
supplements for anti-anxiety effects
how to re-programme your mind so you enjoy the things that scare you right now

Anxiety: You can handle this

I really identified with Chloe Brotheridge when I read her book 'The Anxiety Solution: A Quieter Mind, a Calmer You.

She’s the first person I’ve come across who recounts a horrid experience of teenage anxiety so similar to my own.

Despite spending a good chunk of my teens dealing with - and eventually overcoming - debilitating, terrifying, all-consuming anxiety and panic attacks - I wasn’t encouraged to speak about it openly in those days. You didn't do that in the 90s.

So for the last 20 years - and until I read Chloe’s book - I always thought it was just me that had experienced such random and unexplained anxiety as a teenager. I guess that’s the nature of chronic anxiety - you feel isolated.

After conquering her own anxiety issues, Chloe now specialises in hypnotherapy and knows all about reprogramming your mind to do what you want it to do.

I filmed this HealthHackers Facebook Live episode with Chloe at her hypnotherapy practise in London. It felt like walking into an oasis of calm. I imagined how relaxed her patients must feel when they leave after a hypnotherapy session.

While setting up my tripod and laptop I think I probably overshared details about my own anxious past. Chloe, ever the professional, listened patiently. I thought: “I bet she gets this all the time from people she’s just met.”

During the live interview, we covered: managing a panic attack, boosting self-confidence, increasing willpower and learning how to make a decision without getting so stressed about it.

She also talked about how affective positive visualisation can be for creating a great outcome to an upcoming event that you’ve been worrying about.

Chloe's got more tips for managing fear, OCD and generalised anxiety disorder on her website.

You might have been drawn to this episode because you’re dealing with your own confidence or nervous issues. If you only watch a few minutes of the interview, make sure you take away Chloe’s vital point early on in the video: you are not alone.

If panic attacks have been plaguing any area of your life, just remember they are not dangerous. You will not die and you will get past them. She did. I did. You will too.