Category

Addiction

Donut Addictive Personality Addiction Abuse Relief Release Hypnosis Melbourne Hypnotherapy Counselling

Is There Such Thing As An Addictive Personality?

By Addiction

Is there such thing as an addictive personality? Stephen Bright, Edith Cowan University Most of us know somebody who tends to get over-involved in certain behaviours, and the saying often goes that they must have an “addictive personality”. But is there such a thing? The idea of an addictive personality is more pop-psychology than scientific. What is personality? To understand why the idea of an addictive personality is flawed, it’s important to first understand what psychologists mean when referring to personality. Personality is comprised of broad, measurable, stable, individual traits that predict behaviour. So by definition, engaging in excessive behaviours cannot be considered a personality trait. Read more: Everyone’s different: what parts of the brain make our personalities so unique? Though, there are personality traits that are associated with addiction. Neuroticism is one of the “big five” personality dimensions. These are the five core traits that drive behaviour. They include openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion/introversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. People who score high in neuroticism tend to be easily emotionally aroused. They are also more likely to engage in a number of excessive behaviours, including: over-eating, excessive online gaming, social media over-use and substance dependence. People who are highly neurotic might…

Read More
March 11, 2020
Love0
New Year Resolution Resolutions Lessons Motivation Release Hypnosis Melbourne Hypnotherapy Counselling

Here Is Why I Don’t Do New Year’s Resolutions

By Addiction, Anxiety, Habits, Hypnosis, Hypnotherapy, Motivation, Smoking Cessation, Uncategorized, Weight Management

Here Is Why I Don’t Do New Year’s Resolutions This time of year, your social media news-feed is likely to be inundated by posts about New Years Resolutions. It’s a great time of year to tell everyone how you’re disappointed with yourself for [insert problem behaviour] and how you’re going to stop doing [insert problem behaviour] in the new year. While it’s nice to have a resolution, rarely does it actually work with many people abandoning them within the first week. Being real with you for a second, even I have been guilty of flooding social media walls with marketing about ‘new year’s resolutions’ because there are still many people who subscribe to them. Regardless of my own personal beliefs, it is obviously a wise move to let people know I might be able to help them and I do stand by the benefit of getting additional support to achieve them. Statistically, most people will fail with their new years resolutions and it tends to feel more of a token gesture about which ‘flaw’ to fix than anything else. When we break it down, what we’re really looking at here is habitual behaviour and how to change the behaviour which…

Read More
December 31, 2019
Love0
Pornography Porn Addiction Effects Release Hypnosis Melbourne Hypnotherapy Counselling Sex

Watching Pornography Rewires The Brain To a More Juvenile State

By Addiction

Watching pornography rewires the brain to a more juvenile state Rachel Anne Barr, Université Laval Pornography has existed throughout recorded history, transforming with the introduction of each new medium. Hundreds of sexually explicit frescoes and sculptures were found in the Mount Vesuvius ruins of Pompeii. Since the advent of the internet, porn use has skyrocketed to dizzying heights. Pornhub, the world’s largest free porn site, received over 33.5 billion site visits during 2018 alone. Science is only just beginning to reveal the neurological repercussions of porn consumption. But it is already clear that the mental health and sex lives of its widespread audience are suffering catastrophic effects. From depression to erectile dysfunction, porn appears to be hijacking our neural wiring with dire consequences. In my own lab, we study the neural wiring that underlies learning and memory processes. The properties of video porn make it a particularly powerful trigger for plasticity, the brain’s ability to change and adapt as a result of experience. Combined with the accessibility and anonymity of online porn consumption, we are more vulnerable than ever to its hyper-stimulating effects. A BBC 3 programme looking at the effects of pornography addiction. Impacts of porn consumption In the…

Read More
December 9, 2019
Love0
Neurons Release Hypnosis Melbourne Hypnotherapy Counselling Neuropsychology

How To Use Your Brain’s “Delete” Button

By Addiction, Anxiety, Depression, Hypnosis, Hypnotherapy, Mindfulness, OCD, Smoking Cessation

How To Use Your Brain’s “Delete” Button Neurons that fire together, wire together. Back in 1949, Canadian Neuropsychologist Daniel Hebb first used this phrase to describe how pathways in the brain are formed and reinforced through repetition. This means that every experience, thought, feeling, and physical sensation triggers thousands of neurons, which form a neural network. When you repeat an experience over and over, the brain learns to trigger the same neurons each time. Our brain cells communicate with one another via synaptic transmission; one brain cell releases a chemical (neurotransmitter) that the next brain cell absorbs. This communication process is known as ‘neuronal firing’. When brain cells communicate frequently, the connection between them strengthens. Messages that travel the same pathway in the brain over and over begin to transmit faster and faster. With enough repetition, they become automatic. You’ve heard the saying that ‘practice makes perfect’; this is the scientific explanation of why it does. This is essentially how we create those unconscious programs that run who we are; the way we think, the perception we see, the experiences that form the beliefs we hold, and the habits that we do. Of course, this can be used in a…

Read More
March 11, 2019
Love0
Avicii Mental Health True Stories Documentary Release Hypnosis Counselling Hypnotherapy Melbourne Depression Anxiety Stress Addiction Chronic Pain

Review: Avicii True Stories

By Addiction, Anxiety, Counselling, Depression, Habits, Happiness, Mental Health

Review: Avicii True Stories Sex, Drugs and Rock n Roll You might wonder what place a review of a documentary about a dance music producer should have in a blog dedicated to mental health and wellness. For those who are unaware of the meteoric rise of Avicii (real name Tim Bergling) and his untimely passing, then this is a documentary that hits hard and raw. Avicii was only 18 years old when he was first discovered and began his career as a music producer and DJ. While performing in public never came easy for him, he performed over 800 shows in a short amount of time before finally retiring from touring at the start of 2017. What ‘Avicii True Stories’ really offers us is an insight into the torture that being on the road can be like for those people who suffer from stress and anxiety, and who really just want it to stop. As time goes on and it becomes more and more apparent that the touring lifestyle was taking too much of a toll on Avicii, we see his management continuing to push harder and harder for him to continue and to do more. Even in the final…

Read More
February 4, 2019
Love0

What Does That Smoking Habit Want For You?

By Addiction, Habits, Parts Therapy, Smoking Cessation

What does that smoking habit want for you? Part of you wants to smoke and part of you wants to quit As with any form of habit that can be perceived as ‘bad’ for you, there is often an internal conflict going on within a person as to why they maintain that habit. Smoking is absolutely the classic example here as nearly everyone who comes to see me about becoming a non-smoker has studied up on ‘the facts’ around smoking and they know all the reasons why they should quit but seem to struggle with fully embracing their identity as a non-smoker. Some may even recognise that inner-conflict and be confused by it, saying that as a logical, rational adult, they should be able to take control of the situation and to make that decision to give up that smoking habit and yet they just find it hard. Perhaps what they need to really look at is the intention behind that part of them that has the smoking habit. Each part has a positive intention Often when we sit down and begin to talk to that part that has been maintaining the smoking habit, we discover that it has a…

Read More
October 16, 2018
Love0
Smoking Cessation Quit Cigarettes Stop Smokes Hypnotherapy Release Hypnosis Melbourne

Ten Myths About Smoking That Will Not Die

By Addiction, Smoking Cessation

Ten myths about smoking that will not die Simon Chapman, University of Sydney Across forty years I’ve come to recognise many factoid-driven myths about smoking that just won’t die. If I asked for a dollar each time I had to refute these statements, I’d have accumulated a small fortune. Their persistence owes much to their being a vehicle for those who utter them to express unvoiced but clear sub-texts that reflect deeply held beliefs about women, the disadvantaged, mental illness, government health campaigns and the “natural”. Let’s drive a stake through the heart of ten of the most common myths. 1. Women and girls smoke more than men and boys Women have never smoked more than men. Occasionally, a survey will show one age band where it’s the other way around, but from the earliest mass uptake of smoking in the first decades of last century, men streaked out way ahead of women. In 1945 in Australia, 72% of men and 26% of women smoked. By 1976, men had fallen to 43% and women had risen to 33%. As a result, men’s tobacco-caused death rates have always been much higher than those of women. Women’s lung cancer rates, for example,…

Read More
July 21, 2018
Love0

OUTthink – Stuart Fenton – Talking about Addiction

By Addiction, Inner Child, LGBTQI, OUTthink

OUTthink – Stuart Fenton – Talking about Addiction Talking About Addiction Drug addiction, especially ice addiction, has sadly become a little more commonplace in the LGBT community. Chemsex amongst gay men has seen an increase in recent years, usually involving a mix of methamphetamines, GHB and Viagra resulting in ‘play’ that could potentially go on for days. For some gay men, despite doing it on a weekly basis, they believe they’re still in control. For others, they recognise just how out of control they actually are and know that they need to stop to reclaim their lives. There are functioning addicts and there are those who will go for a bender and then need days in bed before they can do anything. The question remains though – when does a user go from being a user to becoming an addict, and is this something that they recognise within themselves or is it something that is greeted with denial and secrecy. While there is a lot of talk around ice use within the LGBT community, those who indulge in the activity tend to feel like it is there ‘shameful little secret’, and this lack of willingness to discuss it and the…

Read More
June 4, 2018
Love0
OUTthink Tracie OKeefe LGBT Addiction Release Hypnosis Melbourne Hypnotherapy Counselling Resilience Equality

OUTthink – Dr Tracie O’Keefe – Equality, Addiction and Resilience

By Addiction, OUTthink, Podcast, Relationships, Trauma

OUTthink Podcast: A Chat with Dr. Tracie O’Keefe about Equality, Addiction, and Resilience A bit about Dr O’Keefe Tracie is an internationally renowned Clinical Hypnotherapist, Psychotherapist, Counsellor, Mental Health Professional, Motivational Speaker and Trainer who has extensive experience in family and couples therapy, sex therapy and addictions therapy. With over 20 years experience, Tracie specializes in building resilience and staying motivated as well as overcoming crisis and trauma. She has helped over 20,000 clients over many years in her clinics in London and Sydney to change their lives for the better. Currently, the Director of the Australian Health and Education Centre, Tracie is the author of seven books, including her latest Amazon number 1 bestseller ‘Inspiration for Survive and Prosper: Personal Transformation Out of Crisis’, a practical self-help book that helps people to recover from any crisis or trauma – fast. For more information on Dr Tracie O’Keefe, you can visit her website. About OUTthink – An LGBT Podcast OUTthink is a fortnightly podcast aimed at shining a light into topics of mental health and mental wellbeing relating to the LGBTQIA+ community. As a community, we need to be able to discuss topics that are uniquely related to the gay,…

Read More
April 30, 2018
Love0

Facts About Habits That Might Surprise You

By ACT, Addiction, Habits, Smoking Cessation

Facts About Habits That Might Surprise You I want you to imagine that you’ve just woken up in the morning. What’s the first thing you do? Do you head to the bathroom first? Do you make yourself a coffee? Do you start off each day with a meditation or mindfulness exercise? When you have a shower or bath, how do you dry yourself off? What about how you get dressed? For many people, this exercise highlights one vital point; they have a habit of doing the same thing as part of their ‘morning routine’ each day. Within each morning, there are a series of habits that help them to structure their morning and to get things done. This article has collected some interesting facts about habits that may make you look at them and what you do a little differently. What is a habit? A habit is a routine of behaviour (action) that is repeated regularly and tends to occur subconsciously with very little conscious decision involved. It is repeated over time and generally done in the same way for the same reason each time. If I was to ask you to describe in great detail each step of how…

Read More
March 26, 2018
Love0