Marlborough Business adapts to Covid-19: hypnotherapy on line.
As New Zealand goes into lock-down and people’s daily stress levels rise to new heights, a Marlborough hypnotherapist is doing her bit to help them cope.
For several years Chris Steadman has been operating a successful hypnotherapy business, Ntrance, from her home clinic in the Omaka Valley.
“For many of us, who have never experienced life-changing events that have an enormous impact on everyday lives, these are unprecedented times,” Chris said. “Some people may already suffer with low-level anxiety and find their symptoms have ramped up recently; others might be feeling new physical and psychological strains for the first time.”
Until now, almost all Chris’s therapy has been with Marlborough residents having a 60-80 minute session face-to-face. Given the current Covid-19 lock-down, this is no longer practicable.
With a few hardware adjustments, Chris is now conducting her hypnotherapy sessions on-line using Zoom. This is not an original technological breakthrough. Ever since the advent of Skype, a group of experienced professional hypnotherapists in the UK have been successfully treating their clients on-line.
So far, using Zoom, Chris has been delighted with the results and the ease with which her clients have been able to adjust to staying at home for their treatment sessions. Whereas most of Ntrance’s business came from Nelson/ Marlborough, she is now able to extend her service nationwide.
“This pandemic has many repercussions beyond the actual virus. One is the potential impact on mental health and wellbeing as people try to manage an increasingly stressful situation, and if I can help ease that stress in just a small way, I believe it’s worthwhile trying.”
Though much of her business to date has been for weight loss and quitting smoking, Chris is expecting a surge in clients suffering from stress and anxiety. Happily, anxiety is very amenable to treatment through hypnotherapy, which, by its nature is a deeply relaxing experience.
“To some degree it’s natural to worry, and we all do it – it’s how our brain handles problems or potential problems,” Chris explained. “But it stops being useful if we become stuck in a cycle of negative thoughts about things that are out of our control. We should instead focus on those things within our control, and how we choose to respond to them.”
One such way people have been trying to exercise control and diminish their worries is by the unhelpful practice of ‘panic-buying’ goods such as hand sanitiser and toilet roll. Chris puts this down to an overload of the ‘fight or flight’ response that’s hardwired into our DNA and is being further fuelled by images of empty shelves in the media, and on social media.
Media Release on 26 March 2020
Media Contact
Chris Steadman, Ntrance
Email: chris@ntrance.co.nz
Phone: 021 671195
Website: www.ntrance.co.nz