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The latest articles to help you maintain mental, physical and spiritual wellness.

How to Lower Anxiety with the 7-11 Breathing Technique

Part of the Fusion Therapeutic Coaching STOP System® for controlling anxiety and panic attacks

People often comment ‘Breathing? I do it all the time without thinking! What’s so different about this technique? The answer is simple:

When we breathe in, we activate the sympathetic nervous system. It is more of an effort to breathe in than out, so when we breathe in, we tense.

When we breathe out, we engage the parasympathetic nervous system; we relax and have a feeling of letting go.

Therefore, if we engage a pattern of a longer out breath than in breath, we cannot help but activate the ‘relaxation response.’ Try breathing in to a count of 7 and out to a count of 11 (or use any count that feels right for you, as long as the out breath is longer).

If we are counting and concentrating on our breathing, we are using our rational brain (our higher intelligence) which automatically has the effect of lowering arousal in the emotional brain because the two brain areas do not function well simultaneously.

Working with a trained therapist can help people learn to relax whenever they choose, gaining control over panic attacks and other anxiety related problems. The breathing technique is also useful in anger management, OCD or self harm, where emotional arousal is usually very high.

7-11 buys time to ‘step back’ from a situation and re-establish control. This simple breathing technique can have astonishing results and its effectiveness is not disputed. The science is there to back it up.

However, like any technique, it improves with practise. Just like the muscles we build when we go down the gym, our ‘mental muscles’ get stronger the more we use them.
So you might do some 7-11 breathing for 10 minutes on waking in the morning to get the day off to a great start, 10 minutes last thing at night to enjoy deeper and more restful sleep, and 5 or 10 minutes during the day or whenever anxiety levels start to rise.

Try it for yourself.

There are no nasty side effects and no contra-indications, plus, nobody has yet found a way to tax us for the air we breathe… so it’s absolutely free!

Frances Masters MBACP accred GHGI
Managing Director Fusion Therapeutic Coaching Ltd

Stopping self harm, suicide prevention, the Rewind Technique, raising self esteem,  Mindfulness Based Mind Management (advanced MBSR), worrying well, solution focus, guided visualisation, resolving addiction, epigenetics, mapping the connectome, polyvagal theory, the reticular activating system (RAS), secondary gain, trauma resolution, coaching for kids, treating depression, worrying well, working SMART, therapeutic stories, insight, psycho education, positive mental rehearsal, reframes, fast track learning, perception shifting, self actualisation, positive psychology, rewiring your brain, the STOP System, the SAFE SPACE happiness recipe, holistic coaching and working on the continuum of wellbeing

Enrolling now for the 2019 training programme

VENUE: Chalgrave Hall, Tebworth. Bedfordshire  (M1, junction 12

Diploma dates: Thursday 1st – Monday 5th August
Master Trainer programme: Friday 9th – Sunday 11th August

Do you want to take your career to the next level?

Perhaps you’re a counsellor looking to add advanced coaching tools to your therapeutic toolbox.

Or you may be a coach, who wants to deepen and broaden your therapeutic skills.

Perhaps you are a hypnotherapist using powerful psychological techniques and would like a solid theoretical frame for your work.

Or you may be working in schools, human resources, the police or the NHS, or in another helping profession, and want to be more effective for your clients.

Perhaps, you would like to become a trainer and develop an exciting career working in the rewarding world of wellbeing and resilience.

Fusion® can help you, with tried and tested training which brings together the very best of coaching and counselling into a powerful new integrated model that really helps and really works

What does it cost?

The Diploma course fee is £1,395 after deduction of a £100 early booking discount. The Trainer programme is currently only £150 per day. On completion of the Diploma, you will have:

A nationally recognised award which will also count as 80 hours’ continuing professional development (CPD)

Access to the unique Fusion® 5 session manual; a direct replication of Frances’s own working documents

Certificated permission for use of the professional designation FCTC (Fusion Certified Therapeutic Coach)

Fusion® Therapeutic Coaching professional logos and promotional material

Alumni listing on the Integrated Coaching Academy website with links to your website and contact information

Fusion: What makes it unique?

Fusion® is a helpful and hopeful lens through which to view mental health and resilience. It is a mindfulness-based system that promotes emotional intelligence and a toolbox of mind management skills which are both easy to learn and easy to teach.

For practitioners, it is a practical, holistic, solution-focused, working model which integrates core counselling skills and advanced coaching tools, with fast track training and a helpful session by session post completion manual.

Fusion: The Model

As we learn and grow as children, we begin to develop beliefs about the world, based on our background, culture and life experiences.

From this, we construct our personal philosophy or ‘model of reality’. It becomes the belief system from which we draw up an ‘internal map’ we then use to navigate the world in which we find ourselves. It also becomes the lens through which we ‘see’ people and events.

To be helpful, our model of reality needs to be positive, empowering and hopeful.

The Fusion® Model is based on the idea that human beings have physical and emotional needs; that our emotions, instincts and behaviours have evolved to push us towards getting those needs met; and that with mindful awareness, we will make good choices, so that we can flourish and become our ‘best selves’.

Fusion: The System

In addition to our personal model of reality, we develop systems.

They become the habits of behaviour we repeat every day which, once learned, become ‘automatic’. Things like brushing our teeth or driving to work. Once established, we do not think about them or challenge them and they become our habitual way of ‘being’.

But often these habitual patterns are not serving us well. They are negative or based on an outdated or unhelpful model of reality. It’s like we are running the wrong software and wondering why our lives are not working well.

The mindfulness-based STOP System®

helps us make good choices and helps us respond to life’s triggers with emotional intelligence rather than react mindlessly. In this way, we are more likely to get our needs met, experience greater wellbeing and live our best lives.

Fusion: The Toolbox

Neuroscience is providing an ever-increasing understanding about our amazing human brain.

With that knowledge, comes practical skills and tools we can all use to help regulate our emotions; to better manage our minds, our lives and our relationships.

Fusion® promotes the kind of self help, mind management tips, tools and techniques that anyone can learn.

For practitioners, it provides a range of innovative and effective coaching and psychotherapeutic interventions, to accelerate client progress and improve clinical outcomes.

Fusion: The Manual

The 5 session practitioners’ manual, integrates key counselling skills with advanced coaching tools, based on the Fusion®

Model, the system and the toolbox.

The manual has been test-bedded for over 5 years with great success in the therapeutic coaching charity I founded with a GP colleague in 2009. It is made available to all who successfully complete the NCFE accredited Fusion® Therapeutic Coaching Diploma.

Making the model fit the client

Fusion® is all about making the work ‘bespoke’ for our clients. We need to make our model fit the client, not the client fit the model. The more tools we have as practitioners, the better the chance of offering something which is ‘a good fit’ for them wherever they are on ‘The continuum of wellbeing’.
Enroll now for the Fusion Diploma 2019 if you want:

  • a fast-paced NCFE accredited course full of really useful, theory, tools and skills to enhance your client outcomes
  • to appear on the Fusion alumni listing
  • a private online forum for coaches and trainers
  • to have access to ongoing support with either one to one personal supervision or free monthly group work
  • links to a national advertising campaign
  • weekly news and professional updates
  • post graduate access to the unique, tried and tested five session therapeutic coaching system and manual
  • to join a growing, enthusiastic network of integrated coach-counsellors
  • to be a part of something dynamic and new in the world of mental health and wellbeing

Find out more about the FusionTherapeutic Coaching Diploma or  Distance Learning Skills Certificate

or the new Fusion Trainer Programme

What will you learn on the course?

How to dramatically improve client outcomes with accelerated rapport and clinical measures

  • How to be an ‘emotions detective’ and focus in on the essence of the problem and the essence of the solution
  • How to ‘turn on and tune in’ to your client and quickly create enhanced therapeutic alliance
  • Advanced and essential counselling and coaching  skills
  • Effective and prescriptive interventions for immediate results
  • How to format the important first session
  • Cognitive Behavioural Therapy skills
  • Goal setting and super future pacing techniques
  • Using guided imagery effectively
  • Integrating therapeutic story and metaphor
  • How to treat panic and anxiety attacks
  • How to resolve post traumatic stress
  • How to deal with anger
  • Utilisation of brain filters to focus attention
  • A unique formula for shifting perception
  • The continuum of wellbeing
  • The STOP® System, a mindfulness based intervention for emotional intelligence

A full 60,000 word training manual is also provided to accompany the course and underpin theoretical knowledge.

The NCFE accredited Therapeutic Coaching Distance Learning Skills Certificate

Integrating for the first time, advanced counselling, cognitive behavioural and human givens skills in a solution focused coaching model.

This is the only distance learning therapeutic coaching course in the UK. Integration of coaching and counselling is a fresh new paradigm that will change the face of mental health and mental health training.

Fusion is at the leading edge with a fully integrated model which has been successfully used over several years and with positive outcomes for thousands of clients.

Cost: £425

Register your interest in Fusion on http://www.integratedcoachingacademy.com

Frances Masters

Frances Masters is a BACP accredited psychotherapist with over 30,000 client hours of experience. Follow her @fusioncoachuk, or visit The Integrated Coaching Academy for details about up coming training.