BY DAY Amy Godel takes to her couch, where she uses hypnotherapy to relieve people from the stresses of a hectic lifestyle.

By night she thrives on getting her own adrenalin flowing by appearing on TV game shows such as Countdown, 15 to 1 and 100 Per Cent.

When she is not in the spotlight, she is calm and collected - ideal for those who need help in chilling out. Amy is a stress management therapist who works from a warm, cosy "hut" opposite her home in Godstow Road, Wolvercote, offering the right atmosphere for a one-hour session.

She says: "Hypnosis is a form of deep relaxation, so if you can become skilled at putting yourself in that state, it can be very helpful in fighting stress.

You get tense, tired and the adrenalin is flowing, which takes a lot of energy out of your system. "With hypnosis you can physically start to reverse the process which has been winding you up," adds Amy, who took up stress management after 11 years teaching maths. She is a member of the Association of Stress Management.

"Work is the biggest cause of stress.

"I have always felt the concept of working in a large organisation would be too stressful so I have never worked in that environment.

"It's the way you deal with it that's important. I spend the most time dealing with people's self-esteem.

"I prefer to call it hypnotherapy because otherwise people will think I'm like Paul McKenna who hypnotises people into doing silly things but it isn't like that."

Amy sees clients from university students stressing about exams to distressed people in abusive relationships.

"I see about the same number of men as women, which surprises me . I would have thought it would be mainly women who came to see me because men are generally not very reflective. "I have enormous admiration for all my clients.

"In some extreme cases they have gone through terrible abuse which has caused their stress, and the courage with which they stand up to that is amazing."

The typical person Amy sees is anxious, spends a lot of time worrying, has low self-esteem and finds it difficult to cope in work situations.

By talking, listening and finally using hypnotherapy, Amy claims she can change a timid person into someone far more confident.

She said: "Hypnotherapy gives you a way of refocusing attention on the internal goings-on. One woman who came to see me was most apologetic and must have said 'Sorry' at least 100 times in her first session. After a while she stopped apologising and everyone at work said she was a completely different person."

Clinical psychologist Michael Heap is the president of the British Society of Experimental and Clinical Hypnosis.

He said: "One thing you must do is choose a professional practitioner from something like the Yellow Pages and try to find out their background.

"Amy is probably seeing people who are generally psychologically stable but find it difficult to cope with aspects of life - and I think it's OK - but I advise that if you have a more serious problem, like depression or an eating disorder, these things need more specialist involvement." TEN STRESS SYMPTOMS 1. Disturbed sleep

2. Muscle tension and headaches

3. Digestive problems, including irritable bowel syndrome

4. Irritability (from tiredness)

5. Loss of judgement

6. Panic attacks

7. Asthma attacks

8. Disturbance in normal eating patterns

9. Personal relationships suffering

10. Smoking and drinking more than usual THINGS PEOPLE STRESS ABOUT Work

Relationships

Exams

Bereavement

Changing jobs

Getting married/divorced

Moving house

Having children

Ill health

Going on holiday Snakes alive! Julie proves it can work PHOBIA: Julie JULIE Rayworth's fear of snakes was becoming more than a joke - it was turning into a phobia that threatened a planned trip to Africa.

Julie, 25, a lab technician from Hampden Drive, Kidlington, said: "It was steadily developing into a real problem. If I saw a snake on TV it would freak me out.

"I had a phobia rather than a fear of snakes. A fear is rational - like being frightened of snakes because you know they can kill you. Phobias are completely illogical.

"The problem with these things is that they can progress. Like a wound, if you don't deal with them, they can get worse.

"In the same way that other people get headaches when they're stressed, my phobia of snakes would get worse. It got to the stage where I knew I had to do something about it.

"I was terrified of them simply because they had no legs. I didn't like the way they moved. It was the same with other things like worms and slugs, too." Julie decided to go for hypnotism after Amy put a leaflet through her letterbox. It took five sessions to get the phobia under control.

At the end of each session, Julie would discuss her phobia with Amy and what she hoped to achieve. "By the end, in my sub-conscious, I could accept the thought of snakes crawling over me. I went to Africa for six weeks and, although I didn't touch a snake, I slept in a Tanzanian snake park in a tent and there were people there who were more scared than me. I saw loads of snakes and got quite close to them, which was OK.

"My phobia is under control now."

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