Smoking is a harmful and addictive habit that affects millions of people around the globe. We now know the dangers of cigarette smoking and smokers are encouraged to find ways to quit smoking for the benefit of their own health. This is not an easy task, as most smokers start at an young age. The average age at which many people begin to smoke is only thirteen years old.
A habit formed at such an early age is not easily broken. Nicotine affects many parts of the body and it is hard to break this addiction without help. There are many diseases which can be caused by smoking. Most smokers will need some help to quit smoking and many methods exist for this very purpose.
There are many reasons why people start smoking and develop an addiction to cigarettes. The main reason that people try smoking is peer pressure. Some young people believe smoking will make them seem more mature, and be popular with their peers. It also is forbidden which makes it all the more attractive to teenagers, thus the low starting age for many people. This young age makes ceasing smoking more difficult in your later years.
Media can also have an impact on the decision to start smoking. Smoking in movies or on television can lead someone; especially a younger person to believe that smoking is acceptable behavior. Parents can wield the biggest influence over their children by setting a good example on how to quit smoking. Parents who smoke are far more likely to have children who start smoking.
Nicotine is the drug within tobacco that smokers crave. Nicotine can affect your body and mind in many harmful ways. Nicotine, once inhaled into the lungs reaches the brain in a mere eight seconds. Once in your brain, nicotine affects your blood pressure and heart rate. Over time it can increase your bad cholesterol levels and cause the narrowing of your arteries. Nicotine in concentrated doses is a lethal poison, so imagine the damage it does to your body. Nicotine is also addictive and one of the reasons many smokers cannot quit the habit.
Smoking can affect your health on a variety of levels. Getting winded playing a game is one side effect of smoking. More serious smoking related diseases include cancer and emphysema. Heart disease and stroke are also closely associated with cigarette smoking. A person who stops smoking will greatly reduce their chances for these diseases for every year they go without smoking.
These smoking-related medical conditions often have grave consequences. Lung cancer is nearly always fatal unless detected very early and 80% of lung cancer cases are caused by smoking. Heart and lung disease can subtract years from your life unless you are able to quit smoking. Emphysema cannot be cured but only managed, plus the damage to your lungs cannot be repaired. Stop smoking benefits include a longer life span and a better quality of life.
There are many different methods to quit smoking, and you must select the best method for you as an individual. Nicotine patches and gums are made to help you slowly withdraw from the nicotine addiction. These only work for about 10% of the people who use them. Another option is going cold turkey, and this works for up to 11% of the smokers who choose this option. Other frequently used methods to quit smoking include an herbal kit that can guide you through quitting. It has a success rate similar to that of nicotine gums and patches.
Stop smoking hypnotherapy is a very popular and highly successful option for those who want to quit smoking without withdrawal or weight gain. Hypnotherapy has proven to be highly effective with smokers who have decided to quit smoking. Hypnosis might sound like an extreme solution but it delivers positive results up to 70% of the time. This success rate is many times that of other methods.
The reason hypnotherapy is so effective is that it while the addiction to nicotine makes up only about 10% of the smoking addiction, the mental and emotional aspects of the habit make up about 90% of the cigarette smoking addiction. Hypnotherapy treats this aspect of the addiction.
Additionally, 45% of the smoking behavior is caused by stress, and hypnotherapy has proven to be a safe and effective tool that can help reprogram the mind to divert away from stressful thoughts, and towards relaxing, positive thoughts. In addition, the practice of hypnosis incorporates a deep state of relaxation.
Another 45% of the smoking behavior is caused by conditioned responses. This is when smoking is associated with other situations at the unconscious level of mind. For example, if you smoke while watching TV, your unconscious will associate the image of a cigarette in your hand with the image of the TV. Every time you watch TV, your unconscious flashes an image of the cigarette in your hand, and you experience an urge to smoke.
Hypnosis for smoking cessation is routinely used to “extinguish” the conditioned responses by disassociating the unconscious links between cigarettes and TV, coffee, driving, working on your computer, or any other situation where an unconscious association has been formed.
In summary: While most smokers believe that their inability to quit smoking is based on their addiction to nicotine, in truth it’s the mental and emotional aspects of smoking that present the largest barriers. Hypnotherapy was accepted by the American Medical Association in 1958 as an effective tool. And hypnosis for smoke cessation is the second most common use of hypnotherapy today.
While hourly rates for hypnotherapists climb higher and higher, there are effective hypnosis CDs on the market that can greatly reduce its cost. Since everyone is different, there are no specific “magic” words or post-hypnotic suggestions that will work for everyone. So when choosing hypnosis CDs, look for programs that incorporate a broad variety of hypnotic and NLP techniques in a series of at least six or more sessions to enjoy the best possible outcome. In any case, the cost of the best self hypnosis CD and DVD sets equates to far less than the amount that an average smoker spends each and every month on buying cigarettes.
About The Author:
Alan B. Densky, CH invented the Video Hypnosis quit smoking technology that helps smokers easily quit the habit. He also created other ways to quit smoking with Ericksonian Hypnotherapy and NLP. Visit his Neuro-VISION self help hypnosis site for free hypnotherapy videos and MP3s.
