Smoking is a dangerous and addictive habit that affects the lives of millions of people around the globe. Today, we know about the dangers of smoking, and smokers are encouraged to find ways to stop smoking for their own health. This is not an easy feat, as smokers start at an early age. The average age of a new smoker is only thirteen years old.
A habit formed at that age is not easily broken. Nicotine affects the body in many ways and it is hard to pull free without help. There are many diseases associated with smoking. Most smokers will require assistance on how to quit smoking and many methods exist for this very purpose.
There are many factors that contribute to why people start smoking and develop a smoking habit. The main reason that people try smoking is peer pressure. Some young people believe smoking will make them seem more mature, and increase their popularity with their peers. It also is forbidden which makes it all the more alluring to rebellious teenagers, hence the low starting age for many people. This young age makes ceasing smoking more challenging in your later years.
Media can also have an impact on the decision to start smoking. Smoking portrayed on television or in movies can lead someone; especially a younger person to think that smoking is acceptable behavior. Parents can wield the biggest influence over their children by setting a good example and not smoking, or quitting smoking. Parents who smoke are much more likely to have children who start to smoke.
Nicotine is the drug within tobacco that smokers crave. Nicotine can affect your mind and body in many harmful ways. Nicotine, once inhaled into the lungs reaches the brain in a matter of just eight seconds. Once in your brain, nicotine affects your heart rate and blood pressure. Over time it can increase your bad cholesterol levels and narrow your arteries. Nicotine in concentrated doses is a lethal poison, so you can imagine the effects on your body. Nicotine is also addictive and this is why many cannot quit the habit.
Smoking can impact your health on a variety of levels. Getting winded playing a game is one side effect of smoking. More serious smoking related diseases include emphysema and cancer. Strokes and heart disease are also closely linked to cigarette smoking. A person who quits 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 almost always fatal unless detected very early and 80% of lung cancer cases are caused by smoking. Heart and lung disease can take years from your life unless you are able to quit smoking. There is no cure for emphysema, only limited treatment options, 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 gums and patches are made to help slowly release you from the nicotine addiction. These only work for about 10% of the people who use them. Going cold turkey is another option and this works for up to 11% of the smokers who choose this option. Other popular methods to quit smoking include an herbal kit that can show you how to quit smoking. It has a success rate similar to that of nicotine patches and gums.
Stop smoking hypnosis is a very popular option for those who want to quit smoking without withdrawal or weight gain. Hypnotherapy has proven to be highly effective with smokers who are trying 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 stop smoking hypnosis is so effective is that it while the physical addiction to nicotine makes up only about 10% of the smoking addiction, the psychological 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 hypnosis has proven to be a safe and effective tool that can help reprogram the mind to divert you away from stressful thoughts, and towards more positive and relaxing thoughts. In addition, the practice of hypnotherapy incorporates a deep state of relaxation.
And about 45% of the smoking behavior is prompted by conditioned responses. This occurs when smoking becomes associated with other stimuli at the unconscious level of mind. For example, if you smoke and simultaneously watch television, 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 feel an urge to smoke.
Hypnotherapy for smoking cessation is routinely used to "extinguish" the conditioned responses by disassociating the unconscious connections between cigarettes and TV, coffee, driving, working on your computer, or any other environment where an unconscious association has been created.
In summary: Although most smokers believe that their inability to quit smoking is based on their addiction to nicotine, in truth it's the psychological aspects of a smoking addiction that present the largest barriers. Hypnotherapy was accepted by the American Medical Association in 1958 as an effective tool for quitting smoking. 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 available that can greatly reduce its cost. Since everyone is unique, there are no specific "magic" words or post-hypnotic suggestions that will work for everyone. So when choosing a self hypnosis program, look for programs that incorporate a broad variety of hypnotic and NLP techniques in a series of at least six or more sessions to obtain the best possible results. In any event, the cost of the best self hypnosis CD and DVD sets equates to much less than the amount that an average smoker wastes each and every month on buying cigarettes.
Alan B. Densky, CH developed the Video Hypnosis stop smoking technology which helps smokers easily break the habit. He also created many ways to stop smoking with Ericksonian Hypnotherapy and NLP. Visit the Neuro-VISION self help hypnosis site for free hypnosis videos and downloads.
