Why quit smoking?
This is something you probably already know, but let me remind you one more time: Smoking is bad for your health. Every year thousands of people in Australia die from a tobacco-related cause. Smoking causes more death Australia wide than alcohol, car accidents, illegal drugs, and murders combined. With every cigarette, you are inhaling harmful substances that cause some of the most common smoking-related illnesses such as infertility, gum disease, heart disease, lung cancer and other types of cancers.
Why is smoking harmful?
If you think cigarettes are simply tobacco and paper, you are wrong. Tar residue that is deposited into your lungs (and from there absorbed into the bloodstream) contains a cocktail of over 4000 chemicals that are added during the manufacturing process and is the main cause of all smoking related diseases. Carbon monoxide is a harmful gas that affects the amount of oxygen in the bloodstream and deprives the heart, brain, and other vital organs of oxygen, which is why many smokers suffer from shortness of breath, poor circulation, and low energy levels. But the reason why, after knowing all this, you are still smoking, is nicotine. Nicotine is a drug that stimulates the brain and the actual cause of cigarette addiction. For regular smokers it may cause some very unpleasant withdrawal symptoms such as intense cravings, irritability, increased anxiety and headaches.
Best way to quit
Quitting smoking can turn out to be a really challenging task. If you have tried patches, nicotine lozenges, chewing gum, counseling, and nothing seems to work, it is time for you to consider hypnosis for quitting smoking. A lot of people have found hypnosis for quitting smoking to be a very effective method. With today’s techniques, a qualified hypnotherapist has around 80% success rate, which still makes hypnosis one of the most viable options compared to other quitting methods.
How does hypnosis work?
Before you consider hypnosis for quitting smoking, you must first make sure that you really want to quit, since that’s when hypnosis has been found to be most effective. The way hypnosis works is by putting a person into a deep, relaxed state during which the mind is more open to suggestion. Have in mind that hypnotherapy is nothing like the way hypnosis portrayed in the entertainment industry. In fact, even though you appear to be in a trance, you are aware of your surroundings and cannot be made to do anything against your will. During hypnosis, the hypnotherapist will try to alter your thought patterns by making suggestions such as “I don’t need a cigarette” or “the smell of cigarette smoke makes me sick”, or by asking you to imagine unpleasant feelings that you can associate with smoking. The hypnotherapist may also teach you various self-hypnosis techniques that you can use whenever a desire for smoking appears and give you audio materials which you can listen at home between sessions to reinforce your therapy. Different people require a different amount of sessions for the therapy to have the ultimate effect.
The main purpose of hypnosis for quitting smoking is to empower you to take control of your addiction and to promote healthier behaviors.
