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Ways To Quit Smoking Cigarettes - Separate The BS From The Truth

by Alan B. Densky, CH

Several individual states have curtained smoking in public areas. Numerous professional companies have have dictated that their employees stop smoking, and are sanctioning employees who smoke while working. Smokers huddle in bad weather, and smoke away as fast as they can in order to return to work.

In some communities, smoking is as negatively perceived as drug addiction. Since the public has become so educated about stop smoking benefits, numerous smokers are doing their best to find ways to quit smoking.

Smoking habits consist of three elements:

1. Smoking for relaxation and pleasure is about 45 percent of the reason that people continue to smoke.

2. Another reason that people continue to smoke is an unconscious connection between cigarettes and pleasurable locations or activities. This causes them to crave a cigarette every time they encounter that location. For instance, an individual may come to associate smoking with their bedtime ritual. They will come to associate smoking with sleep so strongly that it is almost impossible to go to sleep without having a cigarette first. Example: If you watch TV and smoke, the smoking will become a conditioned response to watching TV. So each time you watch TV, you'll feel an urge to smoke. This is the reason for approximately 45 percent of the smoking habit.

3. People smoke because they develop a physical addiction to Nicotine. This element is approximately 10 percent of the smoking habit. Within only three days of quitting, a person's body is completely Nicotine-free!

A significant number of alternatives can be used to assist individuals learn ways to stop smoking. The least expensive way to quit smoking, covered by many insurance underwriters, is the nicotine patch. These products, which are simple to apply, are used for 24 hours and can be easily hidden underneath one's clothes. The problem with these patches, however, is that patches are not very effective. Because patches only deal with the physiological addiction, which results in merely 10% of the reason for which people continue to smoke, only seven percent of smokers will find this method of smoking cessation helpful and effective.

Almost an identical success rate is characteristic of nicotine gum or lozenges. Less than one in ten clients who attempt these approaches is able to these methods to stop smoking for six months or more. Worse, these products have adverse effects. These nicotine replacement therapies, are known to be bothersome to the users' mouth and lips, and numerous users experience skin discomfort under the patch. Remember,, these items merely address the physical dependence, which only includes approximately one-tenth of the habit.

Another strategy is the use of counseling and smoking cessation courses. These courses include cognitive therapy together with detailed instruction about the adverse results of smoking. These strategies are three times as successful as nicotine replacement products; these strategies work for about one in five persons.

A considerable number of smokers have utilized laser treatment programs to help stop smoking. This technique is in some cases paid for by insurance, although it is new. Clinical trials held by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), however, indicate that these sessions are no more effective than placebo. (Placebo is when people believe they are taking a treatment, but really are not.)

One of the ways to stop smoking has shown a little more effectiveness than formerly used techniques. In one study, smokers were given shots to assist them quit smoking by taking away the pleasurable effects of the nicotine rush. This method, in the preliminary phases of testing for success, so far appears to be helpful for 15% of the persons who trialed it.

Hypnotherapy is an alternative way of helping persons to quit smoking. Hypnotherapy focuses on programming the subconscious mind to automatically employ alternative actions to provide calm and peace, rather than the smoking addiction. It also can be employed to erase or "extinguish" conditioned responses like the connection outlined between cigarettes and actions in the above example, so the smoker is relieved of the urge to smoke when in the locations that used to trigger it.

Male clients seem to have better results with stop smoking hypnosis than female patients do. One benefit resulting from self hypnosis stop smoking, however, is that, in contrast to individuals use nicotine replacement as strategies to quit smoking, there are no problematic side effects.

One other helpful characteristic of hypnotherapy is that it is effective against the nine-tenths facet of the problem that is psychological, instead of the other methods that merely work against the 10% aspect of the problem that is physical. For this reason, hypnosis has a significantly higher treatment success than the previously mentioned strategies for stop smoking treatments. Customary hypnotherapy methods can deliver a 35% success rate, while Ericksonian hypnotherapy can offer a fifty percent or greater treatment success.

A more recent, revolutionary, and significantly more effective method that allows clients to overcome a cigarette habit is Neuro-Linguistic Programming, or NLP. This technique is far more effective than established styles of quit smoking hypnosis since it avoids reliance on post-hypnotic suggestions at all. Most people, particularly people who tend to be critical thinkers, resist post-hypnotic suggestions. With NLP, the unconscious is trained to focus on the identical mental patterns that are creating the psychological addiction to cigarette use, to treat it!

A good NLP smoking cessation program created by a trained NLP Therapist can offer an effectiveness rate of up to 70% or greater.

Summary: The majority of smoking cessation methods attempt to utilize nicotine replacement products as ways to quit smoking. Some programs, such as smoking cessation and cognitive or behavioral treatment programs, try to coach the mind learn ways to stop smoking.

Despite the fact that hypnotherapy works much better than alternative approaches, primarily with male clients, experts do not consider it to be the most beneficial way to quit smoking. NLP, which deals with the mental elements of nicotine dependency, actually coaches persons to alter their thought processes and assist them quit most successfully.

Because nine-tenths of an individual's problem with cigarettes is psychological, these approaches are incomparably more effective than merely giving the person nicotine and treating the 10% piece of the habit that is physical.

Conclusion: A wide range of smoking cessation sessions, such as nicotine replacement treatments and counseling are available. These approaches frequently result in a less than 20 percent success rate. In contrast, hypnotherapy results in a significantly greater probability of success. NLP is even more effective in aiding clients to effectively combat the mental component of their dependency and find immeasurably more success in their struggle to become smoke-free.

Alan B. Densky, CH is the developer of the easy way to stop smoking cigarettes with hypnotherapy. He now offers a potent Quit Smokeless Tobacco program based on those same methods. See more at his Neuro-VISION self hypnosis site where you can see Free hypnosis videos and articles.

Published February 22nd, 2010

Filed in Health