Nicotine is one of the most addictive substances known. Study after study shows that one can get addicted to nicotine as quickly as cocaine and other illegal drugs that we generally associate with crippling addictions. It is for this reason, of course, that is can be so difficult to quit smoking. One top of this physical addiction – that is, the body’s craving of nicotine – there is a psychological component: because smoking is both legal and socially acceptable in many situations, it can be difficult to avoid it completely. Any attempt to quit smoking, therefore, should involve a comprehensive plan that deals with both the physical and psychological side of the addiction. One way to address the physical addition to nicotine, to leave yourself free to concentrate on the psychological aspects of your addiction, is to use a nicotine patch.
The nicotine patch is one of the oldest, and certainly best-known, medical aids to quitting smoking. Patches are placed on the skin, and work by releasing a slow and steady supply of nicotine into the bloodstream. The idea is that the patch helps wean your body off nicotine – instead of nicotine being immediately absent from your system when you quit smoking, it is gradually reduced.
The way the patch works is to break your body’s desire for nicotine “spikes.” When you smoke a cigarette, your body receives an immediete spike in its nicotine levels. As the level of nicotine slowly dissipates after the spike, it will eventually drop to a point where you desire to have it “topped up” again – the need for another cigarette. If you picture a graph of your body’s nicotine levels when you smoke, you would see a steady series of peaks and valleys – the peaks corresponding to the spike in nicotine levels when you smoke a cigarette. A graph of your nicotine levels when wearing the patch, on the other hand, would show a steady line: the line wouldn’t be as high as your peaks, but it wouldn’t be as low as your valleys either. The idea is that the patch goes for the middle ground, and your body slowly adjusts to not having spikes in its nicotine levels.
As you become more and more used to lower levels of nicotine in your system, you can reduce the dosage of the patches you wear, until eventually your body is nicotine free. Another good thing about the patch is that it is an extremely strong deterrent against smoking: if you smoke while you’re on the patch, your levels of nicotine will become too high and you could suffer from a nicotine overdose, which can result in sickness and even death.
The patch is a very effective stop smoking aid. It does, however, have some disadvantages: it is fairly expensive, and at the early stages of quitting it can often cost more than cigarettes did. The patch can also cause problems with sleeping if you wear it to bed – and at the same time if you don’t you will wake up with no nicotine in your system, and feel pretty bad until you put on a morning patch and it starts working. Despite these drawbacks, the patch remains the medical aid of choice for people dealing with serious nicotine addictions.
If you are wondering how to quit smoking, you know how hard it is to eliminate this harmful compulsion. But there is effective help available. Stop smoking self-hypnosis CD’s make it easy to permanently quit smoking because they break the compulsion in a process that helps extinguish your cravings and the compulsion to smoke cigarettes.
If you are trying to quit smoking cigarettes, you know how hard it is to crush this harmful compulsion. However, it is possible, and half of all adult smokers will succeed in quitting smoking forever. Many smokers have been able to quit smoking cigarettes by replacing them with different, positive habits without having to experience withdrawal symptoms. By far, the most effective, easiest method to quit smoking and achieve this end is hypnotherapy.
Stop smoking hypnotherapy is one of the most frequently practiced forms of hypnosis. It is often cited as a tool to stop smoking along with strategies such as the use of nicotine patches and gums and other popular means. It helps end the smoking addiction by combating cravings to smoke, keeping you committed to quitting, and promoting relaxation and stress relief so you will not be tempted to smoke.
The smoking addiction contains both psychological and physiological aspects. The physiological addiction is a physical need the body acquires for nicotine. This aspect of the addiction is what causes the physical withdrawal symptoms that make it initially feel near impossible to quit smoking. However, this is a short, temporary part in the overall process of quitting smoking, lasting only between three days and one week. By the end of this time period, your body acclimates to normal, nicotine-free functioning. Based on thirty years of experience, I believe that the physical need for nicotine makes up a mere ten percent of the addiction to cigarette smoking.
By far, the most challenging part of breaking the smoking addiction is overcoming the psychological addiction, which are the mental and emotional aspects of smoking. I believe this represents ninety percent of the smoking addiction. When you develop a smoking habit, you develop an unconscious desire to smoke at certain times, such as before going to bed. This is called a conditioned response. Stop smoking hypnosis helps eliminate the unconscious relationships that cause you to crave cigarettes, thereby eliminating the conditioned response to smoke. Hypnotherapy also helps you stay motivated to give up smoking by strengthening the beliefs that gave you the wish to quit smoking in the first place.
Smokers get stuck in the habit of following a ritual of lighting up and smoking. This is why many people who try to quit smoking using nicotine patches or gums alone are unable to quit. They promptly overcome the physical addiction, but they have no relief or replacement for the ritual of smoking cigarettes, which has become a mental addiction and pleasurable source of stress relief. Hypnotherapy techniques eliminate this habit and serve as stress reducers as well. As a relaxation tool, hypnosis helps effectively relieve anxiety and stress so you will lose the desire to smoke cigarettes.
By adding some powerful NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) techniques, quit smoking hypnosis can keep you motivated to breaking the habit by training the unconscious to focus on the benefits of quitting. Eliminating tobacco benefits you in many ways. Within days of quitting, body parts damaged by smoking begin to heal, damaged nerves re-grow, and the sense of taste and smell improves. Within a few weeks, lung function and circulation improve. Within one year, your risk of heart disease is less than half that of a smoker. Within five to fifteen years, the risk of stroke is the same as a non-smoker. Your risk of heart disease is the same as someone who has never smoked, and the risk of death from lung cancer and numerous other cancer risks have decreased.
In spite of the harmful effects of smoking and the health benefits of quitting, some smokers never overcome their addiction. For the most part, this is because they’ve never seriously committed to quitting. Other smokers are afraid to suffer from withdrawal symptoms or let go of the smoking habit. Quitting smoking does not have to be the torturous process that makes so many smokers hesitant to even try quitting. Hypnosis is a very simple, natural method of quitting.
