It’s a widely held belief that smoking is one of the hardest habits to give up. There are a number of reasons why it is so hard to quit smoking, and they can range from personal to environmental factors. One of the worst aspects about quitting smoking is the fact that whenever a smoker who is attempting to quit fails, the people around them blame the recovering smoker for their failure, when in fact, as is true of any habit, most people find that smoking is just really not easy to quit, without effective help.
In fact, only about 3 – 5% of smokers manage to successfully quit smoking for more than 6 months using the cold turkey method. There are tools and resources available today that say they can help make your journey to recovery much smoother. However the results are disappointing.
In one year, studies showed 21% success rate for the nicotine patch, only 19% for the highly advertised non-nicotine prescription medicine developed specifically to help people quit smoking (brand name omitted). The quit rate for nicotine lozenges was found to be 15.1%, and nicotine gum 11.3%. And the nicotine gum has been shown to help people quit, but after only a few months a large percentage start smoking again.
One tool that you can look into is hypnosis. Yes, quitting smoking with hypnosis is perfectly valid and effective, when you work with a professional and understand your own responsibility in this particular process. To help you understand this better, here is what you need to know about using hypnosis to stop smoking.
Why is it so hard to quit smoking?
Before we get into how you can use hypnosis as a tool to stop smoking, you have to understand why it is so difficult to quit smoking in the first place.
Here are some of the reasons why it is so hard to quit smoking.
Nicotine
The main chemical found in cigarettes is nicotine, which all sources tell us, is highly addictive. The reason why nicotine is so easy to get attached to, is that it enters the brain in as little as 10 seconds when it is inhaled. This then triggers the neurohormone dopamine, which is also known as the “feel-good hormone”.
The release of the dopamine triggers a feeling of pleasure, which can become quite a habit, very quickly. And, the more you smoke, the more your body becomes accustomed to the feeling of nicotine, and the sense that the nicotine is bringing pleasure to you.
What we don’t realize is that the nicotine, instead of being relaxing, is a stimulant poison. It increases the heart rate, the breathing, the blood pressure, and it also increases alertness, which feels like a rush, feels good to the smoker. (But be aware that there ARE other ways to feel good instead, ways that are healthy for you!)
Triggers
The vast majority of smokers started smoking because either their friends and family smoked, and they wanted to “fit in”, wanted that feeling of “belonging”, or because it seemed “cool” to them. Or both reasons combined.
After a short time, the cigarette became associated in their “internal habit systems” with those feelings of pleasure and of belonging and being cool. So, as time progressed, any time that person had any unpleasant feelings, such as insecurity, or anger, or any other negative emotion, they would suck on a cigarette to feel the good feelings they have now associated with smoking. The practitioners at Hypnosis Care understand this, as they are also former smokers.
All of these factors make it very difficult to quit smoking.
Lack of a support system
A support system is excellent when you’re ready to quit smoking.. When a recovering smoker tries to quit, their support system, whether it’s in the form of friends and family or some sort of recovery group, can help make the process easier by encouraging them and helping them through the process. Not having a strong support system in place can make it more difficult for recovering smokers to quit, especially if any family, friends or co-workers of the smoker are unsupportive, negative or discouraging.
The method of hypnosis depends on the professional who is working with you, but in a nutshell, the way hypnosis works to help you quit smoking involves being guided into a state where your subconscious is more open to suggestion. Once your subconscious is more open to suggestions, statements that create a smokefree lifestyle are then introduced to you. These suggestions are placed in the area of the mind where habits are created and stored, thus creating new neural pathways, new ways of feeling and acting.
The great thing about hypnosis is that it requires no drugs or anything like gum and patches to help you quit smoking. All you need is your mind and your own personal motivation. You DO need to really want to quit.
At Hypnosis Care, we offer a stop smoking program we think of as “Hypnosis on Steroids” that has a 90-95% effective rate. Compare that to the 3 to 5% success rate of cold turkey, gum 11.3%, lozenges 15.1%, 19% for prescription medication, 21% success rate for the nicotine patch, and 40 to 70% of the old-school methods using hypnosis.
How to get started using hypnosis to stop smoking
Now that you know how you can stop smoking with hypnosis, how exactly do you get started? The very first thing you need to do is to work on your mindset and motivations about the whole thing. So, we’ll start with some good news. Remember this from above? The release of the dopamine from smoking triggers a feeling of pleasure, which can become quite a habit. But here’s the good news! Former smokers find healthier ways to trigger dopamine… so this pleasure isn’t lost because of getting rid of cigarettes.
The thing about hypnosis methods, particularly those methods that are geared towards getting rid of bad habits, these will only work if you yourself are determined to get rid of the bad habit. You have to want to quit smoking for your own reasons, and not because someone else wants you to. Only personal motivation will allow the effectiveness of the hypnosis methods. Once you’re sure of your motivations, you need to find a good center to help you with your hypnosis journey.
We at Hypnosis Care want to be the ones to help you make this journey to help you stop smoking with our unique “Hypnosis on Steroids”. We offer hypnosis sessions where we guide you directly into the hypnotic state to help you get rid of your smoking habit.
We are so confident in our hypnosis sessions that we are offering a guarantee on our quit smoking hypnosis sessions. You will leave our sessions as a non-smoker, and if at any time you need any reinforcement, we will offer you another stop smoking hypnosis session, FREE OF CHARGE!
If you’re determined to make a positive change in your life today and want to try to stop smoking with our guarantee and with hypnosis, feel free to pick up the phone and call us at (951)-488-9168 to book your appointment today! Our slots are limited, so get them while they last!