How To Stop Smoking Cigarettes - Separate The Hype From The Facts

States across the country have prohibited smoking in public areas. Numerous professional companies have mandated smoking cessation, and are sanctioning employees who choose to smoke while working. Smokers stand out in the cold, wind or rain, and smoke away as quickly as possible so that they can go back to their jobs.

In some areas, smoking is as negatively perceived as taking illegal drugs. Because they recognize not only these but other stop smoking benefits, numerous smokers are making a strong effort to find ways to stop smoking.

There are three components to a smoking habit:

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

2. People smoke because they have created an unconscious association between an activity or environment and a cigarette. Then, every time they get into that environment, they get a craving. For example, if a person associates watching television with smoking, they will become conditioned to smoke while watching TV. Then, every time that individual watches television, he or she will want a cigarette.. This makes up about 45% of the habit.

3. People smoke because they develop a physical addiction to Nicotine. This makes up about 10% of the habit. If a person stops smoking, the body actually metabolizes all of the Nicotine in as little as three days!

Numerous strategies are designed to help individuals learn ways to quit smoking. Probably the cheapest way to stop smoking, covered through most insurance agencies, is the nicotine patch. These patches, which are easy to apply, are worn for 24 hours and can be concealed beneath a person’s clothing. The problem with these patches, however, is that patches are not very useful. Since patches only address the physiological addiction, which is responsible merely ten percent of the smoking habit, they offer only about a ten percent success rate.

The same level of success is experienced by persons who use nicotine gum or lozenges. Less than one in ten clients who trial these strategies succeeds with these techniques to quit smoking for at least six months. Furthermore, these items can result in many adverse effects. Nicotine gum or lozenges, can be bothersome to an individual’s mouth tissue and lips, while numerous users suffer skin rashes under the patch. Again, these products only deal with the physical dependence, which only includes about 10 percent of the problem.

A different alternative is the development of counseling and smoking cessation sessions. These programs include cognitive therapy together with extensive information about the adverse outcomes of smoking. These methods are three hundred percent as effective as nicotine replacement methods; these strategies work for about one in five persons.

several smokers have utilized laser treatment programs to help quit smoking. This treatment is often reimbursed by insurance, although it is new. Research studies held by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), however, reveal that these treatments are no more successful than placebo. (Placebo is the result that happens when people think they are taking a treatment, but in reality are not.)

Another of the ways to quit smoking appears to be a little more successful than these previous techniques. During one research study, smokers received shots to assist them stop smoking by removing the pleasurable effects of the nicotine rush. This method, in the preliminary phases of testing for benefit, thus far seems to work for fifteen percent of the persons who attempted it.

Hypnosis is another way of helping people to stop smoking. Hypnosis deals with helping the subconscious mind to instantly substitute other behaviors to create calm and peace, as opposed to the cigarette habit. It also can be employed to remove or “extinguish” conditioned behaviors such as the connection noted between cigarettes and behaviors in the above example, so the smoker no longer has the desire to smoke when in the environments that previously trigger it.

Men appear to have better results with stop smoking hypnosis than female patients do. One benefit resulting from self hypnosis stop smoking, however, is that, as opposed to individuals use nicotine replacement as strategies to stop smoking, there are no undesirable side effects.

One other benefit of hypnotherapy is that it is effective against the 90 percent facet of the dependence that is psychological, instead of the other strategies that only treat the ten percent element of the dependence that is physical. Therefore, hypnosis results in a significantly higher treatment success than the previously discussed methods of stop smoking treatments. Traditional hypnotherapy methods can yield a 35% likelihood of success, while Ericksonian hypnotherapy can yield a 50% or greater treatment success.

A more recent, revolutionary, and significantly more useful approach that encourages clients to kick a smoking dependency is Neuro-Linguistic Programming, or NLP. This strategy is far more effective than established styles of quit smoking hypnosis as it does not rely on post-hypnotic suggestions at all. Most people, especially people who are critical thinkers, are resistant to post-hypnotic suggestions. Through the use of NLP, the person’s unconscious mind is trained to use the identical thought patterns that result in the psychological dependence on cigarettes, to eliminate it!

A well thought out NLP stop smoking strategy created by a certified NLP Therapist can produce a positive outcome rate of as high as 70% or greater.

Summary: The majority of smoking cessation programs try to use nicotine replacement strategies as ways to stop smoking. Other strategies, such as smoking cessation and counseling approaches, attempt to assist the mind learn ways to quit smoking.

Although hypnotherapy works much better than other programs, particularly with male patients, experts do not consider it to be the most successful way to stop smoking. NLP, which deals with the mental components of nicotine addiction, actually aids clients to redirect their mental patterns and assist them stop most effectively.

Since 90 percent of a person’s problem with cigarettes is psychological in nature, these strategies are significantly more effective than merely giving the person nicotine and dealing with the ten percent element of the habit that is physical.

Conclusion: A number of smoking cessation sessions, including nicotine replacement treatments and counseling can be found. These courses often have a success rate of less than 20%. Unlike these programs, hypnotherapy results in a much greater rate of effectiveness. NLP is even more beneficial in aiding clients to effectively overcome the psychological nature of their dependency and experience much more success in their goal of becoming smoke-free.

Alan B. Densky, CH is the developer of the best way to quit cigarettes with hypnosis. He offers an effective Stop Smokeless Tobacco program based on those same methods. Learn more at his Neuro-VISION hypnosis site where you can enjoy Free hypnotherapy videos and articles.

- Alan B. Densky, CH