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Ways to Stop Smoking

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Why Its Hard to Quit Smoking

Everybody knows the reasons why we should all stop smoking now, but very few manage to quit smoking successfully. One of the facts about smoking cigarettes is that it is almost natural. Nicotine is one of those drugs that seems to have been created for mammals to consume. Even chimpanzees love to smoke if given a chance.

Ways to Stop Smoking

There seems to be a vast array of ways to quit smoking, but when you pick through the pile they all fall into one of three groups: pharmaceuticals;acupuncture;hypnosis.
  1. Pharmaceuticals
    The stop smoking aids in this category either replace the nicotine you get from smoking cigarettes or block the receptors in the brain that are triggered by nicotine. Nicotine patches, nicorette gum and inhalers are examples of replacement. Quit smoking pills and Commit Lozenges are examples of blocking the uptake of nicotine. The most extreme example of blocking nicotine uptake is the stop smoking shot. This method is based an initial injection of some very powerful chemicals, followed by a regimen of patches and pills.
  2. Acupuncture
    Classically, acupuncture uses needles to stimulate points on the body. When the correct points are stimulated nicotine cravings pass away. Reflexology or acupressure stimulate the same points in hands or feet via direct pressure by a fingertip instead of using needles. A stop smoking laser seems very high tech and modern, but in fact the laser is just another way of delivering stimulation to acupressure points.
  3. Hypnosis
    When most people think about stop smoking hypnosis, they think about something along the lines of You are getting very, very sleepy..., either delivered one-on-one in a therapists office or as part of a large group in some setting like a theater. Traditional hypnosis works very well for some people. My sister and brother in-law quit smoking this way and didn't have any cravings or nail-biting and never went back to smoking.
    In a way, though, any of the stop smoking aids or programs rely on hypnosis to be effective, it just isn't delivered in the formal sense. Instead its a self-hypnosis and if that process fails you will not be able to stop smoking forever.

Its All Hypnosis

Working with your self-image

smoking can be beatenYour self-image or self-concept is essentially the list of facts that you believe to be true about yourself. It defines the reality of what you think is possible and you will pretty much die to defend it.
The longer you've smoked, the more smoker is a part of your self-image. If you can change your self-image from smoker to non-smoker you will succeed in stopping smoking forever. If you can't you will either go back to smoking or struggle through every day wishing you could.
That change from smoker to non-smoker can happen very quickly, even in an instant. After all, you can learn a new phobia in a single repetition. Its certainly possible to have a phobia about smoking. In fact, a lot of smoke-nazis do! When its successful a single session of formal hypnosis can accomplish the same result without the phobia.
For the rest of us there has to be a process we go through. That process allows us to change our self-image. Completing the process sort of gives us permission to change or proves we are worthy of change. This is the reason that one program for quitting smoking will work perfectly for one person and fail utterly with another. The method you follow to stop smoking must make sense in your world.
If you believe in medicine you'll probably succeed with Champix or a stop smoking shot. If you're a techie or a sci-fi fan a blast of a laser may be what you need, and so on and so on.
In the end its all hypnosis. Something has to happen to move your picture of yourself to a new form and you have to be comfortable with that new form.
Change can happen in an instant. Actually, you can prove philosophically that that is the only way it can happen. Sometimes a person can change in an instant, then still go through some kind of quit smoking program, either to give themselves time to become comfortable with the change or to satisfy their friends or family who are busy warning them that if they don't they won't succeed.

Stop Smoking Stuff on Amazon

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The Way It Was

It may seem hard to believe now, but this video is an example of what advertisements were like when I started smoking. Smoking was good. Smoking was cool. Smoking could even be good for your health! Yay.
Now the winds have changed for the better. Still, I don't think anybody who was alive during that era can watch these old ads without a feeling of nostalgia.
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Important!

The Key to Quit Smoking

Pick a method to quit that really makes sense to you. Don't worry about whether anyone agrees with you or not. Play with the idea of following the method and spend a lot of time picturing how great it will be once you've quit. When you're ready, go for it with gusto and never look back.

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