How To Quit The Smoking Habit - Separate The Bs From The Facts

States across the country have forbidden smokers to smoke in public areas. Numerous business organizations have have dictated that their employees stop smoking, and are sanctioning workers who smoke in the workplace. Smokers huddle in bad weather, and smoke away as quickly as possible so that they can continue working again.



In some towns, smoking has become as controversial as drug addiction. Since the public has become so educated about stop smoking benefits, many people are making a strong effort to find ways to stop smoking.



Three elements constitute an addiction to smoking:



1. People smoke for relaxation and pleasure. This makes up about 45% of the smoking habit.



2. A subconscious connection between a pleasurable activity or location and smoking is part of the reason people continue to smoke. Then, when people find themselves in these situations, they desire a cigarette. 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 makes up about 45% of the habit.



3. A physical addiction to Nicotine is another reason people continue to smoke. About ten percent of the reason people smoke is because of this addiction.. When people quit smoking, all of the Nicotine is gone from their bodies after about three days!



Numerous strategies have been developed to assist people learn ways to quit smoking. One of the most inexpensive ways to stop smoking, which is reimbursed by many insurance policies, is the nicotine patch. These products, which are simple to apply, are used for one day and can be easily hidden underneath the wearer's clothing. The drawback to these patches, however, is that nicotine replacement patches are not very beneficial. Since nicotine patches only address the physiological addiction, which accounts for merely 10% of the habit, only about seven persons in 100 succeed with this method.



Almost an identical success rate is experienced by persons who use nicotine gum or lozenges. Less than ten percent of the people who trial these strategies will report success with these ways to quit smoking for at least six months. Additionally, these products may have side effects. Nicotine gum or lozenges, may be irritating to the gums as well as the lips, and many people suffer skin rashes beneath the patch. Remember,, these products treat only the physical addiction, which only includes about 10 percent of the problem.



Another strategy is the development of counseling and smoking cessation sessions. Such courses include cognitive therapy together with detailed instruction concerning the harmful effects of smoking. These methods are three times as successful as nicotine replacement therapies; the success rate is 22% at six months.



Many smokers have tried laser treatment programs to help quit smoking. This approach is often reimbursed by insurance, even though it is new. Clinical trials performed by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), however, have found that these treatments are no more successful than placebo. (Placebo is when people believe they are receiving a treatment, but really are not.)



One of the ways to quit smoking has demonstrated slightly more benefit than these previous techniques. In one study, smokers trialed shots to assist them stop smoking by eliminating the 'buzz' of the nicotine rush. This strategy, in the preliminary phases of testing for success, thus far seems to be helpful for 15 percent of the persons who used it.



Hypnotherapy is an alternative way of coaching clients to stop smoking. Hypnotherapy concentrates on re-teaching the unconscious mind to automatically implement other behaviors to create comfort and peace, as opposed to the nicotine dependency. It can also be used to eradicate or "extinguish" conditioned responses such as the connection noted between cigarettes and behaviors mentioned earlier, so the person who smokes no longer has the desire to smoke when in the environments that used to trigger it.



Male clients seem to be more amenable to stop smoking hypnosis than female clients do. One positive aspect resulting from self hypnosis stop smoking, however, is that, in contrast to people use nicotine replacement as ways to stop smoking, there are no undesirable side effects.



One other positive aspect of hypnosis is that it works on the 90% component of the addiction that is psychological, unlike the other approaches that just attack the 10% part of the addiction that is physical. For this reason, hypnosis has a much higher success rate than the previously mentioned methods of smoking cessation. Conventional hypnotherapy techniques can offer a 35% chance of success, while Ericksonian hypnosis can yield a 50% or greater success rate.



A newer, innovative, and far more effective method that encourages people to obliterate a smoking dependency is Neuro-Linguistic Programming, or NLP. This approach is much more useful than traditional methods of quit smoking hypnosis since it avoids reliance on post-hypnotic suggestions at all. Most people, such as people who are analytical in nature, do not easily accept post-hypnotic suggestions. Through the use of NLP, the person's unconscious mind is trained to use the same exact mental processes that result in the mental addiction to cigarettes, to obliterate it!



A well-designed NLP smoking cessation strategy created by a trained NLP Practitioner can promise a positive outcome rate of as high as 70% or greater.



Summary: The majority of smoking cessation programs try to use nicotine replacement therapies as ways to stop smoking. Other approaches, such as smoking cessation and cognitive or behavioral treatment sessions, work to coach the mind find ways to quit smoking.



While hypnotherapy works much better than other strategies, especially with male patients, most people do not rate it as the most useful way to stop smoking. Neuro-Linguistic Programming, which deals with the mental aspects of the smoking addiction, actually coaches people to change their cognitive patterns and assist them stop most successfully.



Since 90% of an individual's dependence on cigarettes is psychological in nature, these methods are incomparably more effective than merely replacing the nicotine and treating the 10% element of the dependency that is physiological.



Conclusion: A wide range of smoking cessation sessions, such as nicotine replacement products and counseling exist. These approaches typically are often successful for less than one-fifth of those who attempt them. In comparison, hypnosis offers a markedly greater rate of effectiveness. Neuro-Linguistic Programming works even more effectively in assisting people to successfully combat the mental component of their problem and find significantly more success in their goal of becoming smoke-free.