People can act really stupid when they’re young. A classic example: convincing yourself that smoking cigarettes is cool. You start with one stick until you eventually graduate to smoking two to three packs per day. Cigarette addiction soon develops.
Must Have A Quit Smoking Plan
One Navy guy (Wil Dieck) smoked nonstop for 10 years and had a serious cigarette addiction. It all stopped in 1978. He left the Navy smoking two packs daily. Then, some six months after getting out, he realized risking his health for several minutes of pleasure from smoking didn’t make sense. Even though he exercised, he knew his strength and stamina weren’t what they used to be. He came to the conclusion that a quit smoking plan was in order – one that would get rid of the nasty habit permanently.
These days you can quit many different ways, but back in the day, smokers relied on hypnotherapy for smoking, coupled with a good dose of willpower. The Navy man slightly deviated from the usual and used a variation of the two methods.
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Frequently one session with a professional hypnotist followed by a self-hypnosis recording is all it takes to quit. You can increase the odds that you will change permanently with a combination of outside and self-help. This will give you better odds for winning long term health.
There are more than a dozen schools of hypnotherapy (NLP) so be sure to do your research and choose the one that appeals to you most. You can also mix and match techniques to create an effective path to your ultimate goal of permanent smoking cessation.
One very popular technique is known as hypnosis. This therapeutic method has been in practice since the late 1800s. In the olden days, hypnosis was thought to be a hoax. Today, many health professionals recognize it as a very powerful way to change behavior. Understand that physical addiction is just one aspect of the smoking habit. You must adjust your mind if you want long term change.
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Smoking is the number one cause of preventable death in the world today. The adverse health effects of cigarette smoking account for an estimated 443,000 deaths, or nearly one of every five deaths, each year in the United States alone.
Today, almost everyone knows the role that long-term, heavy smoking plays in developing lung cancer and heart disease. What is sometimes overlooked is that it also plays a significant role in damaging dozens of other body systems as well as your overall health.
Apart from the specific damage smoking causes to the lungs, larynx and arteries, smoking also reduces the desire to exercise in most people. This is because many smokers relate smoking to lowering stress. By using a chemical to “lower” stress, your motivation to exercise is reduced. When you lower your oxygen concentration your arteries constrict causing a “smoker’s hack”. This reduces the incentives for healthy exercise even more.
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The reason I wrote this article is because, if you’re a smoker, after reading this I hope it cause you to want to quit smoking. You see, everyone takes breathing for granted. That is everyone except those for whom it’s a daily struggle. That effort can be a result of a range of lung diseases, many of which are self inflicted. The problem with these diseases is a cure is often difficult to come by.
Probably the best known lung disease is lung cancer. Thankfully people are better able to survive this disease today as a result of improved treatments. These relatively new treatments make it one of the few conditions that can actually be cured. Using a combination of surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation, a person can emerge from lung cancer with excellent prospects of a somewhat normal lifespan and lifestyle.
One of the best reasons to want to stop smoking is COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease), a lung disease that affects millions of people. From chronic bronchitis to emphysema there are many various forms of COPD. The problem with these, or any of the lesser known obstructive lung diseases, is there is no known cure for them yet.
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Everyone knows that there are thousands of chemical compounds in cigarette smoke, many of them are toxic. It is these chemicals that cause the harmful effects of smoking. But simply displaying a long list of intimidating names, and even pointing out which are harmful, isn’t particularly helpful. When it comes to medicine, understanding the dosage is the key factor to understanding how cigarette smoke affects your body.
Many of the compounds that are in cigarette smoke are found in only trace amounts, in the range of nanograms, or one-billionth of a gram, for one cigarette. One gram weighs about 3/100 of an ounce so 1 g is about 0.0353 oz., not a large quantity. Nevertheless, there are a dozen or so chemicals that are not only potentially toxic, but found in significant quantities.
Tar, for example, is a part of nearly all cigarettes. It is found at varying levels, from 10-14 mg per cigarette. Even so-called ‘low tar’ cigarettes typically contain 8-9 mg. Just like its counterpart that coats chimney walls, it produces a black substance that coats the linings of the lungs. It’s this coating that interferes with the action of your alveoli.
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Many smokers tell me that the reason they smoke cigarettes is to deal with stress but they still want to quit. They also tell me that no matter what method they use to try to quit smoking, the act of quitting increases their level of stress. For many people this double-whammy makes it doubly hard to stop. So if this is you or someone you know, understanding what creates stress and finding healthier ways to deal with it will help in that struggle.
First let’s analyze why cigarette smoking can seem pleasurable. At low dosages, nicotine, the main chemical in cigarettes, is a stimulant. Using nicotine increases your heart rate and raises your blood pressure. Those biological changes in your body interact to produce psychological ones in your mind. At certain levels the reactions to nicotine are perceived as pleasurable. At higher levels, nicotine seems to induce a relaxing state.
Both of these effects can appear to alleviate stress. The stimulation of nicotine generates alertness. This can be associated with a positive feeling. Of course this feeling is actually induced by the dopamine generated in your brain, which causes other changes to its pleasure centers. This release of dopamine has a clear and direct influence on your stress level. An easier and healthier way to create dopamine in your brain is to exercise.
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Today everyone knows the effects of cigarette smoking so why don’t people just quit? Over the years I have interviewed hundreds of people that tell me that they want to quit smoking but they just weren’t able to do it by themselves. After their interview, many of these people were able to stop smoking using Total Mind Therapy. Let’s examine the reasons they said kept them smoking.
1. I’m too stressed out to quit. The biggest reason people say they continue to smoke is because of the stress in their lives. In fact people blame stress for continuing in almost any type of negative habit you can imagine, from smoking to heroin addiction. As a society we have made stress the bogeyman to dump much of our personal responsibility on.
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One of the more serious effects of long-term cigarette smoking is heart disease. If you smoke, this is probably one of the best reasons to stop. According to About.com “More than 61 million Americans suffer from some form of cardiovascular disease, including high blood pressure, coronary heart disease, stroke, congestive heart failure, and other conditions. More than 2,600 Americans die every day because of cardiovascular diseases, about 1 death every 33 seconds.” These are statements we often hear in discussions about the effects of smoking. But what does this really mean? What is heart disease, and how does smoking cause it?
In this context, the phrase ‘heart disease’ usually refers to coronary artery disease. That’s a condition in which a major blood vessel that leaves the heart carrying oxygen-rich blood becomes constricted. This condition increases the odds of a clot or closure that causes a heart attack. That’s why this condition is sometimes referred to as ‘having a coronary’.
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People that don’t smoke are wonder why other people smoke. In fact they are often incredulous. Don’t they know that smoking causes lung cancer? Why would they suck and blow their lives away? Don’t they know they’ll get addicted and die? Don’t they realize that they’re blowing their second-hand smoke at other people and exposing them to all those cacogenics?
These are some of the most common complaints that non smokers have about smokers. It is also is the reason behind why people smoke remains largely a mystery to them. Because it brings up so many issues like health, science, media influence, economics, and freedom of choice, smoking still manages to cause a lot of controversy.
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Are you starting to decide what you are going to make for your New Year’s Resolutions yet? For smokers, one of the biggest ones is, “I want to quit smoking this year.” When January 15th rolls around and a friend asks “How is it going?” most say something like, “well I quit for a day,” or “I’m just too stressed to quit right now. I’ll have to do it later,” which of course means they will make the same resolution next New Year and have the same results.
Why People Who Want to Quit Smoking Don’t
So why don’t people just quit smoking? Here are the top two reasons people tell me that keeps them smoking:
1. I smoke because I’m stressed out. Stress is actually one of the biggest reasons people do any kind of negative habit. “I yelled at my kids because I was stressed out.” I eat chocolate when I’m stressed out.” “I use pain killers because I’m stressed out.” I’m sure you get the point. Stress is a great way to dump your responsibility about almost anything.
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