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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I think that most people that smoke today understand the risks of smoking. But sometimes, in order to make a decision to quit smoking, it takes information and reinforcement. This article was written to remind you of the risks of smoking and, if you have a loved one who smokes, what you can do about it.
I help people quit stop smoking with Total Mind Therapy, which is a term I coined that uses a combination of hypnosis and NLP for smoking cessation. I tell you that because I want you to know I have talked with thousands of people about their smoking habits. I have found that smokers find it’s easier to quit when they have a method to quit smoking that works and good reasons to quit.
Part of those reasons involves the risks smoking brings to their health. Another reason many people quit smoking today is that it is becoming more and more socially unacceptable. In fact, some people make it a point to hate smokers and will make loud, rude comments about a person who is smoking. These are usually people who have never smoked a cigarette in their life.
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If you’re like most smokers you probably want to quit smoking. You have probably tried to quit a number of times, only to return to this habit again and again. You are not alone. There are millions of people who want to quit and that have actually given up smoking over and over again. Some quit for a few days, while some quit for a few weeks. There are many instances of people who have quit for long periods of time two, three or more years, only returning to this life shortening habit.
Now if you listen to the marketing done by the manufacturers of nicotine gum or patches, or some of the medicines on the market they’ll tell you even if you want to quit you can’t because the nicotine you receive while smoking is such a habit forming drug that every person who smokes cigarettes has an addiction. If that was true then everyone who smokes would have to check into the Betty Ford Center to quit. But is cigarette smoking a true addiction? No, because people quit all the time without any kind of aid at all and often without any symptoms at all.
The truth is that the nicotine is cleansed from your body in three to five days. The rest of the thousands of chemicals found in cigarettes are completely gone in a couple of weeks. Unlike withdrawal from additive substances like crack cocaine or heroin of sweats, shakes, heart palpitations and nausea, the withdrawal symptoms form smoking cigarettes are a little irritability and anxiousness that go away within a couple of weeks.
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Around the world health experts agree that the best thing a cigarette smoker can do is to stop. Since I regularly use hypnosis as a way to help people quit smoking, I get asked all the time if I ever smoked. The answer is yes. When I was around thirteen, I began smoking. It was at under my house with my best friend. Later at my friend’s house we smoked with his older sister. One evening when we asked her for a cigarette she gave us one. I guess she though it was cute – her little brother and his friend trying to act so grown-up and cool with her – and over the course of the evening, she let us both smoke several cigarettes.
I didn’t really like smoking but one of the reason I had so many cigarettes is that I had the idea that smoking made me look cool. When I’d get a cigarette, I’d take a big drag or two, cough like crazy for several minutes and then I’d pass it to my friend. He’d do the same thing – inhale once or twice and practically hack up a lung as he waited to be able to breathe again. By the time we had two or three big drags each, the cigarette was gone. But by the end of the evening we were puffing away just like regular smokers. We thought we were the coolest. Of course, at the time I didn’t give any thought about how hard it could be to stop smoking cigarettes when I got older.
I smoked cigarettes all through high school and while I was in the Navy, along with other things. It was the 60’s and 70’s after all. It just seemed to make every event better, make me mellower and feel cooler. I used to love to go down to the pool hall, put some quarters in the jukebox, and shoot with a cigarette hanging from the side of my mouth. After all everyone smoked. No one even thought about it. In the Navy it was another reason to take a break. It was something to fiddle with in your hands when you were feeling socially awkward and an excuse to go outside and take a smoke break with your buddies or just stretch your legs. And it made it so much easier to make new friends and acquaintances.
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There are many ways that you can quit smoking, but some just won’t work – for you. That does not mean they are not effective, it just means that they were not effective – for you. Most people try three to five times and just as many ways before they successfully quit smoking. Some people take even more tries. Some find they can stop smoking on the first attempt, but that is not usually the case. If you have tried different methods to quit smoking that have failed in the past, since many people have used hypnotherapy to stop smoking, you may want to consider this method. Hypnosis can help you quit smoking also – if you want it to.
The power of suggestion may be part of why some can use hypnosis for smoking cessation. They believe it is going to work so it does. Also, studies have shown that there is really something to this type of method to quit smoking. Your subconscious mind is very powerful. It is where all your habits and addictions are stored. While some people have subconscious brains that resist addictions, others are not so inclined. For example, there is evidence that shows that alcoholism might not run in a family but rather addiction does. That is important to keep in mind.
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When I was in the Navy I smoked, sometimes as much as two packs a day. After I got out of the Navy I used a combination of hypnotherapy and visualization to quit smoking. Since learning of the power of hypnotherapy to help people stop smoking, I have helped hundreds of people quit. I think it is the number one best thing you can do for your long term health. There are as many reasons as there are methods to quit smoking. Here are nine of the best reasons I know to quit smoking for good.
1. Smoking Causes Poor Circulation and Heart Disease
Smoking can kill you a number of ways. The most prominent is heart disease. There were 831,272 deaths due to heart disease in 2006. It continues to be the number one cause of death in the United States. Smoking is responsible for 30 percent of all heart attacks and cardiovascular deaths. Nicotine, the main ingredient in cigarettes, raises your blood pressure and makes your blood clot more easily. When your blood clots more easily it gets stuck in your veins causing poor circulation and heart attacks.
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