Why would anyone want to quit smoking?

An old friend, your cigarettes still were there when others shunned you.

When you left home, started a new job, married, had children, bought the house and the car, smoking was there for comfort.

Remember you were not born smoking. It is merely a habit you picked up.

Friends looked cool when they smoked. You  wanted to be cool, too.

Could be emotional, too. Cigarettes would enhance or quash positive or negative feelings?

Image or emotion – those are the only two reasons people smoke.

I ask clients if they closed their eyes when smoking would they enjoy the cigarette as much as when their eyes were open? If yes, it is not an image issue. If no, it is.

If the only place they could buy cigarettes was three miles away, would they still smoke? If yes, I increase the distance until a client says no. One man said he would walk 20 miles for cigarettes. Why was he in my office when it was clear he did not want to quit. He said I was right. He left.

Smoking is a smelly, expensive, dirty and unhealthy. This is a slow way to kill yourself.

What is it like for someone wanting to quit and not quitting? I was a smoker for 45 years. I self-hypnotized and quit five years ago.

One client was smoking 80 cigarettes a day when he came to see me. He wanted to stop, reducing his smoking to eight a day.  He never did stop. Smoking 72 fewer cigarettes a day made him proud. He never has smoked more than eight a day.

His wife used to tape a saying to the dashboard of his car:

“Smoking is something you do that makes you feel that you are doing something when you are doing nothing.”

Many fewer people are smoking as it becomes more socially unacceptable. Even though smokers are turning to what they consider healthier smoke, the reality remains they are ingesting nicotine.

Patches, gum, cigarettes, cigars and are simply different methods of ingesting the drug nicotine that you decided to start using.

If you want to stop you must let the habit go.

The biggest step is to break the nicotine addiction. Regardless of how long you have been smoking, all nicotine is gone from your system in three days.

After stopping, watch for a desire to eat sweets and fruits loaded with sugar. This is why most people put on weight. A cigarette shoots a shot of sugar to your brain within seven seconds of inhaling. Not realizing that the tobacco is laced with sugar (amongst other things), people turn to other methods to get the sugar they need.

I ask a client to do is to buy one of two brands of cigarettes which have no sugar or additives. Next, gradually reduce smoking each week while eating a protein-rich diet of small meals every two hours. This shrinks the nicotine slowly and eliminates the desire for sweets.

When ready to quit, see a hypnotist. The success rate for quitting smoking by other methods is only 45 percent. Hypnosis has a 73 percent success rate.

The Surgeon General lists advantages of stopping smoking:

• Twenty minutes after quitting, your heart rate drops.
• Twelve hours after quitting the carbon monoxide level in your blood drops to normal.
• Four days after quitting, nicotine is out of your system.
• Two weeks to three months after quitting, your circulation improves and your lung function increases
• Six to nine months after quitting, coughing and shortness of breath decrease
• One year after quitting, the excess risk of coronary heart disease is half that of a smoker’s.

Five years after quitting, stroke risk is reduced to that of a non-smoker.

• Ten years after quitting, the lung cancer death rate is half that of a smoker’s.
• Fifteen years after quitting, the risk of coronary heart disease is that of a non-smoker’s.

Do not hesitate to contact me by telephone, 310.204.3321, or by email at nickpollak@hypnotherapy4you.net. See my website at www.hypnotherapy4you.net