Effects Of Smoking And How To Kick The Habit

Effects Of Smoking And How To Easily Kick The Habit
By: Alan B. Densky, CH

Smoking is a harmful and addictive habit that affects the lives of millions of people around the world. We now know the dangers of cigarette smoking and smokers are urged to find ways to quit smoking for the benefit of their own health. This is not an easy feat, as most smokers start at an extremely young age. The average age of a new smoker is thirteen years old.

A habit formed at such an early age is not easily broken. Nicotine affects many parts of the body and it is hard to break this addiction without some help. There are many different diseases associated with smoking. Most smokers require some help to quit smoking and many methods exist for this very purpose.

There are many reasons why people start smoking and develop a smoking habit. The main reason that people begin to smoke is peer pressure. Some young people believe smoking will make them seem more mature, and increase their popularity with their peers. It also is forbidden which makes it all the more attractive to rebellious teenagers, thus the low starting age for many people. This young age makes quitting smoking more challenging in your later years.

Media can also influence the decision to start smoking. Smoking portrayed in movies or on television can lead you to believe that smoking is harmless. Parents can wield the biggest influence over their children by setting a good example on how to quit smoking. Mothers and fathers who smoke are far more likely to have children who smoke.

Nicotine is the drug within tobacco that smokers crave. Nicotine can affect your mind and body in many harmful ways. Nicotine, once inhaled into the lungs reaches the brain in a matter of just eight seconds. Once there, nicotine affects your blood pressure and heart rate. Over time it can increase your bad cholesterol levels and cause the narrowing of your arteries. Nicotine in concentrated doses is a lethal poison, so imagine the damage it does to your body. Nicotine is also addictive and this is why many people cannot quit smoking.

Smoking can affect your health on a variety of levels. Low stamina is one side effect of smoking. More serious smoking related diseases include cancer and emphysema. Heart disease and stroke are also closely associated with cigarette smoking. A person who stops smoking will greatly reduce their risk of developing these diseases for every year they can go smoke free.

The outcome of these medical conditions caused by smoking is grim. Lung cancer is nearly always fatal unless detected very early and a full 80% of lung cancer cases are caused by smoking. Heart and lung disease can subtract years from your life unless you learn how to quit smoking. Emphysema cannot be cured but only managed, plus the damage to your lungs cannot be repaired. The benefits of quitting smoking include a longer, healthier life and a better quality of life.

There are many different ways to quit smoking, and you must select the best method for you as an individual. Nicotine gums and patches are designed to help you slowly withdraw from the nicotine addiction. Only about 10% of the people who use them quit smoking. Another option is going cold turkey, and this works for up to 11% of the smokers who try to quit this way. Other popular methods to quit smoking include an herbal kit that can guide you through quitting. It has a success rate similar to that of nicotine gums and patches.

Hypnosis is a popular and effective option for those who want to quit smoking without experiencing withdrawal symptoms or weight gain. Hypnotherapy has proven to be highly effective with smokers who have made a decision to quit smoking. Hypnosis for smoking cessation might sound like an extreme solution but it delivers solid results up to 70% of the time. This success rate is far greater that of other methods.

The reason hypnotherapy is so effective is that it while the physical addiction to nicotine makes up only about 10% of the cigarette smoking addiction, the emotional and mental aspects of the habit make up a full 90% of the cigarette smoking addiction. Hypnosis treats this aspect of the addiction.

About 45% of the smoking behavior is caused by stress, and hypnotherapy has proven to be a powerful, non-invasive tool that can help reprogram the mind to divert it from stressful thoughts, and towards relaxing, positive thoughts. In addition, the very essence of hypnosis is that it incorporates a deep state of relaxation.

Another 45% of the smoking behavior is caused by conditioned responses. This is where smoking becomes associated with other activities and events at the unconscious level of mind. For example, if you smoke while watching television, your unconscious will associate the image of a cigarette in your hand with the image of the TV. Each time you see the TV, your unconscious flashes an image of the cigarette in your hand, and you experience the compulsion to smoke.

Stop smoking hypnotherapy is regularly used to "extinguish" the conditioned responses by disassociating the unconscious links between cigarettes and TV, drinking coffee, working on your computer, driving, or any other situation where an unconscious association has been formed.

In summary: Although most smokers believe that their inability to quit smoking is based on their addiction to nicotine, in truth it is the psychological aspects of smoking that present the largest barriers. Hypnotherapy was accepted by the American Medical Association in 1958 as an effective tool. And hypnosis for smoke cessation is the second most common use of hypnotherapy today.

While hourly rates for hypnotherapists climb higher and higher, there are excellent hypnosis CDs available that can greatly reduce the cost of obtaining hypnosis treatment. Since everyone is different, there are no specific "magic" words or post-hypnotic suggestions that will work for everyone. So when choosing hypnosis CDs, look for programs that incorporate a broad variety of hypnotic and NLP techniques in a series of at least six or more sessions to obtain the best possible results. In any event, the cost of the very best hypnosis CDs & DVDs equates to far less than the amount that an average smoker spends every month on buying cigarettes.

Alan B. Densky, CH created the Video Hypnosis quit smoking technology that helps smokers easily quit the habit. He also created other ways to stop smoking with Ericksonian Hypnosis and NLP. Visit his Neuro-VISION self improvement hypnosis site for free hypnotherapy videos and MP3s.