States across the country have forbidden smokers to smoke in public areas. Numerous professional companies have mandated smoking cessation, and are disciplining workers if they smoke in the workplace. Persons who smoke stand out in the cold, wind or rain, and smoke away as hurriedly as they are able in order to continue working again. 

In some cities, smoking has become as controversial as drug dependence. Since the public has become so educated about stop smoking benefits, numerous smokers are trying to locate ways to quit smoking. 

The addiction of smoking is made up of three components:

1. Smoking for relaxation and pleasure is about 45 percent of the reason that people continue to smoke.

2. People also smoke because they unconsciously associate agreeable environments or behaviors with cigarettes. Then, when people find themselves in these situations, they desire a cigarette. One example of this is when a person strongly associates drinking coffee with smoking a cigarette. Every time they get another cup of coffee, they strongly crave a cigarette. This is about 45 percent of the smoking addiction.

3. Nicotine actually creates a physical addiction. 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!

A variety of techniques are designed to assist people find ways to quit smoking. Probably the cheapest way to quit smoking, covered through many insurance agencies, is the nicotine patch. These easily applied patches are used for one day and can be concealed underneath the wearer’s clothes. The drawback to these patches, however, is that nicotine replacement patches are not very useful. Because these products only deal with the physiological addiction, which results in merely ten percent of the reason for which people continue to smoke, they offer only about a ten percent success rate. 

Much the same rate of success is characteristic of nicotine gum or lozenges. Not even one in ten individuals who try these products will report success with these methods to quit smoking for as long as six months. Furthermore, these items may have adverse effects. They, can be irritating to the gums and lips, and a significant percentage of people experience skin irritation beneath the patch. Remember,, nicotine replacement therapies target just the physical dependence, which only comprises around 10% of the habit.

Still another alternative is the development of psychotherapy and smoking cessation courses. Such programs include behavior modification techniques and extensive instruction about the adverse effects of smoking. These strategies are three times as effective as nicotine replacement treatments; nearly one-fourth of smokers will quit for at least six months.

Many smokers have tried laser treatment programs to help quit smoking. This approach is sometimes covered by insurance, even though it is new. Research studies performed by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), however, indicate that the laser treatments are no more effective than placebo. (Placebo is the effect that occurs when individuals believe they are taking therapy, but really are not.)

Another of the ways to quit smoking seems to be somewhat more useful than the preceding techniques. In one study, smokers received shots to help them quit smoking by eliminating the pleasurable effects of the nicotine rush. This technique, in the beginning stages of testing for usefulness, thus far seems to be helpful for 15 percent of the persons who attempted it. 

Hypnotherapy is an alternative way of helping individuals to quit smoking. Hypnotherapy focuses on re-teaching the unconscious mind to automatically implement alternative activities to create contentment and pleasure, instead of the nicotine dependency. It also can be employed to erase or "extinguish" conditioned responses such as the connection described between cigarettes and activities in the above example, so the person who smokes loses the desire to smoke when in the locations that formerly trigger it.

Male clients appear to be more amenable to stop smoking hypnosis than women do. One advantage offered by self hypnosis stop smoking, however, is that, as opposed to those who use nicotine replacement as approaches to quit smoking, there are no irritating side effects. 

Another benefit of hypnosis is that it works on the 90 percent component of the addiction that is psychological, as opposed to the other techniques that just work against the ten percent component of the addiction that is physical. This is why hypnosis offers a significantly greater success rate than the previously mentioned approaches to stop smoking treatments. Conventional hypnotherapy techniques can yield a 35 percent likelihood of success, while Ericksonian hypnosis can result in a 50% or higher success rate.

A recently introduced, innovative, and significantly more effective method that assists people to conquer a cigarette addiction is Neuro-Linguistic Programming, or NLP. This strategy is much more helpful than traditional styles of quit smoking hypnosis because it does not require users to rely on post-hypnotic suggestions at all. Most people, such as people whose thoughts are critical thinkers, resist post-hypnotic suggestions. Through the use of NLP, the person’s unconscious mind is trained to concentrate on the same exact cognitive processes that cause the mental dependence on cigarette use, to treat it!

A well thought out NLP stop smoking strategy created by a trained NLP Practitioner can result in a positive outcome rate of up to 70% and higher. 

Summary: The majority of smoking cessation courses attempt to use nicotine replacement strategies as ways to quit smoking. Other programs, like smoking cessation and counseling sessions, attempt to aid the mind use ways to quit smoking. 

Even though hypnotherapy is more effective than alternative strategies, particularly with men, experts do not consider it to be the most effective way to quit smoking. Neuro-Linguistic Programming, which focuses on the mental facets of the smoking habit, actually assists persons to alter their cognitive patterns to help them quit most successfully.

Because 90 percent of an individual’s addiction to cigarettes is psychological in nature, these treatments are significantly more successful than merely replacing the nicotine and addressing the ten percent piece of the habit that is physical.

Conclusion: Many smoking cessation sessions, including nicotine replacement therapy and psychotherapy have been developed. These approaches frequently are often successful for less than one-fifth of those who attempt them. In contrast, hypnosis has a considerably higher likelihood of effectiveness. Neuro-Linguistic Programming is even more beneficial in aiding people to effectively fight against the mental component of their problem and experience much more success as they work to become smoke-free.

Alan B. Densky, CH is the developer of the easy way to stop tobacco use with hypnotherapy. He now also offers an effective Stop Smokeless Tobacco program based on the same methods. Learn more at his self hypnosis & NLP website where you view Free NLP videos and articles.

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