Smoking is an addictive and harmful habit that affects millions of people around the world. Today, we know about the dangers of smoking, and smokers are encouraged to find ways to stop smoking for their own health. This is not easy to do, as most smokers begin at an early age. The average age of a new smoker is only thirteen years old. 

A habit formed at that age is not easily broken. Nicotine affects the body in many ways and it is hard to break this addiction without some help. Nicotine addiction is only one of many diseases which can be caused by smoking. Most smokers will require some help to quit smoking and many different methods exist for this very purpose.

There are many different reasons why people begin smoking and continue to smoke. The main reason that people begin to smoke is peer pressure. It is deemed cool to be able to smoke. It also is forbidden which makes it all the more attractive to teenagers, hence the low starting age for many people. This young age makes quitting smoking more difficult in your later years.

Media can also have an impact on the decision to begin smoking. Smoking portrayed in movies or on television can lead someone to believe that smoking is a safe activity. Parents can wield the biggest influence over their children by setting a good example and not smoking, or quitting smoking. Parents who smoke are much more likely to have children who smoke.

Smokers begin to crave nicotine, a drug within tobacco. Nicotine can affect your body and mind in many different ways. Nicotine, once inhaled into the lungs reaches the brain in a matter of just eight seconds. Once there, nicotine affects your heart rate and blood pressure. Over time it can increase your bad cholesterol and cause the narrowing of your arteries. Nicotine in concentrated doses is a lethal poison, so you can imagine the effects on your body. Nicotine is also addictive and one of the reasons many smokers cannot quit smoking.

Smoking can affect your health on a variety of levels. Getting winded playing a game is one side effect of smoking. More serious smoking related diseases include cancer and emphysema. Strokes and heart disease are also closely associated with cigarette smoking. A person who quits 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 almost always fatal unless detected very early and 80% of lung cancer cases are caused by smoking. Lung and heart 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 healthier, longer life and a better quality of life.

There are many different ways to quit smoking, and you must pick the best method for you as an individual. Nicotine patches and gums are designed to help you slowly withdraw from the nicotine addiction. These only work for about 10% of the people who use them. Another option is going cold turkey, and this works for up to 11% of the smokers who try to quit this way. Other well known 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 for smoking cessation is a very popular and highly successful option for those who want to quit smoking without experiencing weight gain or withdrawal symptoms. Hypnotherapy has a high success rate with smokers who have decided to quit smoking. Hypnosis 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 addiction to nicotine makes up only about 10% of the cigarette smoking addiction, the psychological aspects of the habit make up about 90% of the smoking addiction. Hypnosis treats this aspect of the addiction.

Additionally, 45% of the smoking behavior is caused by stress, and hypnosis has proven to be a powerful tool that can help reprogram the mind to divert you 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 prompted by conditioned responses. This occurs when smoking becomes associated with other situations 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 an urge to smoke.

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

In summary: While most smokers think that their inability to quit smoking is based on their addiction to nicotine, in truth it is the psychological aspects of a smoking habit that present the largest barriers. Hypnotherapy was accepted by the American Medical Association in 1958 as an effective tool. Hypnosis for quitting smoking is the second most common use of hypnotherapy today. 

While hourly rates for hypnotherapists continue to skyrocket, there are effective hypnosis CDs on the market that can greatly reduce its cost. Since everyone is different, there are no specific "magic" words or post-hypnotic suggestions that will work for everyone. So when choosing a self hypnosis program, look for those that incorporate a broad variety of hypnotic and NLP techniques in a series of at least six or more sessions to enjoy the best possible outcome. In any case, the fee for the very best hypnosis CDs & DVDs equates to much less than the amount that an average smoker spends every month on buying cigarettes.

Alan B. Densky, CH invented the Video Hypnosis stop smoking technology which helps smokers easily quit the habit. He also created other ways to stop smoking with Ericksonian Hypnosis and NLP. Visit the Best Hypnosis Downloads self improvement site for free hypnotherapy videos and downloads.

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