Health Related and Smoking Articles

Smoking is a harmful and addictive habit that affects the lives of millions of people around the globe. We now know the perils of cigarette smoking and smokers are encouraged to find ways to quit smoking for the benefit of their own health. This is not an easy task, as smokers start at an 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 pull free without help. Nicotine addiction is only one of many different diseases which can be caused by smoking. Most smokers will require some help on how to quit smoking and a variety of methods exist for this very purpose.

There are many factors that contribute to why people start smoking and develop a smoking habit. The main reason that people try smoking is peer pressure. Some young people are led to believe that it looks 'cool' when portrayed on TV, in movies, and in advertisements. It also is forbidden which makes it all the more attractive to 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 in movies or on television can lead someone to believe that smoking is a harmless 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 far more likely to have children who start smoking.

Nicotine is the drug within tobacco that smokers crave. Nicotine can affect your mind and body in many different ways. Nicotine, once inhaled into the lungs reaches the brain in a mere eight seconds. Once in your brain, 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 you can imagine the damage it does to your body. Nicotine is also addictive and one of the reasons many cannot quit smoking.

Smoking can impact your health on a variety of levels. Low stamina 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 stops smoking will dramatically reduce their chances for these diseases for every year they can go smoke free.

These smoking-related medical conditions often have grave consequences. Lung cancer is nearly always fatal unless caught very early and 80% of lung cancer cases are caused by smoking. Heart and lung disease can take years from your life unless you learn how to quit smoking. There is no cure for emphysema, only limited treatment options, plus the damage to your lungs cannot be repaired. Stop smoking benefits include a longer life span and a better quality of life.

There are several different methods to quit smoking, and you must select the right method for you as an individual. Nicotine gums and patches are designed to help slowly release you from the nicotine addiction. These only work for about 10% of the people who use them. Another option is going cold turkey, and this is effective for up to 11% of the smokers who try to quit this way. Other frequently used methods to quit smoking include an herbal kit that can show you how to quit smoking. It has a success rate similar to that of nicotine patches and gums.

Hypnotherapy for smoking cessation is a very popular option for those who want to quit smoking without weight gain or withdrawal. Hypnotherapy has a high success rate with smokers who have decided to quit smoking. Quit smoking hypnotherapy 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 for smoking cessation is so effective is that it while the physical addiction to nicotine makes up only about 10% of the cigarette smoking addiction, the mental and emotional aspects of the habit make up about 90% of the cigarette smoking addiction. Hypnosis treats this aspect of the addiction.

Additionally, 45% of the smoking behavior is caused by stress, and hypnotherapy has proven to be a powerful tool that can help reprogram the mind to divert away from stressful thoughts, and towards relaxing, positive thoughts. In addition, the practice of hypnotherapy incorporates a state of deep relaxation.

And about 45% of the smoking behavior is caused by conditioned responses. This is when smoking is associated with other situations at the unconscious level of mind. For example, if you smoke and simultaneously watch TV, your unconscious will associate the image of a cigarette in your hand with the image of the TV. Every 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 links between cigarettes and TV, drinking coffee, working on your computer, driving, or any other environment where an unconscious association has been formed.

In summary: While most smokers believe that their inability to quit smoking is due to their addiction to nicotine, in truth it's the mental aspects of a smoking habit that present the largest barriers. Hypnotherapy was accepted by the American Medical Association in 1958 as an effective tool for quitting smoking. 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 effective hypnosis CDs available 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 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 outcome. In any event, the fee for the very best self hypnosis programs equates to far less than the amount that an average smoker spends each and every month on cigarettes.

Alan B. Densky, CH developed the Video Hypnosis quit smoking technology which 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 downloads.