STOP SMOKING (AND VAPING)

• Breathe more easily?
• Free yourself from something which seems to be controlling you?
• Live longer?
• Become healthier and fitter?
• Be a healthy role model for your children or grandchildren?
• Recover from surgery faster?
• Be financially much better off?
• Recover faster from surgery?

Firstly I’d like to assure you that smoking itself is not an addiction – it is a habit. A habit like biting nails. If it were an addiction, you wouldn’t be able to go through a whole night sleeping without your body waking you up for a smoke. Nicotine on the other hand is mildly addictive, much the same as sugar, but as it plays such a small role in the smoking process, it is the easiest part of smoking to overcome.

Smoking is a habitual process, which you had to learn how to do (like walking and talking) – and you also had to convince your body and mind that it was enjoyable! Remember that first puff you ever had and how horrible it was? You were so determined to be a smoker that you eventually overcame that awful smell and taste! If you ate something that was so absolutely revolting, for instance slug soup, would you keep convincing yourself to like it?! This demonstrates that it is possible, with determination to do anything you want to in life, however hard and however awful it may seem at first! Your brain creates neural pathways which are responsible for those things you do automatically – walking, making a cup of tea, driving to work, reading…..when you first began to do all these things it was hard work – you had to practise and practice…and then one day you didn’t have to practice any more – you could just do it without thinking too much. This happens when the neural pathways become well established.

Now, think about a time perhaps when you have changed your job and you have to take a different route to work. At first you have to concentrate on the road markings, traffic signals, where to turn off etc – and maybe if you’re not concentrating properly you might find yourself heading to your old place of work – oops! With repetition however, a new ‘driving to work’ neural pathway will have been established in your subconscious and you will soon have forgotten to use that old route to work. Driving to your new workplace will become almost second nature.

This analogy can be compared to behaviours and habits. When changing habits through willpower alone, first we have to concentrate on doing new things – making a healthy breakfast instead of having that first cigarette, doing 20 squats instead of the usual cigarette after dinner, finding something different to do with your hands like twirling a pencil or applying handcream….then after a few days, you will begin to automatically do these new things instead of reaching for a cigarette.      Using hypnosis to free yourself from a habit makes these changes so much easier.

Your subconscious holds onto patterns and behaviours that it thinks you want or need to keep you functioning, happy and safe. The only reason you have the need for a cigarette is because your subconscious thinks it is helping you to keep safe and happy so it keeps prompting you to need another. During a hypnotherapy session we communicate with the subconscious to explore hints and strategies to developing newer, healthier and more productive behaviours. We  establish a healthy communication between your conscious and subconscious to allow the process of becoming smoke-free to be a simpler and easier journey for you.

One session is usually enough, no matter how light or heavy a smoker you are.  Very occasionally my clients ask for a second session for reinforcement.