From reducing your cancer risk to saving huge amounts of money and preserving the youthfulness of your complexion, there are dozens of significant reasons why you might want to quit smoking for good.
That being said, it’s famously difficult to kick this habit, even with the help of nicotine patches, an endless supply of chewing gum or smoking cessation counselling sessions. So, if you want to finally leave those cigarettes behind, it’s well worth thinking about hypnosis as an effective treatment option. Here are the key facts you need to know.
Whether you attend an in-person session with a hypnotherapist or opt for the more convenient option of using self-hypnosis audio recordings, the experience of going into a hypnotic trance will be much the same. When you’re hypnotized, your brain activity slows and you go into a highly relaxed, extremely suggestible state.
You are not actually unconscious, and you are still able to respond to cues from your environment. Contrary to popular belief and the many myths perpetuated by stage hypnosis, you are also free to exit the trance of your own volition at any time and you cannot be made to do or think anything that doesn’t fit with your core values and desires.
However, when you’re in a hypnotic trance you’re much more receptive to helpful suggestions than you would otherwise be. Research on the efficacy of hypnosis shows that it can be effective not only for smoking cessation but also for weight loss, cutting back on alcohol or junk food, reducing chronic pain and overcoming certain unhealthy responses to stress.
A wide variety of powerful techniques can be used in hypnotherapy sessions that promote smoking cessation. Often, the main goal is to create a deeply negative association with smoking, focusing on some sort of negative outcome linked to cigarettes.
So, you might be prompted to imagine that every time you smoke you will end up with a dry and uncomfortable mouth, or you might gradually train your brain to imagine that cigarette smoke smells absolutely disgusting. In other cases, tuning in to the life-threatening results of smoking can be much more impactful in the context of hypnotherapy, permanently bringing to the surface your repressed awareness of the dangers posed by cigarettes.
Other techniques like various forms of neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) can help to bypass your conscious mind and lead your subconscious to gradually accept the belief that you do not want or need to smoke. In addition, many hypnotherapists will help you develop affirmations that you can recite in order to strengthen the messages received in your sessions.
These may be as simple as “Smoking is damaging my body and has no appeal” or “I no longer need cigarettes.” These affirmations can be repeated regularly, with a special emphasis on the times when the desire to smoke begins to reoccur.
Some hypnotherapy patients find that they are able to stop smoking after just one particularly powerful session. Others require several sessions, or need regular top-up sessions to keep the benefits going.
Experts also caution that you need to want to stop smoking in order for hypnotherapy to work—and this motivational component is vital no matter what goal you’re working on in your hypnotherapy sessions. This is because hypnosis is voluntary, rather than something that is “done” to you.
There is a wealth of encouraging evidence supporting smoking cessation hypnosis, though the results do vary from person to person. For example, a large literature review of major studies was conducted in 2012 and suggests that hypnosis is beneficial for smokers.
Meanwhile, another large research project found that smokers were 50% more likely to quit if they used hypnotherapy (either alone or in conjunction with other forms of treatment). And perhaps most encouragingly, a massive study published in The International Journal or Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis found that 22% of a group of 3,000 people were able to stop smoking for at least a full month after hypnotherapy.
While there are good reasons to suppose that hypnosis can help you quit smoking for good, it’s wise to consider combining multiple strategies. For example, some people are attracted to smoking and other addictive behaviors due to general difficulties regulating negative emotions such as sadness and anger).
In such cases, psychotherapy can help you get to the bottom of why you find emotional regulation so tough, and arm you with new strategies for dealing with these types of experiences.
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