If you've tried to quit smoking before, you know hard it is. The best of intentions may help you stop for a day or so, but it's all too easy to slip back into the habit.
Even when you think about the risk of cancer and strokes, willpower often simply isn't strong enough to get you to lead a healthier, cigarette-free life.
However, there are of course people who do successfully stop smoking. So, how can you become one of them? What's the best way to quit smoking for good?
It turns out that hypnosis is a leading contender. Risk-free, inexpensive, and efficient, it can completely transform the thoughts and feelings you have about your habit.
In this article, we'll explain why you should consider hypnosis to stop smoking. We'll consider why it's so hard to quit, explore how hypnosis works, and canvass the major benefits of using this method.
How To Stop Smoking Naturally With Hypnosis - Is It Possible?
It can help you regulate your feelings and cope with stress, but we can feel shame when a behavior feels like it's no longer under control.
First, it's important to recognize that addiction is an entirely normal phenomenon, and most of us have been through it in one capacity or another.
It's all down to the dopamine our brains produce when we repeat a habit; we're flooded with feel-good chemicals, and we end up wanting to come back to that habit more and more.
That said, we all have our own stories that explain our addictions. Let's look at why you might have been drawn to smoking in the first place, and consider when this habit starts to become a problem.
Common Reasons We Feel A Need To Smoke
This can be because our stresses are overwhelming, such as those associated with breakups, chronic anxiety, bullying, grief, other forms of loss.
Alternatively, we may not know how to regulate our own emotions because we were never taught how to do so. In such cases, a habit - in this case, smoking - does the heavy lifting for us.
It boosts our mood thanks to the flood of dopamine, and it helps us feel like we can cope with whatever is happening to us.
If this story sounds familiar, it doesn't mean you're weak or flawed. Most of us at least occasionally rely on something external to help us feel okay.
However, when we use something like smoking, alcohol, drugs, or food, we run the risk of hurting our bodies and minds in the long-term. In other words, what starts as a helpful crutch becomes something that eventually undermines our well-being.
When Does A Smoking Addiction Become A Problem?
These risks persist and increase for as long as you keep smoking, though they slowly begin to diminish in the months and years after you quit smoking.
However, it's not only the health results of smoking that tell you smoking addiction is a problem. After all, as we just considered, addictions like smoking usually come from stress or anxiety in life.
So, an uncontrolled smoking habit tells you that there are problems elsewhere - in your job, in your relationship, in your family, or in past trauma that you haven't processed.
If you're able to quit smoking, you make space to engage with these underlying problems head-on.
With all this in mind, let's turn to look at active solutions to your smoking addiction. In particular, we'll unpack how hypnosis works to help you leave your addiction behind.
Is Using Hypnosis An Easy Way To Quit Smoking?
Whether done in a room with a hypnotherapist or by listening to a self-hypnosis recording, the goal is to change how you think about feel about smoking. But how does this actually work?
The first part of hypnosis for smoking cessation is to enter a deeply relaxed state, sometimes called a hypnosis trance. This feels similar to being in the middle of a meditation or a mindfulness exercise.
Once you're deeply relaxed, your mind becomes receptive to suggestions. In this case, the focus will be on telling you that you no longer want to smoke.
The underlying premise is that being deeply relaxed gets around the defenses of your conscious mind and lets such suggestions go straight to your subconscious mind.
The hypnotherapist or recording will then gently lead you back to full consciousness. To support the work done in the session, you may also later be encouraged to repeat positive affirmations (e.g., "I no longer need to smoke", or "I am healthy, happy, and smoke-free.").
Benefits of Using Self-Hypnosis To Stop Smoking
There are lots of reasons why hypnosis and self-hypnosis for smoking cessation are so popular. This method is affordable and often works after just one session.
As a bonus, self-hypnosis can be done entirely in private and on your time.
However, the most significant further benefits of self-hypnosis relate to just how profound an impact it has on your thoughts and feelings. Here are three examples of how your life can be transformed by hypnosis.
You’ll Believe That You Get No Benefits From Smoking
You keep smoking, even though you're aware it makes you more likely to get cancer.
However, with the help of hypnosis, you can get your mind to focus solely on the negatives of smoking. You'll begin to believe it has nothing good to offer you.
Every time you think about smoking, your thoughts will go straight to the negative health impacts. This can have a major impact on cravings.
Smoking will no longer feel like the best option for dealing with stress and anxiety.
You Can Go Hours Or Days Without Smoking
After a few hours, or a day (depending on the level of your addiction), the cravings make it almost impossible to stay away from cigarettes.
However, with the help of self-hypnosis, you regain control over your own urges and behaviors.
Where you may have previously felt like your habit ruled your life, you'll now view yourself as being free to choose whether to smoke.
And, thanks to the above aversion to cigarettes, you'll repeatedly make the choice not to smoke after all.
When Others Smoke With You, It Won’t Affect You
If you've tried to quit in the past, it's probably easy for you to remember a time when a friend lit up and you gave in to your own habit.
You may even recall a time when someone explicitly pressured you to smoke - perhaps just to have one cigarette when drinking, for example. Once your mindset is changed by hypnotherapy, this type of peer pressure will no longer hit you the same way.
You'll feel fine about politely declining the offer of a cigarette, and watching others smoke won't spark the same cravings you used to feel.
Start Using Self-Hypnosis To Quit Smoking Addiction Now
Now that you understand how to use hypnotherapy to stop smoking, why not try it for yourself? Our program focuses on getting rid of your urge to smoke for good.
You can do it in your own home and repeat it as often as you like, for maximum impact. And once you stop smoking with hypnosis, you'll be free to enjoy a better, happier life.
Your addiction will no longer be in control of you, and you can make active choices to deal with stress and anxiety in healthier ways.
