If you want to find out how effective hypnotherapy for giving up smoking is, congratulations you’ve come to the right place! But more importantly, if you’ve made the decision to stop smoking for good, you’ve taken the first step to success.
However much pressure you may be under to give up smoking from family and friends if you’re not ready to quit you’ll find it very difficult. Once you’ve made that decision for yourself to give up, you increase your chances of success dramatically.
Hypnotherapy For Giving Up Smoking
I know that if you’re exploring hypnosis to give up smoking, you’ve already come to that decision and are probably exploring the various methods available. Broadly speaking there are two smoking cessation methods used: gradual smoking cessation, perhaps using nicotine replacement therapy, and cold turkey (more on this in this post on Is Cold Turkey The Best Way To Quit Smoking?).
However, neither method tackles the behaviours and habits you’ve formed around smoking; the reason you reach for the cigarettes when you feel stressed, or the associations you may have between smoking and doing other things like having a drink with friends, or a midmorning coffee. These habits and behaviours are just as controlling as your nicotine addiction and this is where hypnotherapy can really help; changing the thoughts and feelings you have that trigger a desire to smoke, helping you take control of your responses to these and increasing the chance of giving up smoking for good.
How Does Hypnosis For Smoking Work?
Hypnosis is described as a state of altered consciousness; when you are hypnotised you are in a state of deep relaxation and can make changes you desire.
Hypnosis is used in the treatment for various psychological issues such as giving up smoking, weight loss, panic attacks, low self-esteem etc. The collaboration between the client and therapist helps to create change in the client’s habits and behaviours through hypnosis when the mind is open to positive suggestions. At no time do you lose control of your actions during clinical hypnotherapy, instead you will have a sense of being in complete control and able to make good decisions for yourself and your health?
Hypnotherapy is a popular and effective treatment for stopping smoking. Typically a course of hypnotherapy for giving up smoking will include:
- Identifying the triggers that cause you to smoke that might be emotional, environmental, or social,
- Support dealing with these triggers so they can be managed in a less self-destructive way,
- Help controlling cravings,
- Breaking unhelpful thoughts or unconscious beliefs that smoking is beneficial in some way – for example if you feel you need to smoke to be creative or to help with problem-solving etc.
- Help you to get to understand your addiction and specifically what it is doing to your body,
- Work with you on your internal conflict about your smoking habit and replace it with positive and empowering thoughts,
- Deep breathing techniques and 7:11 breathing
- Teaching self-hypnosis,
- Cognitive behaviour techniques.
Hypnosis for smoking helps clients with their unhelpful thoughts and put the smoking habit into perspective. They are encouraged to see the damage to their health that smoking causes and the long-term consequences of their habit.
Some of us are unaware that our bodies will start repairing the damage after quitting smoking very quickly:
- After the first 8 hours of no smoking, the collection of carbon monoxide exits your body,
- In 5 days – one week the nicotine will not be in present in your body and your sense of smell and taste will improve,
- In three months time your lungs with function better,
- And one years time you will have saved money and your risk from suffering from a stroke is greatly reduced.
While these physical improvements and health benefits are greatly desired, the habits that you have developed from smoking over time can still be very hard to break.
Next Steps…
Hypnotherapy for giving up smoking can be used alongside a gradual smoking cessation therapy such as nicotine patches, or if you wish to go cold turkey. Whichever smoking cessation method you plan to use it’s advisable to talk to a clinical hypnotherapist early on so they can help support you through the process. This may mean addressing key issues that are underlying your smoking habit, and resolving these so that you have a much better chance of successfully quitting for good.
Many people come to a hypnotherapy thinking it is a quick or a magic fix treatment for their smoking habit. For some people, just one session is enough to quit smoking but others need a few sessions to achieve success from the harmful effects of smoking.
The ultimate goal of hypnotherapy is you taking the control back from your smoking habit or addiction.
If you have any questions about hypnosis for smoking or would like to speak to me about your specific issues, either leave a comment below or you can email me on info@formindssake.com or call +44 (0)796 715 1790.
“After three sessions I have successfully stopped smoking after 27 years. Through the combination of hypnotherapy and NLP that Andrea specialises in I now have effective coping strategies in place for the difficult moments and situations that inevitably arise. I feel confident to refer to myself now as a non-smoker, which was something I would have never even contemplated in the past. You have to want to stop smoking but when you are really ready this is a really effective way to do it.” – Miranda B
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