How To Kick The Smoking Addiction - Separate The Hype From The Facts

States throughout the country have outlawed smoking in public areas. Hospitals have demanded that their employees quit smoking, and are punishing workers for smoking while working. Smokers subject themselves to cold weather and the elements, and smoke away as quickly as possible in order to return to their workplace.



In some towns, smoking has become as controversial as drug addiction. Because most smokers have learned about stop smoking benefits, many people are doing their best to identify ways to stop smoking.



There are three components to a smoking habit:



1. Smoking for relaxation and pleasure is about 45 percent of the reason that people continue to smoke.



2. People also smoke because they unconsciously associate agreeable environments or behaviors with cigarettes. Then, when people find themselves in these situations, they desire a cigarette. For instance, an individual may come to associate smoking with their bedtime ritual. They will come to associate smoking with sleep so strongly that it is almost impossible to go to sleep without having a cigarette first. Example: If you watch TV and smoke, the smoking will become a conditioned response to watching TV. So each time you watch TV, you'll feel an urge to smoke. This component is responsible for nearly 45 percent of the smoking habit.



3. A physical addiction to Nicotine is another reason people continue to smoke. This element is approximately 10 percent of the smoking habit. Within about three days of quitting smoking, all of the Nicotine has been cleaned from a person's system!



A variety of strategies have been developed to assist individuals learn ways to quit smoking. The least expensive way to stop smoking, covered by the majority of insurance policies, is the nicotine patch. Easy to apply, each patch is worn for 24 hours and can be secreted beneath the wearer's clothes. The drawback to these patches, however, is that nicotine replacement patches are not very effective. Because patches only address the actual addiction, which makes up just 10% of the reason for which people continue to smoke, their success rate is only 7%.



Nearly the same level of success characterizes nicotine gum or lozenges. Less than ten percent of the persons who attempt these strategies will report success with these ways to quit smoking for at least six months. Furthermore, these products can result in many side effects. These nicotine replacement therapies, are sometimes irritating to the mouth and lips, while numerous users experience skin discomfort under the patch. Remember,, these products treat only the physical dependence, which only makes up about 10% of the habit.



Yet another strategy is the use of psychotherapy and smoking cessation programs. These courses include cognitive therapy together with thorough education about the adverse effects of smoking. These programs are three times as successful as nicotine replacement methods; about one-fifth of those who try these programs will succeed in quitting for at least six months.



Many smokers have tried laser treatment programs to help quit smoking. This technique is often reimbursed by insurance, even though it is new. Experimental trials performed by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), however, reveal that these treatments are not any more effective than placebo. (Placebo is the result that happens when people think they are receiving therapy, but really are not.)



One of the ways to quit smoking has demonstrated slightly more benefit than formerly used ways. During one research study, smokers trialed shots to help them stop smoking by eliminating the pleasurable effects of the nicotine rush. This strategy, in the preliminary phases of testing for effectiveness, thus far appears to be helpful for 15% of the persons who tried it.



Hypnosis is a different approach to helping persons to stop smoking. Hypnosis concentrates on programming the unconscious mind to instantly substitute other behaviors to provide comfort and peace, rather than the nicotine dependency. It can also be used to erase or "extinguish" behavioral responses such as the link described between cigarettes and behaviors as described earlier, so the person who smokes no longer has the urge to smoke when in the places that used to trigger it.



Male clients seem to respond better to stop smoking hypnosis than female clients do. One advantage of self hypnosis stop smoking, however, is that, as opposed to persons use nicotine replacement as ways to stop smoking, there are no undesirable side effects.



One other benefit of hypnotherapy is that it addresses the 90 percent component of the dependence that is psychological, versus the other strategies that just work against the 10% aspect of the dependence that is physical. These facts cause hypnosis to have a much higher effectiveness than the previously mentioned methods of smoking cessation. Conventional hypnosis approaches can provide a 35 percent likelihood of success, while Ericksonian hypnotherapy can yield a fifty percent or greater effectiveness.



A more recent, innovative, and certainly better alternative that aids people to overcome a cigarette addiction is Neuro-Linguistic Programming, or NLP. This technique is far more successful than conventional forms of quit smoking hypnosis because it avoids reliance on post-hypnotic suggestions at all. The majority of clients, such as people who tend to be critical thinkers, do not respond well to post-hypnotic suggestions. With NLP, the unconscious is trained to focus on the identical mental processes that cause the psychological problem with cigarette use, to overcome it!



A good NLP stop smoking approach developed by a trained NLP Therapist can promise a positive outcome rate of up to 70 percent and higher.



Summary: The majority of smoking cessation programs attempt to employ nicotine replacement strategies as ways to stop smoking. Other techniques, like smoking cessation and cognitive or behavioral treatment approaches, attempt to coach the mind find ways to quit smoking.



Although hypnosis works much better than other approaches, primarily with male clients, it is not considered to be the most beneficial way to stop smoking. NLP, which focuses on the mental facets of nicotine dependency, actually aids persons to redirect their mental patterns and assist them stop most effectively.



Because 90 percent of an individual's problem with cigarettes is psychological in nature, these strategies are much more effective than merely giving the person nicotine and dealing with the 10% component of the problem that is physiological.



Conclusion: A number of smoking cessation programs, including nicotine replacement products and psychotherapy are available. These programs often work for fewer than one in five persons. In comparison, hypnotherapy results in a markedly greater rate of effectiveness. NLP is the most successful of all in helping people to successfully combat the mental component of their problem and realize much more success in their struggle to become smoke-free.