SMOKE BLOG

Quit Smoking Hypnosis Method

Quit smoking hypnosis therapy can help you to kick the habit once and for all. Whether you have been a lifelong smoker, or if you have just been smoking for a few years, quitting smoking can be the most important thing you ever do. There are a variety of quit smoking products and medicines that help to reduce cravings. However, some people prefer natural quit smoking methods such as acupuncture or laser treatments. Perhaps the most popular of all natural quit smoking aids is the quit smoking hypnosis method.

Made popular during the mid 1980’s, the quit smoking hypnosis method involves participating in a series of sessions with a licensed hynotherapist. The hypnotherapist eases the patient into a relaxed state of consciousness during which time he or she suggests a series of negative statements regarding smoking. Because a hypnotized person is highly susceptible to suggestion, these statements can help the smoker to quit smoking.

Some hypnotherapists use relaxation techniques on their patients instead of suggestion therapy. They create an environment of deep relaxation that stays with the patient long after he or she awakens from hypnosis. This helps give quit smoking support by keeping the patient calm throughout the day, making him or her less likely to reach for a cigarette during moments of stress.

There is a lot of controversy regarding quit smoking hypnosis. For instance, some doctors claim that it does little to help people quit smoking. These non-believers claim that most of the positive reports regarding hypnosis therapy come from the therapists themselves. However, there are many patients who claim that hypnosis is one of the best ways to quit smoking. Those who have tried other methods like the patch or nicotine gum claim that hypnosis allows them to quit smoking in a more natural way without continuing their reliance on nicotine.

In addition to quit smoking hypnosis, there are also other natural quit smoking methods. Laser smoking stop therapy is one popular method that involves triggering energy points on the body with a cool beam laser.

People who use these quit smoking methods believe that the lasers stimulate the immune system and release endorphins making the smoker less likely to crave a cigarette throughout the day. This same principle is used to explain acupuncture cessation smoking treatments. Once again, pressure is applied to various points on the body, triggering a positive response that cuts down on a person’s nicotine cravings.

Of all the popular natural treatments for smoking cessation, quit smoking hypnosis is one of the most used. It is a bit more expensive than over the counter chemical products, but its benefits are natural, and you can immediately reduce your desire for nicotine.

However, hypnosis does not work on everyone, so it is important not to give up if it is not the best quit smoking way for you.

Most people who quit smoking worry about gaining weight. It seems to go with the territory. While a small gain is normal, excessive weight gain when you quit smoking can create new health problems and erode your determination to stay off cigarettes. Learn what you can do to keep your weight under control as you go through the process of recovery from nicotine addiction.

Why do people gain weight when they quit smoking?

Smoking increases metabolism slightly:
Smoking burns up to 200 calories a day in a heavy smoker
Because smoking burns calories, metabolism is boosted (increased) slightly
Nicotine is an appetite suppressant
When you quit smoking, a gain of between 5 and 10 pounds during the first few months of cessation is normal. If your eating habits have remained the same as they were when you smoked, you can easily shed this small gain with a brisk, 30 minute walk daily.

Why do I want to eat more?
Smoking cessation throws our bodies into shock initially. Increased appetite is a side effect of quitting tobacco for most people. One or more of the following reasons may be at play:
Cigarettes as an appetite suppressant - Smokers often avoid between meal snacking by lighting up. Nicotine is a stimulant, and may also interfere with the release of the hormone insulin. Insulin controls glucose levels in the blood. When this function is blocked, a person will become slightly hyperglycemic, and as a result, the body and brain may slow down the hormones and other signals that trigger feelings of hunger.
Food as a replacement for smoking - early on in a person’s quit, the urge to smoke is frequent and uncomfortable. It’s natural to look for something to ease the discomfort, and food is often used as a replacement. Not only does it fill the void left by the cigarette, food can be an emotional comfort, easing the pain of withdrawal.
Studies have shown that women are at greater risk than men for returning to smoking as a way to avoid weight gain. Understanding what happens to our bodies when we quit smoking, and what we can do to alleviate discomforts in constructive ways that do not involve weight gain will help you stay on track.

What can I do to avoid gaining weight when I quit smoking?
There are a number of choices you can make to minimize weight gain:

Exercise
Because quitting smoking slows the metabolism, getting some form of daily exercise is very important. To combat excess weight, shoot for at least a half hour of exercise, 5 days a week. It doesn’t have to be a high intensity aerobic workout - a brisk 30 minute walk around your neighborhood will work wonders. Exercise is also a great way to beat cravings to smoke. If you’re having a bad day, get out for a walk. It’ll clear your mind and improve your attitude.

Have healthy snacks on hand!
Put snacks together ahead of time so that when the munchies hit, you’ve got good food choices within easy reach:
vegetable sticks - celery, carrot
94% fat free popcorn
sunflower seeds in the shell
Water - drink lots of it!
hard candies to suck on
fresh fruit
fat free yogurt
herbal teas
hot cocoa made with nonfat milk
frozen grapes
fat free fudgecicles
If you’re concerned about weight gain, do yourself a favor and remove tempting, high fat foods from your home. Don’t have a chocolate cake on the counter begging you to cut a slice! If you have an intense craving for a hot fudge sundae, it’s better to go out and have one at a restaurant than it is to keep all of the ingredients to make it on hand in the house.

Avoid drinking alcohol
Not only is alcohol high in calories, it can be a huge trigger to smoke. For many people, smoking and drinking go together like a hand in a glove. Avoid the empty calories in alcohol, but more importantly, don’t put yourself at risk of relapse by drinking early in your quit.

One thing at a time
Many people quit smoking and decide it’s time to clean their lives up in other areas as well. That’s great, but be careful. If you try to do too many self-improvement projects at once, you run the risk of failing at all of them.

Keep these things in mind:
Be good to yourself. Quitting tobacco is a huge accomplishment, and you should reward yourself for your progress often. Don’t underestimate the magnitude of what you are doing!
Be patient. Quitting smoking is a process over time. It doesn’t happen overnight, but in comparison to the number of years most of us smoked, recovery from this addiction is short. Give yourself the time you need to heal.
Accept yourself. You are a wonderful person just as you are right now!
If you gain a few pounds while going through the process of quitting tobacco, so be it. The benefits will affect your life as well as those who love you in more ways than you can imagine. You can quit smoking without gaining a lot of weight. Don’t let the fear of weight gain keep you chained to an addiction that will kill you, given the chance.
Weight can be lost, lungs cannot.

Have you decided to stop smoking? It doesn’t have to be hard! One of the keys for breaking the habit once and for all is to tap into the power of your mind. Here are some tips to help you succeed.

1. Make quitting smoking your number one goal. Rather than having a long list of different goals, make quitting smoking your number-one top priority. By focusing on quitting smoking as your most important goal, you increase your chances of success.

2. Keep the end result in mind. Focus on how much better your life will be as a non-smoker. Think about how you’ll be able to breathe better and your energy level will increase. Imagine all the things you can do with the money
you’ll save each year by not purchasing cigarettes. And most importantly, focus on how you’ll add many; many healthy years to your life, so you can do all the things you’ve wanted to do, spending time with people you care about. Make a long list of all the positive benefits of being a non-smoker!

3. Make it easier on yourself. Think of ways that you can make quitting easier for yourself. Can you quit with a friend or family member? Could you ask a co-worker to go for a quick walk with you on breaks and avoid the smoking area? Could you take a smoking cessation class? Could you learn self-hypnosis? Could you stock up on fruit, veggies, or sugar free gum?

4. Make a commitment to yourself. Plan the date and time that you will smoke your last cigarette. Make this promise to yourself as if your life depends on it. Why? Because it does! Write down the “sneaky tricks” that could try to lure you in for “just one” smoke (you know, the things that have triggered you in the past). Write down your strategy for outsmarting these sneaky triggers.

5. Put your plan in writing. Write down everything you’ve thought of while reading this article, plus any other ideas that you believe will help you to remain smoke free. More ideas: stay away from other smokers for a while; get rid of your cigarettes and ashtrays; ask a friend to call you every day for moral support.

6. Flip off negative thoughts like a switch. Instead of thinking, “This is hard” change it to “Its getting easier and easier”. You could even come up with your own mantra. My favorites: “I take care of health.”; “I can handle this.”; “I can do it!” Have a positive statement you can say to yourself throughout the day to keep you on track.

7. Give yourself rewards. Why not have a quit jar and put all the money that you would have spent on cigarettes in it? You could save up for a tropical vacation or a down payment on that new sports car. Think of a nice reward to give yourself for being smoke free for one day, one week, one month, and so on! Mark them on your calendar so you have something to look forward to.

8. Approach quitting with a “I can. I will. I must.” attitude. If your child or loved one was burning in a building and you were the only one there to get them out, would you just “give it a try?” Would you simply “give it a shot?” Or would you “give it everything you’ve got?” Of course you would do anything and everything, whatever it took. Well, aren’t you worth the same? So approach quitting smoking with the same attitude, because you’re truly saving your own life - you’re worth it!

9. Visualize your way to success. Every morning and evening, close your eyes for a few moments and rehearse in your mind how you will say “no” to any temptations to having a cigarette, and notice how good it feels to be in control of your triggers and urges. Also, picture and imagine yourself as a happy non-smoker for 3 to 5 minutes each day. See yourself as happy, healthy and active doing all the things you love to do.

10. Learn to Manage Stress. Stress is everywhere, and while we think that cigarettes help us to relax, in reality, nicotine is a stimulant to the body. During the first few days of quitting, you will likely have thoughts to have a cigarette when you feel stressed. Learning to take long, deep breaths throughout the day can be a good start. If you can learn to tackle stress, you can tackle kicking the habit much more easily.

Innovative medication: Chantix, the newest stop-smoking drug, short-circuits nicotine’s ability to activate the pleasure centers in the brain, so lighting up is less enjoyable. According to the National Cancer Institute, more stop-smoking drugs (and possibly even a vaccine that makes nicotine unappealing) could hit the market within five years.

A new way to use the patch: A study in Nicotine and Tobacco Research suggests that smokers who start the patch two weeks before they quit may double their success rate. (Talk to your doctor, because this trick risks exposing your body to a dangerous amount of nicotine if you smoke a lot while wearing the patch.)

Starting Early

Pro Smoking Blog

In a growing trend, More employers are testing potential hires to see if they smoke. One such company, Homac Co. the maker of electrical connectors, “has been testing prospective employees for nicotine, just as it does for drugs and alcohol.”

What….? First of all drugs are ILLEGAL so you can maybe understand the need for testing. Smoking on the other hand is perfectly LEGAL. How can the two even compare?

Secondly, alcohol can impair your senses and your ability to work (the same goes for drugs) so you can probably understand the need for testing. Cigarettes on the other hand DOES NO SUCH THING! Since when did you see someone stumbling down the street because they smoked a cigarette?

Putting nicotine in the same sentence as drugs and alcohol is an insult to my intelligence.

In the same news story it states “the company has been weeding out smokers and promoting a wellness program for other workers to control double-digit increases in health-care costs.”

Well, what about fat people? Can it not be argued that people who are overweight are a burden to the healthcare system? Are you going to test their cholesterol levels and deny them a job if they don’t meet your criteria? And who will set that criteria?

Sorry mam, but your too fat. Now you go on home and eat your twinkies cause your not working for me….

Are you going to give people a test to see if they ate ice cream and potato chips? Can I sue the ice cream and potato chip companies because their products have denied me a job? Can I sue Big Tobacco because they “hooked” me on their product which has denied me a job. Better yet, can I sue the prospective employer instead?

What a can of worms this can open in a lawsuit happy country such as ours.

Where does it all end?

The same news story states: “We got a lot of people telling us it was not fair. But is it fair to cut benefits for everyone because of a personal choice? And smoking is a personal choice.”

Well being gay is a personal choice too. You can choose not be gay if you want. Can I deny someone employment because they are gay?

Being anti-war is a personal choice. Can I deny employment because I don’t agree with their anti-war stance or because of their political affiliations?

Conversely, if I am an employer, can i hire smokers only and deny non-smokers employment? Hey, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander… right?

Where does it all end?

Fat people, gay people, whatever people can sue for discrimination for being denied employment. Any discrimination lawsuit smokers may bring will most likely be laughed out of court. It’s just the way our society is right now.

The masses have been dumbed down and brainwashed by politicians, special interest groups and the media into accepting the treatment of a class of people (smokers) as inferior and have in effect relegated us to leper status.

We have trouble getting jobs, or places to live because of smoking. We can’t smoke in social settings outside of our home. We are kicked out to the street in rain, snow and sub-zero temperatures just to have a smoke. We are scammed out of our hard earned money (cigarette taxes) to pay for the services of the majority…

I don’t know, how discriminatory can you get?

Where does it all end?

Concentration Camps…?

errrrr…. excuse my political incorrectness. I meant to say…

Health Camps?

Taken from the Pro Smoking Blog

You CAN quit smoking. Quitting smoking has immediate as well as long-term benefits for you and your loved ones. The resources listed below discuss the benefits of quitting and provide helpful guidance.

For additional support in quitting, including free quit coaching, a free quit plan, free educational materials, and referrals to local resources, call 1-800-QUIT-NOW (1-800-784-8669); TTY 1-800-332-8615.

What’s in a Cigarette?
Your body gets more than nicotine when you smoke.

There are more than 4,000 chemicals in cigarette smoke. Some of them are also in wood varnish, the insect poison DDT, arsenic, nail polish remover, and rat poison.

The ashes, tar, gases, and other poisons in cigarettes harm your body over time. They damage your heart and lungs. They also make it harder for you to taste and smell things, and fight infections.

Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Reducing Tobacco Use: A Report of the Surgeon General. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2000.

Those of you who smoke have double the risk of dying from coronary heart disease (CHD) as do those who have never smoked. Your risk for stroke is also doubled. The risk of developing CHD rises with increasing exposure to cigarette smoke, as measured by the number of cigarettes smoked daily, the total number of years one has smoked, the degree of inhalation, and how early in life one started smoking. Smoking in conjunction with other risk factors such as low HDL cholesterol and/or hypertension dramatically increases CHD risk. Women who use oral contraceptives and who smoke increase their risk of myocardial infarction by approximately tenfold. cigarette smoking has been found to elevate the risk of sudden death syndrome significantly.

Smoking cigarettes causes 1,000 Americans to die each day. It is the single most important preventable cause of death in the United States. One out of every six deaths in the U.S. is related to smoking. In 1990, 26% of all Americans smoked cigarettes. Chances are you are a smoker, have been, or know someone who is a smoker.