Smoking & Hypnotherapy : The Basics Explained
May 12th, 2010 . by stop smoking guestIf you want to stop smoking, but are having trouble doing so, then you might want to consider taking a different approach - hypnosis. You have probably tried nicotine patches and nicotine gum before, and whilst they are helpful, for most people they are not enough. The reason being that they do not change your thoughts and habits, which you need to do if you want to stop smoking for more than a few days / weeks / months at a time. By using hypnosis to stop smoking, you can reach your subconscious mind, and stop your habit at its root cause.
Hypnosis for stopping smoking provides two major advantages. One is minimized stress, and the other is effecting change in perceptions, beliefs and associations towards smoking cigarettes, thus allowing elimination of the smoking addiction. Several studies have shown that utilizing hypnotherapy to quit smoking works in a substantial proportion of cases. While hypnotherapy might not be for everyone, it can certainly help with reducing stress, which is one of the reasons a lot of smokers say that they smoke cigarettes in the first place.
Unfortunately, there is a lot of myth and speculation surrounding hypnotherapy, which is why some people are reluctant to try it to stop smoking. They have only previously seen it on TV or at a show, and think it little more than a gimmick. In reality though, hypnosis is used in many different fields to help people overcome their problems. Many, many people have overcome phobias and ended addictions because of it.
Just to clarify what precisely hypnosis is - it is a targeted form of relaxation. In other words, hypnotism enables a person to relax, whilst concentrating on a particular problem or desired outcome. It is not just unwinding or falling asleep. While having hypnotherapy, you relax your mind and body, moving past the guard of your conscious mind, to the subconscious mind.
If you can learn to control and direct your subconscious mind, which hypnotherapy allows you to do, then you can turn what is in your imagination into what your brain accepts as reality. Put simply, if you imagine yourself to be a non-smoker, then you brain may accept it as a reality, and you will lose the urges to smoke that you experience at the moment.
Using specific imagery and words, a hypnotherapist will slowly guide you into the depths of your subconscious mind. They will make suggestions to you that will lead to you thinking of yourself as a non-smoker. You can achieve a similar effect using relevant CDs and DVDs, but having one on one sessions with a hypnotherapist will increase the speed of your progress.
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