Quitting Smoking hypnotherapy

Ever since stopping smoking became popular (and healthy) there seems to be no end of options out there to help someone to quit. Quitting smoking for many people is a real challenge and deciding how to quit can be both confusing and difficult.

You may have heard about hypnotherapy as a way to help you stop smoking but not really sure of how it works and perhaps more importantly whether it would work for you.

For most people, hypnosis equates with something mystic and magical. To many of us, the word hypnosis translates as a form of ‘mind control’ where the person (or victim) is unconscious and their mind has been taken over by the hypnotist. After all we have all seen the entertainment side of hypnosis on stage and TV shows. However, be assured, hypnosis cannot make you do anything against your will.

Some people believe that by coming to see a hypnotherapist for quitting smoking they will be cured instantly of their addiction without any thought or effort on their part.

As a clinical hypnotherapist I often am greeted with these expectations.

What hypnotherapy can and cannot do in your quest to stop smoking.

Hypnotherapy is a therapy that uses hypnosis. The experience of being hypnotised is being in an altered state of awareness. It is a state of deep relaxation whilst at the same time being fully aware. Hypnosis is a natural phenomenon that all of us go through naturally several times a day. It is not sleep and you will certainly not be unconscious. In fact your brain will experience a high level of neurological activity. Daydreaming is a common experience most of us have. We are aware of our physical surroundings but our mind is elsewhere. This is a similar experience to what we commonly call an hypnotic state or trance.

In fact when hypnotised you will be aware of everything around you, whilst at the same time feeling intensely relaxed. You will be in complete control of yourself and will most certainly not do anything against your will. You will become more aware of unhealthy thoughts about smoking as they are brought to the surface. These thoughts are then replaced by positive thoughts with suggestion about the benefits of not smoking.

Your mind automatically wants you to live and will protect you from harm. When I apply hypnotherapy to quitting smoking, I introduce suggestions that smoking is bad for you. That smoking is not something you want to do and that any association with smoking is to be avoided.

Positive suggestions help you make specific choices about smoking.

Suggestions that plant the idea that smoking is dangerous for your health are put to your subconscious. Further suggestions on the benefits you will recieve by not smoking help to persuade your mind to avoid smoking altogether.

Hypnotherapy also helps in breaking the habit of smoking. I use techniques from NLP (neuro-linguistic programming), visualisation, and anchoring, to break behavioural and emotional associations to smoking. The mind will embrace new associations and will work with you instead of against you. I will also teach you how you can use self-hypnosis to help you remain a permanent non-smoker.

So what are the benefits of hypnotherapy to quit smoking?

Hypnotherapy is a natural process which helps your mind work against smoking. It does not use drugs, patches, chemicals or props as part of the treatment. You don’t even need to have strong willpower to succeed. You just need to want to stop and be unwilling to smoke. Most people respond well to hypnotherapy. All you need is to want to quit smoking and be willing to co-operate fully with the treatment. Studies have shown that hypnotherapy is actually one of the most successful ways to stop smoking.