In general, there are two types of smokers – those who smoke purely out of habit and those who smoke to temporarily distract themselves from an uncomfortable feeling such as anxiety, loneliness, boredom or another emotion. Hypnotherapy can help in both cases - read on to learn how...
Type 1 - The Habititual Smoker
If you smoke from habit you respond to triggers which activate the habit – the sight of a packet of cigarettes, being in an environment where you usually smoke, socialising with friends, having a cuppa or after a meal are some examples. Typically you will have smoked for less than 10 years. You will probably have stopped smoking by yourself on one or more occasions but have returned to the habit after some time, finding that one of your personal triggers to smoke was activated again and you smoked “just one” which led to another, and you know where that led you!
Habits are formed mainly be repetition, so when you first learned to associate having a cigarette with a comfortable feeling - after finishing a meal for example, and you did that a few times, you established a pattern of thought and behaviour which became re-enforced over time and eventually became embedded in your subconscious as a habit.
It's like making an engraving on a piece of metal – the first time you may only make a light scraping on the metal but if you go over the same scraping a number of times you will make a deeper inscription which is hard to remove.
The Institute of Clinical Hypnotherapy and Psychotherapy Stop Smoking Programme is a proven approach to helping you stop smoking. 1-2 sessions are usually sufficient to become smoke free if you smoke purely from habit, or up to 4 sessions if you smoke as a distraction or a comforter. A re-enforcement CD is supplied which should be listened to daily for at least 30 days, so that the smoking habit pattern is completely eradicated and the subconscious mind is re-programmed with more healthy habits in replacement.
Type 2 – The Distraction or Comfort Smoker
You may find that you smoke to distract from an uncomfortable feeling inside you such as anxiety, loneliness or boredom, in addition to having formed the habit of lighting up at certain times such as after a meal. You may also find that you smoke as a comforter, as a relaxation aid or view cigarettes as a friend.
You may have tried to quit on your own but have found it too upsetting or stressful to be without cigarettes.
This means that your subconscious mind has developed smoking as a way of temporarily removing discomfort or stress. The key word here is temporarily, because there is no way that a cigarette can permanently remove an uncomfortable feeling inside or reduce stress in the long term – it is simply a distracter and when the temporary effect of the cigarette fades the feelings return. Then you need another cigarette to distract again, then it wears off and so the cycle continues.
There are many and varied reasons for the origin of the feelings you are trying to distract from or pacify and to stop smoking permanently we need to get to the root cause of those feelings and neutralise them.
The Institute of Clinical Hypnotherapy and Psychotherapy Stop Smoking Programme is a proven approach to helping you stop smoking. From 2 to 4 sessions are usually necessary if you smoke as a distraction or a comforter. However 2 sessions are usually sufficient to become smoke free if you smoke purely from habit. A re-enforcement CD is supplied which should be listened to daily for at least 30 days, so that the smoking habit pattern is completely eradicated and the subconscious mind is re-programmed with more healthy habits in replacement.
Helen Ryle MICHP is a qualified hypnotherapist, psychotherapist and energy psychologist who runs the Institute's Stop Smoking Programme at the New Horizons Clinic in Collis-Sandes House, Tralee, Co. Kerry, Ireland. For further information and brochure please contact Helen on +35387 7734 914 or through the website at www.hypnotherapyireland.net.