Experience Being a 'HAPPY EX-SMOKER'.
You need to see yourself as a happy ex-smoker...
...before you can behave as one!
Stopping smoking can be easy for some lucky people; the majority of smokers are, quietly, scared stiff of not smoking - almost as if it is a 'reverse phobia'; many just can't see themselves as non-smokers and therefore carry on unhappily smoking and some find JUST BEING TOLD they are a non-smoker doesn't work, in fact it annoys them.
Smoking is about a mild addiction to nicotine
(which NRT advertisers told you you needed therapeutic nicotine to get off!)
and a perception of anxiety and fear.
© Duncan Murray B.Sc.(Hons), DCHyp,
ACertCSHyp, MSBST,
GQHP /
www.solent-hypnotherapy.co.uk and stopping-smoking.co.uk
'07-9
1, Woodview Cottages, Curbridge, Hampshire, SO30 2HB
Tel: 01489 787312 Mob: 07989 343802
or email using the Webmail form at the bottom of the page.
This website is an information resource for individuals wanting to stop smoking, therefore it is set out in 'essay' format rather than a multi page website with lovely 'wizz-bang' bits on it - it's aim is to give as accurate information as possible and therefore help smokers make informed decisions.
As for my reasonable prices - I don't charge 3 times my normal rate just because somebody is a smoker!
Using clinical hypnosis to help you remove the fear of stopping smoking before you stop
- specifically aimed at long-term and heavy smokers.
Stopping smoking in Hampshire
"Hypnosis is the most effective way of giving up smoking, according to the largest ever scientific comparison of ways of breaking the habit. Willpower, it turns out, counts for very little.” ."
(New Scientist vol 136 issue 1845 page 6)
I agree, in many ways, with the late Alan Carr that all you are feeling in wanting your next ‘ciggy’ is to top up the falling nicotine level from your last one – it is the last cigarette you had that makes you want the next one!
That is what the tobacco industry has been trying to hide from smokers for years –
Introduction
Society doesn’t help in its terminology of stopping smoking by referring to it as ‘Giving-up’ or being a 'Quitter’ - you give up something that you enjoy and like and if you are a ‘Quitter’ you can’t finish something and are perhaps seen as unreliable by others.
Even the NHS appears to advocate that smokers should be afraid – and not only suggest, but provide ‘Nicotine Replacement Therapy’ (Nicotine) to help them through it! But isn’t that like giving a Heroin Addict - heroin, or an Alcoholic - alcohol?
The thing is if you don't perceive yourself as a non-smoker or ex-smoker your chances of success are greatly reduced in stopping smoking. If your self-image/self-perception is still that of a smoker how do you think you can behave as a non-smoker and not smoke? You can't!!
Orr's Law states (in terms of self)
'What the Thinker thinks, the Prover proves'.
Before stopping smoking you need to learn see yourself as a non-smoker (or 'Happy Ex-smoker') and be happy with that image of yourself. Then:-
your mind
will prove
to you
that
you are
a happy ex-smoker.
Therefore in this smoking cessation programme, based in clinical hypnosis, you learn to think of yourself - and believe that you are - a happy ex-smoker before you stub out your last fag. This is not a matter of being told you are an ex-smoker (and a happy one to boot) but experiencing it for yourself - unlearning old bad habits and experiencing for yourself a new smoke free you, happily coping, without a crutch that you don't need or want any more.
Cigarettes, Addiction and Nicotine Effects
Don’t worry I am not going to bang on about smoking being a filthy habit that makes you and your clothes stink, robs you of years of your life, robs you of about £2000 a year (based on 20 per day), or about the 4000+ chemicals in cigarette smoke or the 43+ cancer causing chemicals (including polonium 210, benzene, formaldehyde etc) or the hydrogen cyanide, carbon monoxide and other poisons; and I am certainly not going to tell you that you have to stop doing it otherwise it will kill you – you know all that.
But why do you continue to do it?
The Mechanics of Smoking
Before lighting up the smoker has spent the last - however long - saying to him/herself ‘I need a fag’. This is because Nicotine has a half-life of 2 hours i.e. after 2 hours the amount of nicotine in your bloodstream has reduced to half of what it was when you finished the previous ‘ciggy’.
So the last cigarette you had creates the need for the next one you want - i.e. each ‘top-up’ of nicotine creates the next withdrawal! Smokers light a fag, inhale deeply, cough harshly (often bringing up a lump of phlegm), and say ‘that feels better’ as the nicotine causes the brain to let off a surge of dopamine.
Also to help the body ‘relax’ it also sets off the release of adrenaline (the ‘fight or flight’ neurochemical transmitter) increasing pulse rate and blood pressure; and dumps a massive increase in blood sugar levels to give the energy for running away/fighting.
To ‘help’ the fight or flight response the cigarette smoke also gives the body a dose of carbon monoxide that prevents the blood from being able to carry the much needed oxygen to the muscles and brain - really useful!
Smoking is purely and simply the learned behaviour of how to get nicotine to the brain
in the most efficient manner.
Smoking does NOT
help you relax because it raises your pulse rate and blood pressure, releases adrenaline into your bloodstream and makes you ready for a fight or flight response;
help you concentrate because it starves your body and brain of oxygen because of the carbon monoxide;
reduce anxiety because the falling level of nicotine causes its own anxiety;
make you look ‘cool’ or 'sexy' with an ‘adult’ version of a dummy sticking out of your mouth;
help your digestion after a meal – it increases acid reflux and irritates IBS;
increase the taste of food – it coats your tongue/taste buds and affects your sense of smell;
increase your wealth (unless you are a tobacco company); and it certainly will not
increase your life-expectancy!
So why do you continue to do it?
Nicotine
Have you ever known anyone get addicted to smoking herbal cigarettes?
The answer is NO! The thing about herbal cigarettes is that they just don’t contain NICOTINE.
Nicotine is a very effective poison, a highly toxic substance of which 30-60mg (the size of a drop of water) will kill you! Smokers all have learned ‘The Behaviour’ as to how to get that nicotine as efficiently as possible into the bloodstream and up to the brain – to get the ‘HIGH’ and/or anxiety removing effect that the neuro-chemical dopamine gives us. Dopamine occurs naturally in the body – in small amounts – it gives us a ‘wanting’ feeling and is related to a ‘reward/feel good’ feeling too. Also as the amount of nicotine in the body reduces, it causes its own anxiety. To put it simply - by taking nicotine you create a need for nicotine!
This is all part of the nicotine con – a ‘Honey Trap’ that is so simple and, believe it or not, one that ALL smokers have fallen for!
Like a prison sentence smokers feel chained to their cigarettes - feel panicky if they only have a couple left or if they are in an imposed 'No Smoking' environment. Smokers hate their habit and what it does to them, their health and the simple financial cost. Yet if confronted about their smoking will try to produce many reasons why they smoke – including enjoyment of something that makes them unhappy...
A Definition of Addiction: -
The use of a tolerance-inducing drug in sufficient quantity as to cause tolerance (the requirement being that greater dosages of a given drug be used to produce an identical effect as time passes). – or - the continued use of a given drug (by an individual) despite their own best interest.
What about the Addiction part?
Nicotine is highly addictive, right up there with heroin, crack cocaine and cocaine –
they all have a similar effect – Right?
Yes and No - nicotine traps you in its web of anxiety very quickly - BUT - the withdrawal symptoms of nicotine are quite different, one thing that does demonstrate this quite simply is that when you are asleep at night you can quite happily go for 8 hours (or more) without having to wake up to take more nicotine in to keep the level topped up.
In fact if you think about it in a normal night’s sleep of 7-8 hours the level of nicotine in your blood stream has fallen to 1/16 of what it was when we went to sleep – and you didn’t notice it at all – it didn’t disrupt your sleep. So the physical feelings must be quite mild.
It is the psychological/psychogenic aspects of withdrawal that prevent people giving up. Many people have an unconscious/conscious fear of not smoking - just think of what you are like if you can't find your 'fags', or you only have one or two left and it's late at night.
It's like a 'reverse' phobia - a fear of being without nicotine!
If you don't believe me about the fear aspect then think back to the nicotine gum/patches adverts - and the fear they help instil in you - with depictions of 'nicotine receptors' going bonkers when starved of nicotine!!
To understand how to beat nicotine addiction (because that is what the other half of smoking is!) – we have to understand one simple thing - that like all addictions it lives off us, does us no good whilst it lives off us and eventually will probably kill us.
Nicotine is an anxiety causing poison, that has a half-life of 2 hours and the very thing it does in our bodies
causes us to want more of it to maintain the same effect.
The tobacco industry knows this and as early as the 1960s Philip Morris (Marlboro etc) started putting ammonia (a toxic gas that in solution is used as an industrial cleaner) into cigarettes – WHY? – because it increases the effect of nicotine on the brain and increases the amount of dopamine released; they add a poison purely to increase the severity of the nicotine/dopamine trap!!
By the way if you don’t know what ammonia smells like...
.. it’s cats’ pee!
Now here comes the crux of the matter – why the number of cigarettes you smoke has increased and why trying to reduce the number of cigarettes smoked won’t work:–
Our bodies like to live in balance – it’s called homeostasis – and our brain has to do something about the amounts of dopamine that are being released as a result of the amount of nicotine we take in from smoking cigarettes –
so being sensible it desensitises the dopamine receptors so that the effects of the drugs are reduced.
Therefore when a smoker wants to ‘try to cut down’ - the amount of dopamine that can be acted on in the brain to make him/her feel good is reduced – therefore he/she feels a need for yet another dose of nicotine to get it back to where the nicotine habit has set the expected level at. A no win situation...
Just in Case You Still Think it is All About Nicotine
If it was all just about nicotine addiction why are nicotine gum, patches, inhalers etc so unsuccessful? A cigarette contains on average 0.8mg of nicotine - per piece of gum you start at 2mg almost 3 times more than a single fag and a 21mg patch (over 16 hours) has more nicotine than over 26 'Superking Blues'!!
Increasing your nicotine intake to reduce your dependence? - BUT many people on NRT still continue to have the odd cigarette or two! - Well effective! Often NRT doesn't work at all - why? Because it isn't just about nicotine, it is about habits and beliefs...
Increasing the Fear
Apart from, what I consider, to be highly unethical advertising by NRT manufacturers and an NHS that prescribes the poison to 'get you off the poison', thus furthering a myth that smoking is all about nicotine addiction and increasing the fear about stopping smoking, many of the ‘award winning’ advertising campaigns from brands such as Marlboro, Silk Cut and Benson & Hedges etc have been based on amplifying fears about stopping smoking;
Marlboro utilised vultures circling and the tag line of ‘Warning – Picnic Area’ and other adverts based around sex imagery/performance (subliminal but there);
Silk Cut used injury, stitches (and of course, sex) – i.e. you were more likely to have accidents or self-harm without the crutch of Silk Cut.
None, however, have been as blatant as the image of a mobile above a child’s cot – over the cot is an anvil and its counterweight is a pack of King Size – the very clear message is that – ‘if you take away the fags you will harm your child’.
That advert (which I haven't yet found on the internet) was specifically aimed at young mothers...but...here are a few of B&H's beauties...
...and yes, smoking weakens your gums and causes your teeth to fall out, it is like a mousetrap and finally, made to look as attractive as a bird in a gilded cage - still a prisoner!
The tobacco industry even used their advertising to try to scare people away from the very effective intervention of hypnosis in helping people becoming happy ex-smokers, below is another example from Benson and Hedges...
...need I say more?!!
Where Hypnotherapy Fits In
Hypnotherapy can be a very effective intervention as it can really help an individual cope - in advance - learn how to happily cope and learn how to get rid of those fears - remove those fears altogether through you learning to be a happy ex-smoker; it can even help you celebrate any residual withdrawal effects as your body clears out the poisons.
In essence smoking cigarettes is purely and simply the learned behaviour of how to get nicotine to the brain in the most efficient manner –
Learned behaviour because all you have to do is remember how difficult it was to stop yourself coughing and being sick when you first started! It also takes approximately a few seconds for the inhaled nicotine to cross the blood/brain barrier - pretty efficient.
No smoker is addicted to smoking per se – think of the herbal cigarettes – ALL smokers are mildly addicted to nicotine, its release of dopamine in the brain and reducing the self-perpetuating anxiety caused by nicotine - BUT they are ALL ALSO caught in a trap of habits, beliefs and fear. All of which can be easily reframed or removed in hypnosis. Therapeutic hypnosis can remove a life-long phobia in less than an hour, can change habits and beliefs just as easily, can encourage new learning on a fundamental level and can positively use hypnotic phenomena to help you see your present and future self as a Happy Ex-smoker. "What the Thinker thinks, the Prover proves" - through hypnosis the individual can learn to see themselves as a happy ex- (or non-) smoker and then start behaving as one by not smoking as there will be no inner conflict.
The moment a smoker understands that...stopping smoking is easier and fear free.
Time since stopping smoking and the beneficial health changes that take place
-
20 minutes - Blood pressure and pulse rate return to normal.
-
8 hours - Reduction in Nicotine and carbon monoxide levels in the blood to 1/16 and 1/2 respectively, oxygen levels return to normal.
-
24 hours - Carbon monoxide will be eliminated from the body. Lungs start to clear out mucus and other smoking debris.
-
48 hours - There is no nicotine left in the body. Ability to taste and smell is greatly improved.
-
72 hours - Breathing becomes easier. Bronchial tubes begin to relax and energy levels increase.
-
2 - 12 weeks - Circulation improves.
-
3 - 9 months - Coughs, wheezing and breathing problems improve as lung function is increased by up to 10%.
-
1 year - Risk of a heart attack falls to about half that of a smoker.
-
10 years - Risk of lung cancer falls to half that of a smoker.
-
15 years - Risk of heart attack falls to the same as someone who has never smoked.
For further information on hypnosis you can go to http://www.solent-hypnotherapy.co.uk
...it's your goal - not mine, but I can help you achieve it...
...by helping you experience yourself as a happy ex-smoker before you stop smoking for good.
Use my single or four session approach, which is based in clinical hypnosis,
depending on the pace YOU choose, I can help you
LEARN TO BE A HAPPY EX-SMOKER;
Helping YOU in Breaking Free from your Smoking Habit/Nicotine Addiction
at only £50 per hour.
If an individual wants to achieve their outcomes in a single session this would take 2 hours and cost £100.00; however to ensure that all the individual's issues are covered I often recommend a four session approach - at the same hourly rate as my normal consultation fee of £50.00p.h. This brings the total cost for a 1 x 2 hour session and 3 x weekly 1/2 hour sessions to £175.00. *
To book an appointment call Duncan Murray B.Sc.(Hons), DCHyp, ACertCSHyp, MSBST, GQHP
on
01489 787312 or 07989 343802
Duncan Murray, B.Sc.(Hons), DCHyp, ACertCSHyp, MSBST, GQHP
1, Woodview Cottages, Curbridge, Hampshire, SO30 2HB
Tel: 01489 787312 Mob: 07989 343802
© Duncan Murray/stopping-smoking.co.uk 2007-8 a website of http://www.solent-hypnotherapy.co.uk
www.stopping-smoking.co.uk - stopping smoking in Hampshire, stoppingsmoking in Hampshire, Smoking Cessation Therapy, quitting smoking, giving up, cigarettes, smokers, ex-smokers, ex-smoker, hypnotherapy, stopping smoking, quitter, professional, in Hampshire and Surrey working in Hampshire Southampton, Portsmouth, Winchester, Surrey, Eastleigh, Locks Heath, Park Gate, Whiteley, Warsash, Hamble, West Meon, East Meon, Bishops Waltham, Wickham, Fareham, Stubbington, Titchfield, Funtley, Botley, Hedge End
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