Stop Smoking Using The Mind

There are many ways to help you stop smoking using the powers of the mind, for example, options such as psychotherapy and hypnosis can help you stop smoking permanently and you don't need expensive counseling sessions with a professional. Any mixture of self-help and outside assistance can up your odds of a permanent change in behavior, one conducive to long-term health.

If you're considering psychotherapy, be aware that there are different metholologies so don't limit your choice to any one school of psychotherapy - there are a dozen or more. Use techniques from each to get you to your goal: quitting smoking permanently.

Hypnosis is a popular technique. It's been around since the 19th century as a therapeutic method. Though once associated with charlatans, contemporary professionals see a role for it in helping modify many behaviors. After all, the physical addiction associated with smoking is only one aspect. Long term change requires an adjustment to the mind.

Hypnosis involves making suggestions that are retained at a subconscious level. Those hidden triggers that encourage the choice to smoke can be combated by hypnosis instilling other triggers that oppose them or replace your old triggers to smoke with a more healthy and beneficial responses.

People's responsiveness to hypnosis varies widely. Some people respond immediately after only one session while others require repeated sessions. Most people, however, will experience a significant benefit after listening to the hypnosis session daily for at least two weeks. Again, this does not mean that you need to visit a hypnotherapist daily - you can order a recorded stop smoking by hypnosis session online and listen to it at home, or wherever and whenever is convenient for you. Such stop smoking audio sessions are also commonly available as a stop smoking CD that can also be ordered online.

Other, more conscious efforts are also desirable. Cognitive therapy for example, focuses on discovering and understanding those thoughts and ideas that are in our control. When they're examined carefully, they can be influenced by reference to fact and logic.

One way to use that approach is to make a list of all those events and objects associated with the decision to smoke. Write down the times you reach for a cigarette, and what prompted the choice. Is it a blind habit to light up right after waking up? Do you reach for a cigarette right after a meeting with the boss, who gives you yet another unpleasant assignment?

Looking for those triggers is the key to bringing them into conscious awareness, where they can be subject to conscious control. The approach is similar to traditional psychoanalysis - bringing items up from the subconscious.

Simply knowing what motivates you to smoke is only half the exercise. Doing something about it is equally important.

That can mean redirecting your focus onto other activities.

Instead of having a smoke to relieve stress, exercise for a few minutes. You're doing yourself a double favor. Foregoing one cigarette reduces by that small amount the habit that is injuring your health. Exercising is building it up in the direction toward health. Or, instead of reaching for a cigarette to accompany that beer or fine glass of wine, select a small piece of fruit, bread or chocolate.

In each case, the technique is to redirect that decision to smoke a cigarette. It moves onto something that helps both eliminate one smoking episode and presents a desirable yet healthy alternative.

All long-term behavior modification can only come from re-forming habits. There was a time when you didn't smoke. To reach that time again, develop a plan then carry it out, one choice at a time.