There is something very neat about the idea of quitting cigarettes via hypnosis. You take yourself and your 20 year tobacco habit, you allow your brain to be re-wired via CD's or the a swinging medallion, and bam! You're cured. But is it really as open and shut as this? Is hypnosis a legitimate method or is it pseudo-science? If it works, how does it work? These are the questions I'll be answering in this article.
Hypnosis is just one of many methods that can be used to help stop smoking. The most popular alternatives are to use nicotine gum, patches, incrementally cutting down on cigarettes, or just stopping cold turkey. What you should notice is that hypnosis is the only method that is psychology-driven; the other methods outlined focus on using physical aids or taking physical action. The supposition would be that smoking is a physical addiction, and this is precisely why I would recommend using hypnosis to quit smoking - because smoking is a psychological addiction first and foremost.
There is a wealth of anecdotal evidence to show that hardcore smokers of 30 years have been able to kick the habit overnight...with effortless ease. In the vast majority of these cases, the ex-smoker has used hypnotic methods to quit cigarettes. You will be hard-pressed to find many stories where the smoker has managed to easily quit cigarettes via a physical method such as nicotine patches.
So what makes hypnosis so special? Hypnosis essentially works by re-wiring your brain to enable you to change your paradigm towards certain actions, objects, situations or elements. Have you ever been in a situation where you have to do something you have an irrational fear of (e.g. public speaking)? Have you also noticed that as you step up to the plate, you may have repeated affirmations to yourself (e.g. "You can do this, you can do this")? On a very basic level, that is a form of self-hypnosis.
Hypnosis is still a highly-contentious issue in therapy and general medicine. Many doctors doubt its existence at all. However, as previously mentioned, there is plenty of anecdotal evidence in existence to show that it can make a huge difference to people's lives. If we spend a lifetime developing our beliefs about the world around us, then we can easily trick ourselves into thinking that these beliefs are "the truth" within our existence. If, however, we can question our beliefs and attitudes, then it is quite possible to undergo a complete transformation in a short period of time.
We often hear the advice "It's all in your head", and that would be one of the better truisms in life today. I had a 10 year smoking habit, taking in as many as 40 cigarettes a day. I unconditionally believed that it was impossible for me to exist without smoking, for a multitude of sub-reasons. However, I was able to quit within four hours of a hypnosis course on MP3 file format. What's more, it was a piece of cake, and I haven't desired a cigarette since then. Is that all baloney? I can assure you it wasn't. All that happened in that period of time was an untangling of all my previous beliefs about smoking, leaving me with a new perception of cigarettes.
Nicotine is actually one of the least physically-addictive substances out there. We can survive a 10 hour plane journey, a two hour trip to the cinema or eight hours in bed without physically needing a cigarette. Ironically, it is often when we think about cigarettes that we suddenly build the desire to smoke. Rather than being a physical dependency, it is now becoming increasingly acknowledged that smoking is a psychological dependency.
If you wish to quit smoking by hypnosis, then I would strongly urge you to give it a shot. You can get hypnosis courses on CD, on MP3 from online sites, or you can even arrange a face-to-face consultation with a professional. The benefits of using hypnosis to quit smoking are just too alluring to pass up without investigation - no physical dependency, no cravings, no mind games, and the possibility of quitting the habit within a few hours of starting the session. Ultimately the only way to find out whether hypnosis is a credible method to quit smoking or not is to try it yourself.
