Does Hypnosis Work to Help You Quit Smoking

There are many tools that smokers can use to help them break their unhealthy habit. Some like to use medications, others find that nicotine replacements are handy, and still others just drop the habit cold turkey.

Recently, there has been much talk about the beneficial effects of hypnosis especially for getting rid of the habit of smoking. However, many doubt whether it is really helpful.

Hypnosis: the Facts

Hypnosis is a method by which the mind is brought to the state of total relaxation so that it becomes open to suggestion. It cuts out extraneous thoughts and creates a sort of altered state in the mind.

Achieving this state of a calm using breathing and visualization techniques, the hypnotist puts new ideas across to the patient to discourage smoking. They could be ideas about the benefits of quitting. Or about the health hazards of not quitting. But the outcome is that the old patterns of thinking are disrupted with newer, better suggestions.

The new ideas planted in the patient's subconscious have a double benefit. They help the person to relax and at the same time give the courage of conviction to resist the temptation of smoking.

Some patients might need more than just one session to quit for good. But there are reports of many successes! many who people wanted to have quit the habit using hypnosis.

What hypnosis isn't

Hypnosis is a method of changing the thought pattern but it should not be mistaken for a cure for smoking. It can certainly redirect the habit into something healthier and more positive but the behavior of the patient needs to be monitored. Basically, you need to work consciously to resist the temptation and create a new lifestyle.

The best way to go about it is to incorporate hypnosis as part of your overall quit-smoking program. Combining it with other methods, you can achieve you goal and quit forever. It will also help to do things you find relaxing in the day.

Especially when you want to analyze your feelings about smoking. And want to come up with alternative ways to reinforce a smoke-free life.

The best results can be achieved if hypnosis is used along with other therapies to stop smoking for good. If you can find other ways to relax during the day you will look at other alternatives to smoking and lead a nicotine free life.

Be your own hypnotist.

Find a relaxing music CD and close your eyes. Relax your body completely and think about what you want your life to be life. You want to be free of smoking and you want to be healthy. Repeat these thoughts over and over and then slowly open your eyes.

If you can do this on a regular basis, you will help to create new synapses in your brain and create new responses to situations that would have led you to smoke.