Showing posts with label stop smoking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stop smoking. Show all posts

Saturday, 28 July 2007

Quit smoking tips: 10 more pearls of wisdom!

When you decide to have another try at forgoing the evil weed, you can always benefit from some quit smoking tips. Wouldn't life be wonderful if you could quit smoking whenever you pleased? Well, unfortunately, life isn't that easy but in the mean time, here are some pearls of wisdom that may help you quit smoking.

Quit smoking tip #1: Write a list of all the reason why you want to smoke. It will be short. Write a list of all the reasons you want to quit smoking. It will be long. Keep both lists with you all times.

Quit smoking tip #2: For every reason you think of you want to quit, write it on a piece of paper about 3 inches long (the length of a cigarette). Roll it up and put it in an empty packet of the cigarettes you like to smoke. You should be able to get about 15 in the packet easily. Every time you want a cigarette, read a reason instead.

Quit smoking tip #3: Talk yourself into believing the next cigarette you smoke will be the one that gives you lung cancer. It won't seem so attractive!

Quit smoking tip #4: Consider buying products to help you quit smoking. There are many on the market and if they come with a money-back guarantee, you have nothing to lose except the smokes!

Quit smoking tip #5: You will suffer from nicotine withdrawal symptoms. Don't let these symptoms cloud your judgement as to why you chose to quit smoking.

Quit smoking tip #6: Never use nicotine replacement therapy. There is no way that you can overcome the addiction to nicotine by getting it in another delivery system.

Quit smoking tip #7: Understand that you will not be able to quit until you actually genuinely want to quit. It is no good trying to quit smoking just because you know you 'should' quit because it is bad for you.

Quit smoking tip #8: Watch what you eat. You may start eating between meals when you used to smoke. You will get fat if you continue to do this. Drink plenty of fruit juice for the first three days and then plenty of water - stay off the sugary drinks thereafter.

Quit smoking tip #9: Don't think about smoking. If you thin you are missing out on something you will just be torturing yourself.

Quit smoking tip #10: Never doubt your reasons for quitting nor doubt your ability to quit.

There are a plethora of products available to help people quit smoking. Some commentators cynically suggest that they are all useless. I believe that there is no one 'fix-all' cure for smoking. Some people will benefit from drug programs such as Chantix or Zyban, others from cognitive behavioural therapy and others from hypnosis.

My argument is that people should try any and every method they can because the benefits of quitting smoking make it worthwhile. But whatever you do, never stop trying to quit.

Pete Howells has written the EasyQuit System that will help any smoker quit tobacco. He also blogs quit smoking advice at http://quit-smoking-motivator.blogspot.com Visit http://easyquitsystem.com/ to find out more about his incredible process for quitting smoking that boasts 96% customer satisfaction.

Monday, 23 July 2007

Quit smoking cold turkey: Why it is better to use your mind

To quit smoking cold turkey, i.e. without the aid of pills or false cigarettes or herbal remedies, is often thought to be the most difficult ways to quit smoking. However, there is one specific reason why to quit smoking cold turkey is far and away the best type of method to use. The reason is simply long term success.

There are a vast number of options available to quit smoking on the internet and through health service providers. To name just a few, you can quit smoking using hypnosis, or nicotine replacement therapy or using zyban (wellbutrin or bupropion) or chantix (champix or varenicline).

These methods are all thought to improve your chances of quitting smoking in the first instance. Indeed there is a wealth of studies that show when you use these methods, your chances of quitting improve significantly. However, it is only when we look at the longer term that we find the initial success rates fall off and the long term success becomes poorer than the quit smoking cold turkey method.

The point is that initially, people who try to quit smoking using these pharmaceutical methods or even hypnosis, bio resonance or acupuncture may indeed be more successful than those who quit smoking cold turkey. In the long term though, these quitters have a lower success rate. It is much like the hare and the tortoise.

The tortoise is the quit smoking cold turkey type who has a very low success rate initially, but those who successfully quit using this method, rarely turn back. On the other hand, the hares rush off successfully stopping and then later, they struggle with their quit. But why is this?

Well, anecdotally, I know of people who have both succeeded and failed using hypnosis. I know few who have even tried to quit smoking using zyban or chantix. I also know (and was one) of many who have succeeded then failed with nicotine replacement therapy gum, patches, lozenges an inhalators.

With NRT and Zyban and Chantix, there is no ‘understanding’ of smoking. It is just 'magic'! Well, actually it is not magic but the people who try this method live in the vain hope that this medicine will solve all their smoking problems. It won’t because their heads are not 'straight'. Because they haven't addressed their emotional relationship with smoking and nicotine, they struggle in the long term to overcome their reliance upon tobacco. Hence they resort to smoking at a later time.

With respect to hypnosis, the most common approach is to use hypnosis to re-align your emotional response to cigarettes. This is done through the subconscious mind and again fails to address the emotional relationship between the smoker and their cigarettes.

When people attempt to quit smoking cold turkey, they have to deal with the emotional strain of quitting smoking. There are no supports or props to keep their mental fortitude in shape. These quitters have to take on the emotional roller coaster of the quit, head on.

By doing this, they become incredibly strong and durable to the challenge of quitting smoking. The challenge of beating their addiction to nicotine strengthens their resolve. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I cannot say how each individual quitter quits successfully when they quit smoking cold turkey. Everyone is different and so whether it is coping with cravings, realising they don't enjoy smoking or just turning their backs on cigarettes, it is different for each and everyone.

What I can say though is that most people who quit smoking cold turkey are happier than those who resort to other methods to help them. I can also tell you that most smokers who quit smoking cold turkey will have found one or two or up to 30 key things that they understand about smoking that they did not understand when they were a smoker. It is these 'secrets' that make quitting smoking for them possible. In some respects it makes them easy.

When I quit smoking, I did so full in the knowledge that I would never smoke again because I too had discovered the secrets. I knew how to quit smoking so it was a straightforward process.

So my advice to you is that if you must, quit smoking using any and every chemical aid you can. Try them all. If they work, you will be a non-smoker and that is something to celebrate. But beware; statistically, you are more likely to fall back into the trap of smoking. However, if you want to quit smoking and be at one with yourself, without the stress, consider the cold turkey methods available to you that require no chemicals or nicotine at all. But most of all, what ever you do, never stop trying to quit.

Why do people try to quit smoking before they know how to quit smoking? Pete Howells is the author of the EasyQuit System available only online at http://easyquitsystem.com . He also blogs and post articles and videos at http://easyquitsystem.com/blog and at http://quit-smoking-motivator.blogspot.com

Monday, 16 July 2007

How to stop smoking without weight gain

There is substantial evidence underlining weight gain as the main concern smokers cite as a reason for not stopping smoking. This is amongst the many other excuses smokers give for putting off stopping smoking. Other examples include the inability to cope with stress or a fear that they will not be able to enjoy an upcoming party or their life in general without their trusty cigarettes.

Smoking is an addiction to nicotine but most smokers, and non-smokers for that matter, wrongly think of it as a habit. This is not the case. The urge to smoke is so overwhelming; it simply cannot just be a habit.

The suffering that smokers must go through in order to be able to smoke, is evidence as to why smoking is not a habit, but is an addiction. Smokers cannot inhale any other form of smoke, other than tobacco smoke, without coughing and spluttering or even being sick.

Once smokers come to realise the addiction to nicotine is the reason they smoke, it becomes easier to learn how to stop smoking without weight gain.

Smokers think they enjoy smoking as much, if not more, than eating. However, there is a very subtle difference between smoking and eating and understanding this is the key to learning how to stop smoking without weight gain. Read this two statements:

"When you are hungry, your body tells you so by giving you hunger pangs. You eat and you are rewarded with the discomfort subsiding."

"When you want a cigarette, your body tells you by giving you a craving. You smoke and you are rewarded with the discomfort subsiding."

When you read these two statements as a smoker, you are probably in full agreement with them. But, the second one is wrong and that is the secret of how to stop smoking without weight gain.

What you think is that you 'want a cigarette' when in actual fact, you want some nicotine. It is simply that over the years, you have wanted nicotine, had a cigarette to get it and then been rewarded with the discomfort of the craving subsiding. What has happened is that you have subconsciously replaced the connection of getting nicotine and the craving dying and having a cigarette and the craving dying.

In your mind, you see the cigarette as the thing you desire when in actual fact it is the nicotine. The cigarette is simply the delivery system. This is why pharmaceutical companies (wrongly) think nicotine patches and gum can help smokers quit.

So how does knowing this help you learn how to stop smoking without weight gain? Well, the point is that when you stop smoking, you will find that the craving for a cigarette (well nicotine) is very similar to the craving for food. It is a hollow empty feeling. Whilst you struggle with your willpower to overcome the urge to smoke, you will try and subdue the craving for nicotine with something that 'might work' - eating.

Smokers often turn to food to settle the craving for nicotine. This is where you end up gaining weight because you are wrongly trying to settle your hunger for nicotine by doing what seems right when you hunger for food. Your calorie intake goes through the roof and you pile on the pounds!

When you recognise that your apparent increased appetite is just you mixing up cravings for food with cravings for nicotine, it becomes easier for you to control your response – i.e. whether you chose to eat or not. Once you have mastered this understanding, you are on the right track of how to stop smoking without weight gain.

Pete Howells has written the EasyQuit System that will help any smoker quit tobacco. The EasyQuit System works by giving smokers the instructions they need to follow to achieve their ambition to quit rather than just telling them smoking is bad for them. Visit http://easyquitsystem.com/ to find out more about his incredible process for quitting smoking that boasts 96% customer satisfaction.