Posts Tagged ‘Quit Smoking’

Quit Smoking with the Power of Mind

Hypnosis is a widely used approach to dealing with many stress-related conditions and compulsive habits. It is a state of focused relaxation. In contrast to being asleep or just resting, this state allows one to loosen up, while concentrating on the problem to be solved. When under hypnosis, you lower the guard of your consciousness and unleash the subconscious mind. This releases you from the restraint that the conscious mind creates, and you stop judging and rethinking your thoughts. Once set free, the subconscious creates a world in your head, which is a mixture of fantasy and reality.
The trick is to give yourself in to the illusion that you are not smoking. The subconscious mind takes this as the reality and remembers it after you are out of the hypnosis. Technically, this is like resetting your system in order to alter your behavior. Statistics are in favor of this approach, measuring a 66% success. Even if it does not work hundred percent, hypnosis certainly reduces stress, which has a direct correlation with the urge to light up a cigarette.

You can use either self-hypnosis or a professional hypnotherapy. The former is harder to see the results of, since it requires practice. The idea is to relax and invoke images of your smoking-free future. A hypnotherapist can do that in a single or multiple-session programs. Recently, many people have chosen a combination, that is, a recorded program by a hypnotherapist, which you could listen to at home or while asleep. The biggest upside of this choice is that you can listen to it in the most convenient time, when you feel your mind relaxed.

Another helpful phenomenon is auto-suggestion. It refers to the process one applies to all ideas and perceptions in their subconscious mind. Simply put, you suggest to yourself what to think and how to think about it, thus controlling what goes through the conscious mind. If you train yourself to auto-suggest incentives for quitting, the practice will translate into results more quickly. 

Quit Smoking, Save Your Lungs

Human lungs are paired organs inside the chest cavity which perform respiration. Their job is vital because they supply oxygen to the body. It has been estimated that each day, we take around 23,000 breaths and with each of them, our lungs supply fresh oxygen to our bloodstream which is carried to the cells.

Of all human organs, lungs are most directly affected by the bad habit: cigarette smoke is inhaled into them with each puff. More importantly, only ten percent of the toxic substances, contained within the cigarette smoke are exhaled, while the other ninety percent are deposited inside the lungs.

Would you believe if you hear that smoking has an artistic side: with every cigarette they lit, smokers add deadly brownish tones to the white canvas of their lungs. No?! Well, let’s see the bigger picture – imagine that each cigarette is a palette of carcinogens and other harmful substances, including tar. Seventy percent of the tar is deposited inside the smoker’s lungs, covering them with huge brown and black areas. These tars damage the cells in the airways of the smoker’s lungs. Eventually, the damages may lead to lung cancer or cancer of the larynx. To prevent this, the organism sends defense sells to tackle carcinogens, but these defenders are easily destroyed by the army of harmful substances in cigarette smoke. The dead defense cells then release substances which damage the lungs’ structure and cause a condition known as Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, or COPD.

Even worse, not only do smokers damage their own lungs by practicing the habit, but they also harm the lungs of the people around them. This phenomenon is known as passive smoking. Passive smokers also inhale the smoke from the burning tips of cigarettes, which contains even more of the harmful cocktail of chemicals than the smoke that has passed through the cigarette filter. People with asthma or other respiratory problems are most troubled by the passive smoking. Due to passive smoking, children whose parents smoke are more likely to develop lung problems.

If people quit smoking, this will save not only their lungs, but also the lungs of his or her loved ones and, last but not least, they will help the environment. It is clear that smokers, as a whole, have their share in the global air pollution.