Quitting Smoking
Penny Samuels

Many people who want to quit smoking never even attempt it. There are many reasons why, but the largest is usually the fear that quitting will be dreadfully difficult. It’s hardly surprising, when those with vested interests in keeping smokers smoking ensure their voices are heard loudly, and often.
The Government, despite its protestations, doesn’t really want you to quit smoking: it’s taking more than £4 in tax for every 20 cigarettes you purchase. Nor do cigarette producers or manufacturers of nicotine replacement products such as patches and gum, whose profits would slump. It’s why they repeatedly tell you how horribly difficult it’ll be to even attempt to quit.
Despite this, perhaps you are still thinking about quitting smoking; maybe it’s even your New Year’s Resolution.
Whatever you think your main motivation to quit smoking is, there’s only one motivation that really counts — because you want to. Not because of the expense. Not because of the inconvenience of the smoking ban. Not because your friends, colleagues, family or partner have nagged you into it. Not even because you know your health is suffering, although these are all very valid reasons. But because you want to.
How long does it take you to become a healthy, free, non-smoker? A few months? A few weeks? No; it takes just one tenth of a second.
That’s the length of time it takes to make a decision; a true, wholehearted decision to quit. And when you’ve made that decision, quitting can be far easier and faster than you may ever have thought possible.
There’s no more powerful a reason than you want to, and that’s all the motivation you need to succeed, especially when you use the power of hypnosis to help you.
Please remember this: however strong your habit of smoking has been, and no matter how long you have had it, it has been created by your conscious mind. Your subconscious mind is far more powerful than either your conscious mind or your body — and it is the subconscious mind that is directly accessed during hypnosis. This allows powerful messages for your health and well-being to be absorbed directly by the part of you that is most concerned with keeping you fit, healthy, happy, and alive.
These are some of the reasons that smokers using hypnosis to help them quit have the highest success rate of all tried and tested methods, as shown by a large scale survey carried out by 'New Scientist ' in October 1992:
• Hypnosis: Greater than 30 per cent success
• Smoking aversion therapy: 25 per cent
• Group withdrawal clinics: 24 per cent
• Acupuncture: Up to 24 per cent
• Zyban (drug, with side effects): Up to 21 per cent
• Education: 18 per cent
• Nicotine Patches (with side effects): Up to 12 per cent
• Nicotine Gum (with side effects): Up to 10 per cent
• Champix (drug, with side effects): Up to 22 per cent
• Willpower: Up to 4 per cent
• Doctor's advice: Just 1 per cent
For further information, contact Penny Samuels, a Quit Smoking Specialist registered with the General Hypnotherapy Register.
www.pennysamuels.com