If you have a resolution to break a habit or addiction like smoking, gambling, food cravings, alcohol, and many others hypnotherapy can help; especially if you have tried to make this change before and met little or no success. Hypnotherapy or hypnosis works with mental programming to help create, reframe, or replace negative habits with new healthy alternatives.
Quitting smoking can be one of the most difficult habits to break. It impacts a person physically, psychologically, emotionally and can even be connected to specific behaviors that creates patterns around the addiction and habit. This is one of the many reasons why hypnosis can help.
The most effective type of hypnosis treatment is actually in person hypnotherapy sessions. This is where you will meet with a certified hypnotherapist on a weekly basis in office or online via video chat services like Skype or Oovoo. During these sessions you will discuss successes and challenges around your progress in quitting smoking and the hypnotherapist will design a specific personalized hypnosis session that works on the specific issues you are facing.
As a certified hypnotherapist, life coach, and relationship coach I have helped many clients break addictions and habits. When clients come to see me I recommend they start with a smoking journal where they record everytime they light up, the trigger that gave them the urge (this can be emotional, psychological or physical), and what specific benefit they get from smoking. I require that they set a "quit date" and that date is within a two month period. Every week I ask they analyze their smoke free journal to find patterns. I also offer help in analyzing this with them. With every negative habit or association the client needs to find a healthy alternative/replacement behavior that works for them. Many people find eating snacks helps with cravings, weight gain comes with eating unhealthy snacks. Find healthy snacks like nuts, carrot or celery sticks, and water. Find healthy behaviors like riding a bike or taking a walk instead of smoking.
I also ask that they analyze their environment (car, home, work) and eliminate any temptations. Some people even use carpet cleaners to remove the smoke from the environment. This "spring cleaning" become very cathargic for them. While analyzing the environment I also ask that they analyze those around them and the influences they may have on their smoking habit. Support is important in kicking the habit.
Be prepared for cravings and relapses. These happen. Don't beat yourself up mentally when or if they do happen because this can have a negative impact on your level of success. Turn these into help aids by recording them in your smoke free journal to identify triggers later.
Smoking can be a habit built out of associations related to locations. If you find that you are more likely to smoke when you are at a certain place like a bar or the break area at work avoid these areas.
Using hypnosis is a healthy cessation aid but you need to want to stop smoking. Sometimes using other over the counter cessation aids in conjunction with hypnosis and the steps above can help. Always consult a doctor when taking any type of medication.
If hypnosis is not something in your comfort zone you can also try life coaching NLP techniques to help with your habit and addiction challenges. If you are looking for more details check out my website and feel free to give me a call to see if I can help.
Check out the video above which gives more great tips to help people cope with cravings in relation to becoming smoke free.
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