While the anti-smoking lobby in the UK is spreading, with the Nottinghamshire County Council banning of employees from smoking cigarettes and e-cigarettes in its buildings, land and in its vehicles, there are still people who begin the habit. 
Statistics from ASH and the Tobacco Manufacturers’ Association show that there are 20 million adults who smoke in the UK and 200,000 children aged between 11 and 15 start smoking each year.
The non-smoking debate has been raging for some time and methods to make people stop range from nicotine replacements and e-cigarettes to therapy, including hypnotherapy. And clinical hypnotherapists who are members of the National Council for Hypnotherapy (NCH) have a high success rate in helping people quit the habit.
Nottinghamshire County Council’s director of health Dr Chris Kenny said he hoped the authority would be seen as a ‘beacon of health’ by implementing this ban on its 9,000 employees, probably from May this year.
“Tobacco is one of the great scourges of modern society,” he told the BBC. “It causes huge amounts of ill health, it causes heart disease and it causes 30% of all cancers.
“It’s not about a punitive policy, this is about a supportive policy to help all county council employees not smoke during work time.”
In Nottinghamshire, 17.5% of adults smoke and about 1,300 people die each year from a smoking-related illness. Treating these illnesses costs the NHS in the county £30.2m per year, the council added.
The council is among 80 councils across the UK to have signed the Local Government Declaration on Tobacco Control. This was developed by the Newcastle City Council. It is a statement of a council’s commitment to ensure tobacco control is part of mainstream public health work and commits councils to taking comprehensive action to address the harm from smoking.
But an enforced ban is not always the solution and people will rail against it.
By deciding to quit smoking, however, people will experience physical benefits and well as less stress, anxiety and depression and develop a more positive outlook on life.
After all, each cigarette contains about 7,000 chemicals with more than 80,000 people dying from smoking-related diseases inn the UK annually. Only 3 to five people out of every 100 who try to quit by will power alone actually succeed. Support and other treatments are usually more successful.
Hypnotherapy can help those who want to get the addiction out of their lives. But it is crucial that they want to quit for themselves and not only because someone else has suggested they do as this can often lead to them smoking again. Making the decision for yourself is more likely to be successful.
The NCH says that by working directly with the subconscious mind, the therapist can help change an unwanted learned behaviour and research shows that by quitting smoking with hypnotherapy, people are three times more likely to give up than if they had tried nicotine patches.
Clinical hypnotherapy is non-invasive and has no side effects. So it is worth trying – you have nothing to lose.
If you really want to stop smoking, contact an NCH hypnotherapist near you by clicking here. It will be worth it.