“Smoking tobacco is the most harmful way that people can get their nicotine fix,” says Dr Joanna Miller of a London-based Stop Smoking Service in a Times article about Stoptober and how people can effectively quit the habit and nicotine addiction.
With the NHS-backed Stoptober campaign well under way, she was quoted as saying that e-cigarettes were an aid to stopping smoking.
She said: “If people have tried other medications that haven’t worked for them and they’re still smoking, we would definitely recommend people switch to e-cigarettes.
“The most important thing is to stop using tobacco, and offering e-cigarettes as part of a quit attempt can be a really helpful way to do so. Nothing is 100% effective, but we’ve supported lots of people to stop smoking using an e-cigarette at our local Stop Smoking Service.”
What she ignored, however, was the fact that clinical hypnotherapy has a very high and proven success rate in helping people, who have the desire to so, to quit the habit.
And it is not only bodies like the National Council for Hypnotherapy (NCH) who claim this. The website quitsmokingsupport.com says it carried out its own investigation and agrees.
It said: “The good news is that we learned that hypnosis can be highly effective for smoking cessation. Research shows that when done correctly the success rate is slightly above 66%. Compare that to the success rates of trying to quit on your own: 5%, using behaviour therapy 25%, or using Nicotine Replacement Products, 25% and hypnosis looks like the best option out there. In fact, there is no other method supported by research that even comes close.”
While the vital help, advice and medications offered by Stop Smoking Services makes them effective, some people struggle to replace the activity of smoking while others have the habit of always holding something in their hands which is hard to break.For others, it’s the hit at the back of the throat that people crave when they give up smoking.
Clinical hypnotherapy is widely used for many things. It may be used to treat certain physical or psychological problems. For instance, it is frequently used to help patients control pain. It is also used in a wide range of other conditions such as weight issues, speech disorders, and addiction problems.
It, therefore, can help in quitting smoking as it will allow the smoker to end the problem behaviour that is nicotine addiction.
The NCH defines a ‘problem behaviour’ (like smoking) as an unwanted habit or addiction.
“It is something you feel you have no control over which affects your life and the lives of those you care about. Habits such as overeating or smoking are the most common. It is a behaviour that affect people’s lives, make them unhappy or cause a risk to their health and the health of those around them.”
The NCH adds: “Did you know that your physical addiction to cigarettes can be over after just one week? Imagine how your different your life would be if you stopped smoking, what you would gain. It is important to understand your motivation for giving up in order to give up.”
If you want to stop smoking this October, contact an NCH therapist near you by clicking here. It will change your life for the better.