Article Avenue - free articles and downloads - The Effects Of Cigarette Smoking & The Easy Way to Kick The Habit

Smoking is a dangerous and addictive habit that affects millions of people around the globe. We now know the perils of cigarette smoking and smokers are urged to stop smoking for their own health. This is not easy to do, as most smokers begin at an extremely young age. The average age of a new smoker is only thirteen years old.

A habit formed at that age is not easily broken. Nicotine affects many parts of the body and it is hard to break this addiction without assistance. There are many diseases associated with smoking. Most smokers will need assistance on how to quit smoking and a variety of different methods exist for this very purpose.

There are many different reasons why people begin smoking and develop an addiction to cigarettes. The main reason that people begin to smoke is peer pressure. Some young people think it looks "cool" when portrayed on TV, in movies, and in advertisements. It also is forbidden which makes it all the more alluring to teenagers, thus the low starting age for many people. This young age makes quitting smoking more challenging in your later years.

Media can also influence the decision to begin smoking. Smoking portrayed in movies or on television can lead you to think that smoking is harmless. Parents can wield the biggest influence over their children by setting a good example on how to quit smoking. Mothers and fathers who smoke are much more likely to have children who start smoking.

Smokers begin to crave nicotine, a drug within tobacco. Nicotine can affect your mind and body in many negative ways. Nicotine, once inhaled into the lungs reaches the brain in a matter of just eight seconds. Once in your brain, nicotine affects your blood pressure and heart rate. Over time it can increase your bad cholesterol levels and cause the narrowing of your arteries. Nicotine in concentrated doses is a lethal poison, so you can imagine the damage it does to your body. Nicotine is also addictive and this is why many cannot quit smoking.

Smoking can impact your health on a variety of levels. Low stamina is one side effect of smoking. More serious smoking related diseases include emphysema and cancer. Strokes and heart disease are also closely associated with cigarette smoking. A person who quits smoking will dramatically reduce their chances for these diseases for every year they can go smoke free.

These smoking-related medical conditions often have grave consequences. Lung cancer is nearly always fatal unless caught very early and 80% of lung cancer cases are caused by smoking. Lung and heart disease can subtract years from your life unless you are able to quit smoking. Emphysema cannot be cured but only managed, plus the damage to your lungs cannot be repaired. The benefits of quitting smoking include a longer life span and a better quality of life.

There are many different ways to quit smoking, and you must select the best method for you as an individual. Nicotine gums and patches are made to help slowly release you from the nicotine addiction. These only work for about 10% of the people who use them. Going cold turkey is another option and this works for up to 11% of the smokers who try to quit this way. Other well known methods to quit smoking include an herbal kit that can guide you through quitting. It has a success rate similar to that of nicotine patches and gums.

Hypnosis is a very popular option for those who want to quit smoking without weight gain or withdrawal. Hypnotherapy has proven to be highly effective with smokers who are trying to quit smoking. Hypnosis might sound like an extreme solution but it delivers solid results up to 70% of the time. This success rate is many times that of other methods.

The reason hypnotherapy for smoking cessation is so effective is that it while the addiction to nicotine makes up only about 10% of the smoking addiction, the psychological aspects of the habit make up a full 90% of the cigarette smoking addiction. Hypnosis treats this aspect of the addiction.

About 45% of the smoking behavior is caused by stress, and hypnotherapy has proven to be a powerful tool that can help reprogram the mind to divert away from stressful thoughts, and towards relaxing, positive thoughts. In addition, the very essence of hypnosis is that it incorporates a state of deep relaxation.

And about 45% of the smoking behavior is prompted by conditioned responses. This is when smoking is associated with other activities and events at the unconscious level of mind. For example, if you smoke while watching TV, your unconscious will associate the image of a cigarette in your hand with the image of the TV. Every time you see the TV, your unconscious flashes an image of the cigarette in your hand, and you feel the compulsion to smoke.

Stop smoking hypnotherapy is regularly used to "extinguish" the conditioned responses by disassociating the unconscious links between cigarettes and TV, driving, coffee, working on your computer, or any other situation where an unconscious association has been formed.

In summary: While most smokers think that their inability to quit smoking is due to their addiction to nicotine, in truth it's the psychological aspects of a smoking habit that present the largest barriers. Hypnotherapy was accepted by the American Medical Association in 1958 as an effective tool for quitting smoking. Hypnosis for quitting smoking is the second most common use of hypnotherapy today.

While hourly rates for hypnotherapists continue to skyrocket, there are excellent hypnosis CDs available that can greatly reduce its cost. Since everyone is different, there are no specific "magic" words or post-hypnotic suggestions that will work for everyone. So when choosing hypnosis CDs, look for those that incorporate a broad variety of hypnotic and NLP techniques in a series of at least six or more sessions to obtain the best possible results. In any event, the fee for the best self hypnosis programs equates to much less than the amount that an average smoker spends each and every month on buying cigarettes.

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Alan B. Densky, CH invented the Video Hypnosis stop smoking technology that helps smokers easily break the habit. He also created other ways to stop smoking using Ericksonian Hypnosis and NLP. Visit the Neuro-VISION self development hypnosis site for free hypnotherapy videos and downloads.

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