If you have been smoking for years and years now, you must be dreaming of eventually kicking the bad habit knowing it can make you sick, even suffer greatly before an ill-timed death. You must have tried a lot of traditional and novel ways to snuff out the habit, and fail miserably for the nth time. No wonder you would want to try just another therapy: hypnosis.
What must you know about hypnosis?
Understanding Hypnosis
Hypnosis is a process that results in altering a person’s state of consciousness. It is a popularly used to treat physiological and physical problems such as weight issues, speech disorders, pain management, and addiction such as nicotine/cigarette smoking.
The smoker is induced to the “trance” state so that he/she will experience a heightened self-awareness and focus. The hypnotherapist achieves this by using mental images and verbal repetitions. At this state of extreme relaxation, suggestibility is maximized. The hypnotherapist can suggest to the smoker unpleasant situations – dry mouth, bad smell of smoke on clothes, dreadful outcomes like cancer – that will, with any luck, take root and change the smoker’s behavior.
How Hypnosis Helps in Quitting Smoking
There are a number of techniques that hypnotherapists may decide to use to help you stop smoking. Regardless of the technique, hypnosis makes the mind receptive so that the smoking is taken out, while a new positive thought or behavior is introduced by suggestion. While under hypnosis, they can be asked about the negative outcomes that they associate with smoking. Using he Spiegel’s method, they may also be asked to focus on the three principles of quitting: one, smoking is a poison that kills the human body; two, a healthy body is important to live; and three, you need to protect and respect your body to the extent you want to live.
The session ends when the therapist “awakens” the smoker. By this time, the smoker’s subconscious mind is both hyper-attentive and hyper-responsive so that they are most easily persuaded.
Hypnosis: Does it work or not?
Hypnosis works; it just doesn’t work for every smoker. For the hypnotizable fraction of the population (about a quarter), the effect is variable. Even, established academic and research groups are getting mixed results making it hard to conclude who are hypnotizable, and how long will it take for smoking cessation to happen. For instance, the Journal of Dental Education admits that it has potentials as a smoke cessation technique. Several popular cancer institutes in America, though, still think it is inadequately supported as an effective quit smoking method.
This is not to say that it will not work; results are just so varied it is hard to form a conclusion. There are those who responded and there are those who did not. There are those who exhibited immediate results but have also relapsed. This is why hypnotherapists encourage their patients to continue with their self-treatments.
The Worth of Hypnosis and Self-treatments
If there is one thing that hypnosis brings forth, it is self-awareness. It is a necessary step that anyone with addiction to nicotine must aim to have to stay in control of their bad habit and the will to get themselves cured. Self-awareness will help a smoker identify the situation that can make them slide back to the vice.
If you have tried and failed so many quit smoking techniques in the past and have failed, what is one more try with hypnotism? Who knows, you can be a part of the select quarter of the population who are hypnotizable! Remember, however, that no technique can succeed without discipline, determination and strong motivation. It is said that hypnosis has 25 percent chance to succeed. Combining it with other quit smoking cessation aids, such as e-cigarettes, can boost your effort making quitting more attainable.