You’ve just given up smoking, but at a social event soon after, you’re offered a cigarette. Are you tempted to accept it?
Whether it’s social situations, or impending deadlines that make you reach for a cigarette, the process of giving up is long, with relapse being a common occurrence. Nicotine, present in tobacco products like cigarettes and vapes, helps to release dopamine, which gives you the false impression that things are good or you’re relaxed.
This is one of the biggest barriers to quitting smoking—the nicotine dependence. Even with the right intentions, smokers find it difficult to quit for good. However, with hypnotherapy, you can rewire your subconscious mind and let go of the negative emotions that make you smoke.
As a professional hypnotherapist, I have two decades of experience empowering people to overcome various addictions. During our sessions, I’ll provide you with tools to better manage your stress and anxiety while successfully overcoming the urge to smoke.
Understanding the Barriers to Quit Smoking
Have you ever wondered, why is smoking hard to stop? The reasons are varied, from nicotine dependence to using it as a coping strategy. We’ll look at the common barriers to quitting smoking. Let’s learn!
Nicotine Withdrawal
Nicotine is the potent chemical in tobacco that makes cigarette smoking addictive. As a regular smoker, your body gets used to having nicotine in your system. Nicotine withdrawal is challenging to deal with, making people crave ‘one last smoke’.
Along with physical symptoms, including increased appetite, you may notice mood changes, such as feeling restless, jumpy, or irritable and having trouble sleeping.
Cravings and Triggers
The things or events that make you want to smoke are known as triggers, and these can vary from person to person. Nicotine cravings refer to the constant desire to smoke. Your state of mind, a social setting or activity, being around smoking paraphernalia or other smokers, and your past smoking habit or routine can all create triggers and cravings.
Emotional triggers stem from feeling stressed, lonely, bored, anxious, excited or happy. Activity triggers are when smoking is associated with a particular activity, like drinking alcohol, finishing a meal, taking work breaks, or after having sex. Feeling the need to smoke in social settings like pubs, concerts, bars, or even seeing someone smoke are examples of social triggers.
Withdrawal triggers include smelling cigarette smoke, handling lighters, matches and cigarettes, and craving the taste of a cigarette.
Stress
Associating smoking cigarettes with an emotional event like stress can be challenging to break. Many smokers associate smoking with a coping mechanism that helps them deal with life’s stressful situations. However, smoking only provides temporary relief from stress, and the brain quickly becomes wired to depend on nicotine to feel relaxed. This cause-and-effect cycle is vicious and needs to be broken if you want to return to good health.
Through my anti-smoking hypnosis online and in-person sessions, you’ll learn how to break your dependency on smoking to manage stress.
Weight Gain and Increased Appetite
Nipping smoking in the bud can lead to a slower metabolism and an increased appetite. It’s possible to overeat and pile on some extra pounds, leading to an unmanageable weight. This happens because your taste and smell senses return to normal, making food more enjoyable and increasing your appetite.
Mood and Emotions
Although smokers may think smoking relieves stress, nicotine actually adversely affects the brain, resulting in the increased likelihood of feeling moody, irritable, down, sad, and depressed. Research suggests smokers are at a higher risk of depression than non-smokers.
However, quitting smoking can initially increase the risk of irritability, depression, anxiety and brain fog as the nicotine levels reduce. These symptoms may cause people to relapse.
Slips and Relapses
Quitting smoking for good is not a one-time event; it’s a process. Slips and relapses are a part of that process. One puff or one or two cigarettes after you quit can be taken as a temporary setback. However, it’s important to recover quickly and not go back to smoking regularly.
Quitting smoking is a challenge that needs to be overcome by training your mind. All these barriers to quitting smoking can be broken by reprogramming your mind with hypnotherapy. Join me, Susannah Saunders, and give up smoking by hypnosis and embrace a better, healthier life.
How to Stop Smoking With Hypnosis?
Some of the top reasons to stop smoking include freedom from addiction, better control over life and preventing the onset of chronic illnesses such as diabetes, heart issues and poor mental health.
So, how do you successfully overcome the barriers to quitting smoking?
Hypnosis is an altered state of awareness in which I interact with your subconsciousness. You’ll be in a more relaxed state than when conscious and more open to suggestions and changes. Research has also suggested that hypnosis induces a higher level of neurological activity in the brain.
I use a blend of clinical hypnotherapy, cognitive hypnotherapy, curative hypnotherapy and NLP techniques in my hypnosis sessions. I programme your subconscious mind to help you quit smoking for good and become a non-smoker.
Learn how to control your triggers and cravings for nicotine and give up smoking with hypnosis. Under my guidance, you can overcome the multiple barriers to quitting smoking and prevent slips and relapses.
Give up Smoking for Good with Susannah Saunders
Overcoming the barriers to quitting smoking might be challenging, but once you’re successful, it can do wonders for your well-being. For more than twenty years, I’ve successfully guided many smokers on how to stop smoking through hypnosis. Even if you’re a hardened smoker, I can leverage NLP and various hypnotherapy techniques to help you quit once and for all.
No two people are the same, and neither are their struggles with smoking. Join me as I talk through your concerns and explain how my hypnosis sessions can help. I’m also here to offer complimentary aftercare services in the rare event that you need extra support.
Additionally, you can also reach out to me for help with social anxiety, anger management and insomnia. Learn more about my treatments.
Connect with me to stop smoking by hypnosis in an online or in-person session at your convenience.
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