Stop Smoking

In a 2 hour session, we will go into what smoking is, why you do it, and why you want to stop. We will look at effective ways to manage cravings and unhelpful thoughts. We will focus on what really matters to you, and use this to help you stay motivated and strong when learning to say 'No'.

You'll realise how you don't need cigarettes, that they are actually like your most toxic best friend. They take away, whilst making you ever more dependent.

But it feels good, and I like it, and I wouldn't know what to do with myself if I didn't smoke, or I'd never be able to take a break at work, or I wouldn't like having a drink, or coffee, or going out.

There are many reasons that people keep smoking. These reasons are understandable - being afraid of missing out, or not fitting in, or being mocked, or losing something that you think helps you. The truth is, however, if you give yourself a chance, you'll just do these things differently. Your life will continue, but you won't be sinking your money and health into an addiction.

I want to support you on this journey – to be healthy, happy and free.

Hypnotherapy to Stop Smoking

Hypnotherapy with me can be a powerful way to understand and reverse the habit.

Using Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy, we will address the habit together in a 2 hour session. This session will:

help to prevent cravings,
help to prevent relapse,
become clear about why you do it and why you want to stop,
foster your own motivation to remain a non-smoker,
- and finally...
help to put smoking into the past, where it definitely belongs.

Shifting the mental and chemical relationships that underpin the habit will provide you with a long-lasting change to your sense of power, your finances and your physical and mental health.

Remember that there is always choice. You need to make it work. Nothing can do the work for you. Nothing will be an instant fix without you wanting it to work – without you making it work.

No matter how effectively you feel the hypnotherapy has affected you, cigarettes and other substances will still be around. It will always be your responsibility to say yes or no. And it will always be within your power to say yes or no.

I want to be a non-smoker

From my experience working with people who want to stop smoking, their goal isn't just to stop, but to become a non-smoker. They want to move from someone who thinks about smoking and goes for a smoke, to someone who doesn't really think about smoking - it just doesn't cross my mind as much anymore.

It seems like a big step, and in some ways it is. In others, its just the difference between saying yes to a cup of tea, or saying no.

Once untethered from everything that makes it enjoyable, even necessary, smoking becomes something a lot less enjoyable than a cup of tea.

Just look at this photo, and imagine breathing it in. Then imagine yourself choking - your lungs shutting down - your eyes burning - your heart-rate speeding up - your mouth tasting like ash moments after the first drag. Imagine your blood vessels shrinking, tightening. Imagine your brain telling you that you're now more stressed out than when you started, whilst at the same time fighting tooth and nail to say that the smoking is fixing the problem. That is the true picture of cigarettes once they enter the body.

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Smoking – Why we do it and why it sucks?

Firstly, as you have possibly heard, smoking is the third most common cause of death. This comes shortly after heart conditions and food issues, both of which are worsened by smoking.

So why do it? Possibly because once you get started, its harder to stop. But why is this?

Cravings – Part 1

One of the things I discovered when studying this is the chemistry behind it. Turns out that nicotine is a natural pesticide (two drops of pure nicotine on your tongue would kill you). The tobacco plant produces nicotine as a way of killing off insects that get too close.

It is also very similar in structure to a neurotransmitter called acetylcholine.

Acetylcholine is a substance that helps us to relax, by triggering the parasympathetic nervous system. Nicotine is only a familiar copy of this – a toxic, addictive copy of this.

So, when you smoke, you hijack your brain’s natural biochemistry. The brain feels that it can get what it needs from the outside, so it stops producing it. This is where a part of the cravings come in.

The other part of the cravings: The Stress-Smoke Cycle

At the same time as this, nicotine stresses you out. Thought it was relaxing, dragging on a cigarette? Well, it’s a clever hoax. Smoking stresses you out.

It increases your heart rate and reduces the amount of oxygen in the blood. It triggers your sympathetic nervous system (Fight or Flight), and revvs your body up to higher levels of alertness. You may briefly get the sense of relaxing slightly, because you’re reducing the craving from the last hit. You might feel more settled or in control, because you’ve engaged in a habit that you use to cope with stress or anxiety. Maybe, you simply took a few deep breaths.

But very very quickly, the body is ramped up into 5th, revving wildly, even if you are at a standstill in traffic. And then what? You try to calm yourself down with another cigarette.

What happens when you stop delivering that sweet sweet toxic love?

You get cravings. You feel nervous. You feel scared.

Smoking cigarettes is a psychological crutch that is making you more anxious, more depressed, more high strung. The truth is that stopping smoking for over two months, can be equal in mental health benefits as using anti-depressants. I’ll write that again – STOPPING smoking is EQUAL to TAKING anti-depressants. Which means that SMOKING is equal to giving yourself a mental health issue, or intensifying an existing one.

Toxic friends make you feel worse for being near them – and often we don’t even realise this.

Due to all of this, the increased stress and agitation, the cravings, the emotional dependency, the psychological crutch as a way of trying to manage stress, the chemical feeling of addiction, relapse, even after months or years of not smoking is not uncommon.

What can you do about it?

You can contact me at internalsystemstherapy@gmail.com, call me at 07770-874-880, or book a Smoking Cessation Pack on either the Bookings Page or the Pricing Page.

When you book a Smoking Cessation Pack, you will get the following:

- A single two-hour, intensive hypnotherapy session,

- a stop-smoking hypnotherapy audio support tape,

and....

- a 1 hour booster session, if you need it.

You can schedule this booster session any time, starting at least a week after the first two-hour session, and up to 6 months from the initial consultation.

The first thing we will do after you book a Pack is organise a free 30-minute initial consultation. In this meeting, we will have the opportunity to get to know one another, and judge if we would like to work together.

From this meeting, we can confirm the time and date of our two-hour session and complete payment.

The price for the Intensive Smoking Cessation Pack is £ 150.