STOP SMOKING

Client's often ask me. Why do they smoke or why do they find it so difficult to quit smoking on their own?

There are many examples in my work in NLP and Hypnotherapy that illustrate how the unconscious mind can formulate habitual behaviours, that on the surface appear consciously questionable or irrational. Take for example Smoking as a habit. When one looks at it in its pure form, it is nothing more than inhaling toxic chemicals and fumes into the body. If I were to ask my client's where else in life would they actively do that act, they answer would inevitably be nowhere, or of course not. But if the mind thought that it was doing something good and the feelings associated with the act were strong enough then the nature of the unconscious would be to repeat the process over and over again.. It is like the unconscious only focusses on one aspect of the act and bases its response based on the association or feeling from that one aspect. It appears not to consider the wider aspects of long term health. A deadly habit could be formed based on a false logic. In these circumstances, trying to stop using conscious intervention becomes a tug of war. People who go cold Turkey, often report they get withdrawal symptoms, which makes it very difficult for them to stop the habit. The urges to continue can feel overpowering to the point where a person can feel irritable or anxious if they are without cigarettes too long. NLP can be useful in habit breaking and to help people change limiting beliefs about smoking into empowering beliefs. Hypnotherapy can be used to address the unconscious processes that appear inaccessible by conscious intervention. I believe everyone has the ability to stop via their own internal resources, they just need to find a way to exercise or tap into those internal resources, so that the unconscious has new information to work with. After all its primary function is to look after us, so logic says it would be open to change if it had the right information to work with and not something based on a false logic.