I Will Quit Smoking – With determination anyone could do it!

Posts Tagged ‘health and wellness’

In my job, I’ve helped a lot of people quit smoking. And I’ve heard a lot of reasons why smoking is a good thing.

I’ve been told smoking sharpens your mind, relaxes you, calms you, keeps you from yelling at the kids (or spouse), tastes good with coffee, tastes better after a meal. In short, makes you feel “better”. (I always ask “better than what”?)

I know you don’t really believe these reasons, or why would you be trying to stop smoking. Still, a part of you DOES believe these reasons.

The obvious and overlooked part is you must have a strong reason to continue smoking or you would have already stopped. By the way, there is no law that says your reason to keep smoking has to make any logical sense. It rarely does.

Almost all of the reasons you continue smoking can easily be proven wrong. Example: Maybe smoking helps you relax during work breaks because you get away and go outside to do it.

Most of the time you KNOW the reason doesn’t make sense. That doesn’t change the craving though, does it? Just one more one more reason in your list of reasons to quit. A list that doesn’t have much chance against the well-rooted cravings to smoke.

It all comes down to two things. The belief that smoking will make you feel better and what you’re trying to feel better than. That’s it.

If you’re hungry you feel like eating. If you’re tired, you feel like sleeping. If you feel bad (stressed, over-burdened, upset, alone, whatever…) you want to feel good. And, whatever your mind has learned feels good, you feel like doing.

This is an only slightly simplified explanation of a craving. Most smokers have more than one type of craving like, the ‘first thing in the morning’ craving feels different than the ‘after lunch’ craving. But the same model applies.

SO, how do you change these things? I can write on and on about this (and I have on my web site) It will come down to changing the feelings, motivations and beliefs involved.

First, the ‘bad feeling’ side of things needs to be addressed. If it’s too much stress, get it managed, if it’s a situation that makes you lonely, do what you can to fix it, or look for help.

Second, you belief that smoking helps you feel good (it’s probably the innocent mistake that smoking equals being an adult, in control, strong, capable, etc…) In truth, a cigarette is a plant leaf and chemicals wrapped in paper. The good feeling you’re anticipating from smoking is created by your mind. YOU make yourself feel better when you smoke. So it only makes sense that you can make yourself feel good by doing something that is healthy. If, your mind believes it makes you feel good.

And there’s the trick for most people. Successfully quitting smoking is much easier after changing these emotional connections. People don’t often think of this. That is why the success rate of medication and nicotine replacement alone is so poor. The only current exception is Chantix and even Pfizer, the makers of Chantix, recommend behavior modification along with their medication.

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Pretend you or someone you know has a bad habit. A big bad monkey on your back. How did it get there? How did it start? Probably a combination of three things; emotions, authority figures, and repetition.

Let’s use an example.

Let’s just use a younger you for the example, 10-14 years old. And for this example, let’s use the habit of smoking. If you don’t smoke…. replace the word “smoking” with any craving you get, or just pretend you smoke? It is an article about smoking after all.

When you were in that age range we can assume you were learning about your life and how you fit into it. You may not have felt as sure about yourself.

You may have felt self-conscious, dependent on others, powerless, not good enough, or just not as capable as you would have liked to feel. Let’s call this feeling “bad”. Now, this doesn’t mean you felt miserable, but, did you feel as “good” as you wanted to feel? Did you feel as “good” as you believed other people felt?

Possibly, (probably) not. Which would mean you wanted to feel better, or at least as good as you thought other people feel. What would make you feel better? That depends on the influences in your life to that point.

Maybe you had authority figures in your young life that smoked, like parents, relatives, friends, advertisements, role models. At this point in your life, smoking would have been seen as tough, strong, independent, self-assured, unique, “good”. Repetitively exposed to the thing you felt your life lacked.

This would create a desire (craving) in you to do this thing. A belief that smoking is what your life is missing. And not just in a “knowing” way, but a “feeling” way as well, which is much more powerful.

Then at some point you tried your first cigarette, and DID feel better. But you were not very good at smoking yet and since it made you feel better, you practiced it until you were good at it.

As life continues you come across situations that make you feel “bad” again and do what you’ve been taught makes you feel “good”. That is repeated emotions and practice and you have a strong habit.

If you’ve tried to stop smoking before, you may have already thought of these things. And you’ve spent time thinking and analyzing your habit. But, you didn’t learn this habit by thinking and analyzing, so why would trying to quit smoking that way?

It is a lot easier to quit smoking with the same methods you started smoking with. A “hypnotized” state of mind combined with emotions, authority figures and repetition. Often called modern hypnosis.

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Tried to think of a stranger title, but I just couldn’t come up with one. The important thing is that it got your attention.

Support is the one tool that you want to be multi-legged as it is one of your strongest allies in the battle to quit smoking. Think about it. What if your kitchen stools only had one leg on them for support. Do you think it would make sitting down for dinner that much more difficult? Sure it would. You wouldn’t be able to eat in comfort because all your time would be spent concentrating on not falling over.

Would adding a second leg help? Of course. By concentrating on a stool that only moves side to side or back and forth, our attentions can be more focused on the goal we are seeking to accomplish.

How about a third leg? Is that any better? You bet – perfect stability. With this surefootedness we can focus all our attention on our task as we no longer have to worry about ending up on the floor if our concentration slips.

So what’s the point I am trying to make? A very simple one actually. By enlisting the help of support friends (legs) the efforts of quitting smoking won’t fall solely on you. There will be a couple of other friends there to assist you. Even four or five buddies to call on would not be excessive.

The important think to ask of the people whom you confide in for support is to ask that they remain at your disposal and not badger you with questions like ‘How is it going?’ everyday. You don’t want your support team to be a hindrance in trying to reach your goals, but a help. And one other thing. If you the courage to do it, make a deal with them and yourself in that if you ever decide you may want to have ‘just one’ cigarette that you MUST call each and every one of them and tell them you’ve decided to continue smoking. Make it through all your support ‘legs’ without being talked out of doing something silly like that and I would be quite surprised.

FREEDOM from the cigarette will come once you’ve made up your mind and enlisted all the tools you can find, including the multi-legged support system.

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