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Breaking Bad Habits:
How to Stop Smoking with Ease

our habits run our lives

It's strange how willing we sometimes are to learn a bad habit. There's nothing wrong with habits, in fact we depend on them - the things we have learned so well that we do them unconsciously. You could say that our habits run our lives most of the time. It's not a problem unless we have habits that work against us, like smoking, overeating or drinking too much alcohol

.Many of us at some stage of our lives have smoked a cigarette and for most people it was a mixed experience. It may have been a long time ago, but you might still remember the giddiness and sick feeling when you started. We tended to put a brave face on it - after all, we only wanted to look cool and grown up, to be like our friends, so we persevered until our bodies got into the habit of breathing smoke, even though that's an unnatural thing to do.

Then the habit took over. I have helped hundreds of people who really would have preferred to quit, who didn't actually enjoy smoking, but who didn't know how to stop. (see the 'stop smoking' button on: www.smithandfriends)

Typically, people try to deal with bad habits by telling themselves off: 'Now there I go again! Why do I keep doing the same silly things? I must be stupid, I know it's bad for me .' and it doesn't work. You see, the trouble with habits is that they are run by our unconscious minds - and the unconscious doesn't do logic. Despite health warnings we still smoke, as if nothing bad can happen to us.

what works?

What can we do to stop smoking, feel more confident, stop anxious thoughts, stop undermining ourselves and start to feel more in charge of our lives?

'Which' magazine has found that hypnotherapy is the most effective way to stop smoking.

The University of Iowa combined results of over 600 studies covering 72,000 people from Europe and the U.S. These studies also concluded that hypnotherapy is the most effective way to stop smoking.

In my experience it's a case of getting on the right wavelength to address the problem and, since our habits are unconscious, using an unconscious approach to change them.

When you use the right approach it's amazing how much quicker and easier it is to succeed. Can you imagine how much better you'll feel when you've taken charge of your habits and you're living the life you want to live?

Go on, dare to dream!

will I put on weight when I stop?

In the past, some people who succeeded in quitting found that their unconscious minds tried to replace tobacco with overeating. It's easy to understand how this happened when you remember that your unconscious only ever wants to help you. (I know, sometimes it has a funny way of doing it, but remember: it doesn't use logic.)

You see, your unconscious learns to run a habit for you because it thinks that's what you want. The trouble is, when you've changed your conscious mind about what you want, you're still stuck with the habit.

New habits are much easier for you to learn when they fit well with what you really want - like being healthier, feeling better and being more confident that you can live the life you really want to liv

stress relief: relaxation music support

A number of studies have reported that some two thirds of current smokers report that they would like to quit smoking (WHO, 1999). Many people who succeed in quitting simply lose all interest in tobacco and don't feel the lack of a little outside help to replace the routines of smoking.

Some others find it very helpful to be able to replace the sensation of stress relief that they had associated with cigarettes. Especially for those brave souls who have given up without help, one of the first things to think about is, once you've given up smoking, what will you use to help you relax when you're in a stressful situation?

A common trap people have struggled with is comfort eating: putting food in your mouth instead of a cigarette. Now there is an alternative.

Nicotine relieves stress and relaxes the muscles through its interaction with brain chemicals, so it's handy to be able to replace one stress reliever with a better one that does you no harm.

So many people have .mp3 players these days that it's practical to put something in your ears rather than your mouth.

We have created a range of relaxation downloads of different lengths. All of them feature beautiful, calming music and powerful relaxation aids that stimulate your own parasympathetic nervous system - your relaxation response.

Instead of standing outside puffing on something that will hurt you, stay in the warm and listen to a short piece of calming music that will bring you safe, powerful relaxation with no ill-effects at all.

The downloads are edited from Calmtime - a uniquely effective relaxation CD.

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