Smoking Cessation

The Truth about Hypnosis and Smoking Cessation

As Published in The Art of Well Being Magazine By Robert Michael Merlin BA, BCH, CI, LBLt, PLRt, CNLP, SEP, CMH, MHt. You want to quit. You even have imagined what your life would be like if you did quit smoking. The money you would save on buying cigarettes, (one $4.75 pack a day equals $1,733.75 a year), the years you would add to your life as your health risks decrease, the increased natural energy you would feel, the powerful sense of accomplishment at achieving a life-changing goal and the satisfaction of becoming a new person…the person you want to be.

You have tried it all, patches, medication, cold turkey, but nothing seems to work. So you thought you might try hypnosis. You may even know someone who has quit using hypnosis. You may be apprehensive about the process involved since it is something you have not done before. We will discuss this later, but first let us look at some facts from the Center for Disease Control (www.CDC.gov).

Quit Today

  1. Tobacco use leads to disease, strike, and lung diseases. For every person who dies from a smoking-related disease, 20 more people suffer with at least one serious illness from smoking.
  2. Tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of death. Worldwide, tobacco use causes more than 5 million deaths per year. In the United States, tobacco use is responsible for about one in five deaths annually (i.e. about 443,000 deaths per year, and an estimated 49,000 of these tobacco-related deaths are the result of secondhand smoke exposure). On average smokers die 13 to 14 years earlier than nonsmokers.
  3. In 2006, the cigarette industry spends $34 million a day in advertising and over $12.5 billion a year.
  4. Cigarette smoking costs the United States more than $193 billion a year in lost productivity and health care expenditures.
  5. In 2009, 20.6% of all adults were smokers. (18 or older)
  6. Approximately 70% of smokers want to quit completely.
  7. Approximately 45% of smokers attempted to quit in 2008.
  8. 88 million nonsmokers in the United States were exposed to secondhand smoke in 2007-2008.
  9. Nonsmokers who are exposed to secondhand smoke increase their lung cancer risk by 20-30%.
  10. Nonsmokers who are exposed to secondhand smoke increase their heart disease risk by 25-30%.
  11. There is good news. Within 20 minutes of quitting your heart rate drops to normal. After 12 hours, the carbon monoxide level in your blood drops to normal. After 2 weeks to 3 months, your heart attack risk begins to drop and your lung function begins to improve. Within 1 to 9 months, your coughing and shortness of breath decrease. One year after quitting, your risk of coronary heart disease is half that of a smoker’s. Within 5 to 15 years after quitting, your stroke risk is reduced to that of a nonsmoker’s. Ten years after quitting, your lung cancer death rate is about half that of a smoker’s. Fifteen years after quitting, your risk of coronary heart disease is back to that of a nonsmoker’s. 
With all of these facts, you know you have to quit tobacco of any kind (cigarettes, cigars, chewing tobacco, snuff), for your health as well as your loved ones. Is Hypnotherapy the answer? Matt Damon, Ellen DeGeneres, Kevin Costner and Jackie Kennedy all used hypnosis. Matt Damon said “I should have done it years ago. It’s amazing. I didn’t even want cigarettes anymore.”

In Business Week, February 2004, they said “Hypnosis has gained credibility in the past five years because of research using the latest brain-imaging technology. Studies show hypnosis can help treat a multitude of disorders.”
Dr. David Spiegel Assoc. Chair of Psychiatry at Stanford University School of Medicine said “Hypnosis is not mind control. It’s a naturally occurring state of concentration; it’s actually a means of enhancing your control over both your mind and your body.”

A 2007 study done at North Shore Medical Center in Massachusetts by Faysal Hasan, MD,FCCP, showed that smoking patients who participated in one hypnosis session were more likely to be nonsmokers at 6 months compared to patients using nicotine replacement therapy alone or patients who quit “cold turkey”. She also said ”Hypnosis appears to be quite effective and a good modality to incorporate into a smoking cessation program after hospital discharge.”

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Stop Tobacco use (Cigarettes, Cigars, E-Cigs, Chewing Tobacco) with our proven Hypnosis Program consisting of two separate sessions. The first one to help you to stop tobacco use and the second one to keep you from using tobacco in the future. Give yourself the gift of life today. For more information, call us at 336-275-0702 to schedule your appointment today. You can also email us at info@merlincentre.com.
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