Is Smoking Addictive?

Are you too physically addicted to cigarettes to free yourself from them?
Usually, you start smoking when you are young and at first you own smoking and you can quit anytime. However, bit by bit smoking starts to own you and eventually it does and many of us feel as if it is now an addiction. The tobacco companies and the perception of society reinforce this.
Most people have tried to quit smoking but have not succeeded, and this reinforces the perception of smoking being an addiction. It’s not just stopping smoking that’s important, but how you stop.
A Russian psychologist named Pavlov […]

It takes time

It’s well know that smoking cigarettes leads to a multitude of illnesses and that it shortens your life.
Even though smoking causes health problems one of the biggest problems is that the health related problems associated with smoking only really become apparent around the age of 40. Before that age you don’t notice the shortness of breath and other related symptoms.
The majority of people who decide to quit smoking fall into the age group of 40 and above. This is because at around 40 the effects of smoking cigarettes become apparent. The most common symptom is the lack of breath and […]

I SMOKE. WHAT’S YOUR EXCUSE?

At Quit Smoking in 60 Minutes a lot of people come to see us in our Capalaba offices to quit smoking.
It’s when I ask the question of what do you get from smoking that I get some very common excuses. In the persons mind these are valid excuses but at the end of the day these excuses if not addressed it can make it very difficult to quit smoking. Here are some of the most common excuses:
• It’s a crutch, something that is always there for me. If someone were to come to you and say “I’ve got this great […]

Quit Smoking, Quit Control

Quite often I will ask people who have come to me to quit smoking cigarettes if they think that their smoking habit controls them.

In a lot of cases they say that smoking does not control them, even with people who are smoking 40 to 50 cigarettes a day! When I ask them to look closely at how much their day is planned around smoking cigarettes they are often surprised at how much it controls their day.

In a lot of cases they see how much time is wasted searching for cigarettes and lighters, how much anxiety is caused if they don’t […]

The ideal quit smoking client

The other day I had a lady phone me enquiring about quitting smoking and it drove home the importance of having the ideal client for the process of stop smoking cigarettes to work.

She started off by asking me to justify the price of the process and that she could go down the road and get it done cheaper. She also said that smoking was an addiction, this is contrary to all research which shows that smoking cigarettes is a habit.

The lady continued by saying that I could not get her to quit smoking in one session and that it would […]

I Can’t Quit!

Just about everybody that smokes tries to quit smoking at one time or another. They quit for a time and then go back to smoking. Why is this?

When you stop smoking cigarettes you leave a gap in the subconscious mind. The mind does not like gaps and will try to fill that gap, usually by getting you to go back to smoking. That’s what the cravings are all about.

In most cases people resort to hypnotherapy to quit smoking cigarettes after they have exhausted every other avenue. This is a shame as hypnosis is probably the most successful way to stop […]

Life is about choices

The other day I was listening on the radio to someone who was talking about their smoking habit and I thought that it was an excellent example of how our choices dictate our lives.

The person had said that he thought that smoking cigarettes defined who he was. He enjoyed smoking and nothing was going to make him quit smoking. Even when he had severe malaria and was seriously he continued to smoke. He said that he would drag himself outside and smoke a cigarette.

One day after an extremely […]

Stuff Health I Want to Smoke!

I had an interesting case last week from a client who came to see me at Quit Smoking in 60 Minutes in Capalaba.

The client had a heart attack and as a result he quit smoking. He had quit for two years but came to see me because he was getting cravings to smoke again. It was so bad that he was avoiding having any contact with anyone that was smoking. Since most of his workmates were smokers he was avoiding them and getting a reputation of being anti-social.

What was […]

The Cost of Smoking

At Quit Smoking in 60 Minutes I ask my clients when they come in for quit smoking what it costs them. This is not just from the health view but how much money it actually costs to smoke cigarettes. Most people cannot tell me. Why is this? I think it is for two reasons;
1. The cost to smoke is not seen in a lump sum. Payment is packet by packet and so the total cost is not seen.
2. People don’t want to acknowledge the cost.
The actual cost of cigarettes makes more impact in first world countries as taxation has made […]

Be grateful for what you have

I was listening to a cd the other day when the speaker said be grateful for what you have and work with it. After reflection I thought that it was a very true and profound statement.

How many of us ignore what we have to live in the past and the future. In our rush to do this we ignore what we have and keep on yearning for the “good old days” or “if only I had this I could”. The reality is that we all have a set of tools that we can use to make our lives the way […]

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