Resolution to Quit for Good? You and a few million others!
Did you know that Ash Wednesday and New Year’s Eve are the two most popular times for giving up smoking.
Most people who give up cigarettes on those days are not successful. Why I hear you cry?
Well, they go through hell using willpower trying to distract themselves from the fact that they feel deprived and unable to function without cigarettes. Eventually after a few days they give in, feeling resigned to the fact that they are addicted for the time being or at least until next Ash Wednesday or New Year’s Eve.
The reason it’s so hard is because of the way the human mind works. The mind works on a conscious level and a subconscious level. At a conscious level the mind makes a decision to give up smoking, but the subconscious (or unconscious) still continues to do its job and run the habit.
The mind works on many levels but for simplicity’s sake let’s say two levels, namely the conscious and the unconscious. The conscious is the part of your mind you use mostly during the day. You make conscious decisions with it, use it to speak to people, and do all those other things you do on a daily basis. It accounts for about 15 per cent of your mental abilities.
The subconscious is a much greater mind. It never sleeps, doesn’t have to! It is the part of your mind that creates dreams for you while your body and your consciousness sleeps. The unconscious contains all of your memories and experiences; it’s an emotional mind, stores all your attitudes to life, and most importantly runs all of your habits!
This is because any behaviour, whether it’s smoking or even moving an arm or a leg, must have a thought process behind it. Even something as natural as walking has a subconscious thought pattern behind it. Smoking is the same.
Remember back to your first cigarette? Where was it? Behind the bicycle shed at school? The back of the disco or dance hall? Wherever it was your first reaction to that cigarette was probably to cough violently and feel like throwing up and your head spinning. That was because your immune system reacted to the toxin you were attempting to put into your body. Now usually there is a good reason to start smoking at such an early age. You want to fit in with your friends; you want to be more grown up, feel like an adult.
There is a strong emotional reason attached to wanting to smoke. This is important because whenever there is a strong emotional reason to do something the unconscious mind sits up and takes notice. You persist with trying to smoke and your unconscious mind installs a habit for you to make it easier, like walking, you don’t have to think about it.
Quitting smoking has a 86 per cent reported success rate using hypnosis. That is because the unconscious mind is reprogrammed to install and run a new habit of being ‘smoke free’.
Brenda Bentley - Cognitive Hypnotherapist. For sessions phone 0794 880 1229.
(Publication Date: 04/01/2008)