Around the pandemic, manypeople suffered from severe lung issues and for a few people, the issues were excessive and life threatening, because they were regular smokers. Many people understood how the habit of smoking severely effected the lungs and around the same time, many actually gave up on smoking due to the same reason. We already know the negatives of smoking and how it impacts our lungs, healthy cells, and our body at a DNA level wherein it can cause cancer as well; that’s why staying away from it is very important. Many people go cold turkey when giving up cigarettes but then they can’t stay keep up for long and start craving them again. There are several ways to stop smoking and many of my clients have taken the help of clinical hypnotherapy, counselling, nicotine gum, home remedies, alternatives etc to slowly give up the habit. So here I’m going to recommend the simplest ways to quit stop smoking:
Healthy alternatives: Adding something into your routine to help break the urge or routine of smoking is very helpful, sometimes these alternatives may not be anything else to chew or eat but sometimes it could just be a hobby that you do to divert your mind. Try to find one such hobby and divert your mind from the smoke. Apart from that one can even chew on spices like cardamom or ajwain or fennel to change the taste of the mouth and control the urge of smoking.
Don’t go cold turkey: If you are smoking 10 cigarettes daily then suddenly stopping it will give you severe withdrawal symptoms. It’s better to smoke the 10 cigarettes till halfway done and then throw it. This way you will automatically cut down on your smoking, then gradually make it to 8/6 halves and then stop.
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Find distractions and anchors: If you know there is a specific time that you smoke a cigarette, then instead of smoking, find a distraction like drinking a glass of water or talk to your near or dear ones — so subconsciously you are creating an anchor. This way, you break the pattern of smoking to weaken the neural pattern so that you can work over it and don’t get the urge to smoke.
Your health and value add: Why do you smoke? Social stigma or any feelings attached to the same? We have seen a few clients smoking first thing in morning to clear the bowel movement. But there are few questions that you need to ask yourself, how is the smoking reality adding value to your life. Is it making your life and health better? The answer is usually no. Is it creating any disease in the body? We all know the answer is YES. When you keep asking these questions daily you’ll understand that it’s not adding any value, in fact it’s creating disease and with this you might stop altogether.
Stress: Many people smoke under stress because that makes them feel better. But rather than running away from stress, find out the why’s for your stress and start working on feeling better. Take a deep breath, do some activity, walk etc to divert your mind from stress and you may really not need the smoke.
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