Can you Stop Smoking in one Hour?

Well can you? Is it possible? Of course it is; you can stop smoking in an instant if you want to, it doesn't take a full hour for a magic transformation to take place!

Stopping smoking or quitting smoking is one of the standard treatments that Hypnotherapists offer. Almost all of them offer a one session treatment to be free of cigarettes. I don't do this. I think I may be alone in offering a 2 session program. But my program works!

What I do is to get to know the person properly first. We explore the reasons why someone smokes and why they think they smoke, what the cigarettes do for them. Then I bust all the myths about smoking - it helps me to relax, it helps me concentrate etc. After that we take a good look at what the person thinks they are going to find difficult and what things or situations might trip them up and cause them to smoke again.

You see, unless you really address all these issues, you have left too much to chance. If someone truly believes that he needs cigarettes to get through difficult work situations, if you take them away, how is he then going to cope with the difficult meetings? You can't remove something and leave a vacuum. "Nature abhors a vacuum" remember. If you are not careful, something else destructive might worm its way in, like overeating.

So, after I have found all the barriers to a person's success, I go about giving them strategies to overcome these barriers. I may use hypnosis or NLP. What I always do, is give them homework for the following week. This is in the form of Emotional Freedom Technique, to remove negatives, to blast barriers and zap obstacles.

My clients go away feeling motivated, uplifted and ready to set about the task of quitting. Occasionally they don't! And for these clients, they just go home and decide to carry on smoking or maybe come back at another time. You can't force these things, everyone has their own timetable and if someone is still unsure after a session with me then the time is not right for them. The chance of success is low so in order not to experience failure, it's better to wait until they are ready. And that's fine.

So my clients go away for a week and when they come back they have destroyed all their smoking paraphernalia. That pot outside the back door is gone, the lighters thrown away, ashtrays cleaned and given to charity. Clean fresh clothes on. One client even washed her curtains before her appointment.

So my client returns, absolutely ready to be a non-smoker, champing at the bit, raring to go. We do a bit more EFT and then I perform the hypnosis session. This is the hour long session that so many hypnotherapists give their clients. And the person walks out of the door as a non-smoker - every time.

The 2 session program works. I have seen it time and again. I have amended it twice for clients who were desperate to do it in one go and I won't do that again, because both of them ran into difficulties which they should not have done. I don't like to see that.

Let me give you some case studies. One lady came to see me, who identified in her first session that cigarettes helped her cope with stress and that if anything was going to stop her from successfully quitting it was her mother. So I was able to see that her problem was stress with her mother, not cigarettes at all. SO I worked first with her for 3 sessions on resolving that stress and how she could manage her relationship better. When she had that under control, she was then ready to become a non-smoker. If we had gone ahead and attempted the one stop smoking hypnosis session, I predict that it would not have worked for her in the long-term.

Another gentleman came to see me for stress, over-drinking and smoking. He revealed that he drank between 70 and 100 units of alcohol per week, he was generally mildly unhappy, had recently retired and couldn't seem to control his drinking. He said he wanted to get that under control first and then deal with the smoking. We worked together for 4 or 5 sessions, while he gained control of his drinking and became more optimistic and motivated. At that point he said he wanted to consolidate and wasn't ready to quit smoking just yet because he was so happy his drinking was now at manageable levels. He had achieved what he wanted to achieve at that point, it really wasn't necessary to push a stop smoking hypnosis session at him too.

So to answer my question I first posed; yes I do believe it is possible to stop smoking with hypnosis in one hour BUT this approach will not be successful with everyone. Hypnosis to stop smoking will be successful for nearly everyone when a longer, slower approach is employed that takes into account the individual's circumstances and beliefs and works to set the stage for success before the "one hour" session is employed.

There's more on my website http://www.northamptonhypnosis.co.uk/quit_smoking.htm

Being Thankful

It's too long since I regularly "blogged" and I have lost many of my friends on the journey. But that's ok, perhaps I will make some new ones. I've not been in full health and there's a reason for that which I don't yet fully understand. Understanding will come though.

Today's post is about thankfulness and mindfulness. It will strike a chord with those of you who follow a religion. To others it will sound overtly "Pollyanna-ish" and perhaps some will want to scream at me. To let you in, I have been through all of those reactions so just accept your reaction fopr what it is. That's mindfulness.

So my subject is to be thankful. There definitely is something to be learned in every situation that life throws at us. When all is going our way, we rarely stop to consider what we are learning. Perhaps that is becuase the soul is not developing, perhaps it is too easy. When life is tough, sometimes a small voice nags us to understand that every part of life is a journey and that we will be picking up experiences and learning from them. Yet when we are in physical or emotional pain or mental anguish engulfs us, then how on earth can we take anything positive from where we are?

That's when the screaming voice can take over and want to cut down any self-righteous, patronising do-gooder who looks on sympathetically and tells us to "be positive."

AAAARRRRGGGHHH!!!!!!!!!!

But if you look closely, there is an ingredient missing from the recipe and it is TIME. In the thick of it, in the middle of the fight, all you can do is protect yourself from the blows and strike out when you get the opportunity. Only later when you analyse it with your coach and watch the video footage will you be able to gain the perspective you need to really learn from the mistakes you made in the ring.

So try this now. Look backwards in time and pick a time or situation or a person which you would rather miss out if you could play the film of your life again. With the perspective of time, examine the video footage and see if you can identify the positive aspects. What did you do well? But most of all, what are you thankful for?

I would rather forget and miss out the experience of marriage to my first husband but on so many days I have reason to feel thankful for the time we spent together. He taught me to cook! To cook real, fresh food and to experiment, to not be afraid in the kitchen. I still have the cookery book he patronisingly bought me the week before our wedding - it is a firm favourite of mine.

If I take this concept further and extrapolate the effect of learning to cook, I can thank my ex-husband for my health. Ten years of eating unprocessed, fresh food has doubtless had a positive effect on my health. It is a strange feeling to thank him for that but I cannot deny it.

Finding something positive in a bad situation liberates us from the negative emotional effects of that unfortunate experience. For some people there may be much healing required but the exercise of thankfulness can be a start.

Try that today.

Emotional Freedom Technique

Emotional Freedom Technique or EFT will be the "next big thing" in my humble opinion. It is a system of tapping on acupuncture points on the body which brings about emotional and physical relief from all kinds of negative emotions and physical symptoms.

Try this article:

Surgeon Uses New Acupressure Technique to Lower Surgery Risk

San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) -- Almost everyone who’s scheduled for surgery experiences at least a few symptoms of anxiety. But while some stress is normal, patients who experience severe anxiety actually increase their need for sedating drugs and subsequent complications such as severe pain, slower wound healing, and increased risk of infection, adverse drug reactions, cognitive impairment, and longer hospital stays.

According to Los Angeles surgeon Eric Robins, MD, there’s a simple way to reduce these risks by reducing the anxiety that causes them. His prescription is EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques), a simple do-it-yourself procedure that combines gentle fingertip tapping on key acupuncture points with focused thought.

“Stress is a real problem in health and healing,” says Dr. Robins. “but it doesn’t just complicate surgery, it actually contributes to disease. Most of the problems that send people to surgeons are themselves linked to stress, anxiety, or past traumas. I like EFT because it’s easy to demonstrate, easy to learn, works fast, and addresses an illness’s underlying factors. In some cases, it works so well that we have to cancel the operation.”

One of Dr. Robins’ patients was scheduled for surgery because she wasn’t able to void urine after a knee replacement. During her pre-op exam, Dr. Robins wondered whether emotional factors might be interfering with the function of her bladder.She answered that stress from her husband’s recent illness might be a factor. “Even though we were talking in a busy medical clinic with many distractions,” says Dr. Robins, “I taught her EFT and guided her through 10 minutes of tapping. After we filled the patient’s bladder with water and removed her catheter, she voided just fine. Five days later she was still doing well, making the surgery unnecessary. Her symptoms never returned.

”When surgery is needed, he says, EFT can reduce or eliminate pre-op nerves, reduce the patient’s need for anesthetics, speed recovery, and improve the procedure’s outcome.

Reducing a patient’s need for sedating drugs is important not only to those with drug sensitivities but to America’s aging population. According to the American Society of Anesthesiologists, over half of patients age 60 and older experience confusion and other symptoms of cognitive impairment when discharged after surgery, and three months later, over a third continue to be adversely affected. Patients undergoing heart surgery, joint replacement, or fracture repair are at greatest risk of anesthesia-related mental decline.

Gary Craig, the Stanford-trained engineer who developed EFT, has collected thousands of reports from EFT practitioners around the world. “Several describe how by reducing their anxiety, patients reduced and in some cases eliminated their need for epidurals and other drugs or procedures,” he says. “Others demonstrate how EFT speeds recovery and helps patients regain their full range of motion and resume their normal activities.”

“EFT is one of my favorite healing tools,” says Dr. Robins. “It’s the perfect complement to conventional medicine, and I strongly recommend it for anyone getting ready for surgery.”

This article cites Eric Robins, a well-respected medical doctor and author of many self-help books in the USA.

EFT is an amazing therapy, it can be used on anything and everything. I use it frequently in my practice and teach it to most of my clients, in whom I have seen several miraculous results. Hypnotherapy is excellent for adding in the positive, to encourage new ways of behaving. For deleting old unhelpful ways of living, negative self-defeating thoughts and the negative self-talk that we use, you simply can't beat EFT.

Books for Children

I have ideas for 2 books. I have the outline chapters for one and a synopsis written. The other is still in my head but I started to write it this week.

This book is one that I am writing for my son. It is a love story, the story of how his daddy and I met. It's a long story and spans 9 years from our first meeting to having a full relationship. We met at work and 8 years later he told me that he loved me. Every time I tell anyone the story they go all gooey and someone once said that it sounded like a film.

None of us know how long we will be here. Sometimes we tread our lives on the thinnest of knife edges. And sometimes we don't even know how close to the edge we were. So in case I never get to tell the story to my boy, I am writing it now. So one day he will know just how deep our love goes.

What is your story?

Desert Island Discs

My husband and I enjoy listening to Desert Island Discs on Radio 4 (and sounding like complete oldies too, even though we are not). How did that happen? Did we suddenly turn 65 in our heads without even noticing? I digress.

We enjoy listening to the mini life stories and the important stories from a person's past. The music feels like an aside until you hear what they have chosen. Sometimes an incredibly intelligent and interesting person has the most dire taste in music, at which point we are forced to comment that we wouldn't want to be marooned on their particular desert island. It's often a shame as many individuals who we would have invited to our fantasy dinner party don't quite cut the mustard of the Desert Island.

Personally I am hugely relieved that I am not famous, and not planning on becoming so either. What if I were to be invited on Dersert Island Discs myself? This is something that I could simply not countenance because I could not stand to have to imagine that I might really be cast away. I would end up taking it terribly seriously and feel sure that I would get stupidly upset.

Firstly the choosing of the records would be impossible and would take me months, and even then I would be fretting that I should have chosen something else. And then I would have to talk to Kirsty Young about how I would cope and that would be the moment that would crucify me. To have to contemplate being left alone and lost for years, probably for ever, is my worst nightmare. The loneliness would be intolerable. That end part of the programme always grips me with a cold dread. I was once sufficiently devoid of my senses to watch that film, "Castaway" with Tom Hanks and every moment was close to terror for me.

I'm sure that other people just listen to Desert Island Discs as an entertainment. To me it's torture.

Anxiety

I had a really excellent day yesterday. My anxiety client has had a massive breakthrough. I never expect treatment to be quite this dramatic so as she finished telling me all about how wonderful she was feeling, I had to ask,"What can I actually do for you then?"

I felt like my work was finished, oh halleluyah, I love it when this happens! Actually it wasn't, there was more work to do for her. But what a brilliant session! This lady reported that all the usual anxiety inducing situations were just passing by so quickly without symptoms that she kept thinking, "Hang on, I've just done something that should have given me a panic attack." She wasn't even noticing what was happening. It was as if the anxiety had never even been there.

I think I have said this before but I got such a buzz. To think that the elimination of anxiety states really is possible, quickly, with no drugs just blows my mind. Mainly because it has such a positive effect on somebody's life.

My job is to help people to enjoy their lives. That is all there is.

Equilibrium

Lost my equilibrium for a short while. Had a wobbly blip. It happens, even though peeps think it doesn't. As I said in an earlier post, this is the real world and it's not quite as fluffy as we would all like. Anyhow, the status quo is mostly restored.

I was in London today and I managed to take a short walk in Regents Park. I loved seeing the wonderful old trees. I always feel very grounded by large trees; they are so old, it's as if the wisdom of the world is rising through their roots. I find the winter, bare branches look enables you to see their beauty best. It was quite restorative.

I was able to do a little people watching too, which I find is best in cities. I saw a few people who looked like the sort of people I might have been friends with if I had that sort of a city life and it got me thinking about the "turn of a sixpence" theme again. When I got my A level results I had dropped one grade which meant that I was no longer eligible for a place at City University in London. I was heartbroken. All I wanted was to escape my small-town country upbringing and get living!

I ended up going to a very second choice small-town campus university which I was never entirely happy with. Then my life went in some strange directions and about 15 years later I found myself writing a letter to my Grandma that I was enjoying living in my new house but it was in the middle of a large town. Luckily I was right next to a park and could see trees outside my study window. I spent a lot of time staring at those trees that year and I longed for more grass and mud.

And so I realised that in fact I was a bit of a country girl. So every time I visit London I am faced with the image of what might have been and I honestly feel glad that it wasn't. Yet that one dropped grade held the key and I never knew. Everything would have been different and I would have been a very different person, and I am not sure I would have been happy shoehorning myself in to that life.

I am fascinated that small events in our pasts shape our futures so much. Who knows what I am doing right now that seems insignificant, yet could change the course of events.

I think the key is making the best of the hand we are dealt. It is not what happens in our lives that shape us and give us happiness, it is our responses.