Hypnosis To Quit Smoking

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The premise of my essay is that women have a better success rate than men when using hypnosis for cessation of cigarette smoking.

Each year 440,000 people die of diseases caused by smoking, that is about 20 percent of all deaths in the United States. The number of woman dying from lung cancer has shown a dramatic increase while the number of men dying from lung cancer has shown a gradual reduction. This reflects the increase in smoking among woman after the Second World War. In Scotland and the United States, death in women from lung cancer now exceed those from breast cancer. Smoking related heart disease and stroke occur in both men and women.

Smoking is linked with poor reproductive health in both men and women. In men it has been associated with impotence and reduced sperm count. Women who smoke have greater difficulty becoming pregnant and suffer early menopause. The risks to the fetus of smoking during pregnancy are well known and include increased incidence of miscarriage, neonatal death, and low birth weight. Pregnant woman who smoke are more likely to have babies who have an increased risk of death from sudden infant death syndrome and respiratory distress. They are also more likely to have low birth weight babies. Low birth weight is linked to many infants' health disorders.

In many respects men and women are quite similar in regards to smoking. There are still slightly more male smokers than female smokers (29% and 28% of all adults respectively) Two thirds of men and women would like to stop smoking and equal proportions try to stop smoking each year. New evidence indicates that men and women succeed in stopping smoking at the same rate. However, interesting patterns emerge when

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analyzing the reasons why men and women smoke, their motivations to stop, the process of stopping smoking and the barriers they face. It is important to understand these differences so that effective smoking cessation strategies can be developed. Most important are the different psychological and physical dependencies men and women with their smoking.

Men are heavier smokers than woman. Women are more emotionally dependent on smoking then men. Men and women are similar in their assessment of health risks of smoking, but reasons for stopping differ. Men tend to cite more self-orientated reasons, such as improving fitness. Women are twice as likely as men to want to stop for the sake of their family and children or because of pregnancy. Men are also likely to cite workplace restrictions as a trigger for trying to stop smoking.

The barriers to stopping smoking reflect the different 'bonds' men and women have with their cigarettes. For men, alcohol plays an important part, with three times as many men as women stating they started smoking again while drinking alcohol. Stress and fears of weight gain feature more strongly in women than in men

Hypnosis can be great for cessation of cigarette smoking depending on the individual. Hypnosis is an altered state of consciousness and heightened awareness that allows an individual to tune into and develop his subconscious processes. It is a natural process that we have all experienced. It is the state of mind that we find ourselves in when we are daydreaming; absorbed in a book, or movie, music; when we are just about to fall asleep or upon just awakening when we can remember our dreams. Hypnosis can also be thought of as a special relationship that one has with his subconscious. Trust and

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acceptance allows the individual to accept appropriate suggestions by both himself and his hypnotist aimed at helping him to achieve his worthwhile goals. It is a tool that the hypnotist uses to help him maximize his natural gifts, and his goals.

The predominant school of thought on hypnosis is that it is a way to access one's subconscious mind directly. Normally, one is only aware of the thought processes in the conscious mind. This involves for example: the problems that are immediate, consciously choosing words as one speaks, or consciously trying to remember location of one's keys.

The conscious mind works hand-in-hand with the subconscious mind. The unconscious part of the mind does "behind the scenes" thinking. The subconscious accesses a vast reservoir of information in the mind. It puts together plans and ideas and runs them by your conscious mind. When a new idea comes to you out of the blue, it's because you have already thought through the process unconsciously.

Your subconscious also takes care of everything you do automatically. You don't actively work through the steps of breathing minute to minute; your subconscious mind does that. You don't think through every little thing you do while driving a car; a lot of the steps is thought out in your subconscious mind. Your subconscious also processes the physical information your body receives.

In short, your subconscious mind is the real brains behind the operation. It does most of your thinking and it decides a lot of what you do. When you are awake, your conscious mind works to evaluate a lot of thoughts, make decisions and put certain ideas into action. It also processes new information and relays it to the subconscious mind.

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When you are asleep, the conscious mind gets out of the way and your subconscious has free reign.

Psychiatrists theorize that the deep relaxation and focusing exercises of hypnotism work to calm and subdue the conscious mind so that it takes a less active role in the thinking process. In this state, you are still aware of what's going on, but your conscious mind takes a back seat to your subconscious mind. Effectively, this allows you and the hypnotist to work directly with the subconscious. It's as if the hypnotism process pops open a control panel inside your brain.

Hypnosis can be used to help many areas of a person's life. People use it for habit control such as weight control and smoking cessation. Hypnosis can be used to motivate oneself to eat healthy, nutritional foods suitable, and to develop internal control for self- regulation of eating habits.

Hypnosis is used to help a person stop smoking which helps you